Hello all,

Does anyone have any personal experience or knowledge of anywhere i can find info. of the new Sako 75 SS rifles blowing-up? I know that there is a recall on them now. I had on explode on me in Oct. 04. I'm trying to find others with the same experience. Mine was a 300 WSM Check out the site below for pictures of a blow up like mine.

Thanks Mark



http://www3.telus.net/drswebspace/SAKO%20BLOW%20UP/

If you were injured and/or plan legal action do not send it to Sako.

DEfine "blowing up"
and
with reloads or factory ammo?

my stainless was imported by stoeger so its got some age on it, there fore i would assume mine is ok???

Check out this web site, it will show you what I mean.
http://www3.telus.net/drswebspace/SAKO%20BLOW%20UP/
Thanks Mark

That is scary. I've seen a shotgun blown up but never a rifle. I hope and assume you are ok.

SAKO75:
Your rifle is ok. The promblem rifles are all new production SAKO stainless steel rifles only. Beretta purchased Sako about a year or so ago and in attemps to increase production on their stainless guns, introduced sulfer as a lubricant in the their roto forge process in their barrel production. The sulfer has had an adverse affect on the stainless and is causing (what I am told) drawn fractures in the barrels, causing catastrophic barrel failures. This occurs in new production stainless barrels only.

Paul K.

Sulphur, very interesting , though I assume it's a lube like the 90EP grease used in the rear end of a car since the hypoid gear requires sulphur containing EP additive .So a poor lube ? At least SAKO is addressing the problem.

Paul, are you familiar with what vintage 'current production' rifles? I noticed the photo's for both rifles I have seen pictures of were on SAKO V actions, and I think both were .300 Win Mag. I have several of the new SM actions in SS, one each in the Syn/Stainless and Finnlight in .300 WSM & .270 WSM. I have shot both of the rifles over 60 rounds each, is there some point at which your rifle could be deemed safe? There isn't any info on either Beretta's or Sako's website that I could find. I noticed that the new poster of this thread stated that he had had a blow like the pictures he attached but it wasn't photo's of his rifle. He states that his rifle was a 300 WSM.



Mark&Linda, was your rifle one on the new SM action?

The Sako that blew on me was a short action Finnlight in 300WSM, Yes in SS. I'd call Sako and give them your sereal number and see if yours is in the lot that they are recalling.
Good luck,
Mark

Fish30114:
All I know at the moment is that the problem is on stainless rifle barrels made after the manufacturing changes recently made by Sako(Beretta) to increase production. I hope to have more detailed imformation sometime this week. I have been following these blow-ups with great interest and know a person with some inside imformation.I personally own several Sako's and find all this quite disturbing, for I am also in the firearms business. To this date I have not heard of or have I been notified of any warnings or recalls on the rifles in question.

Paul K.

Paul thanks for the reply. I have a bunch of SAKO 75's and I am really wanting to be prudent with the rifles I own. I really appreciate any info you come up with and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thanks--Don.

Mark.

jeeez! Just seen the photos. Did you or the firer suffer injury in the event?

Ian

Blue,

Go play in the street.



I have been in contact with Mark. I did a background check. He is a firefighter, and is not an attorney.



Look at these pictures, and tell me if they look eerily familiar.



I for one am not going to run out and buy a FinnLight (or FinnLite, whatever the heck it is called). Actually I couldn't if I wanted to. They have all been pulled from the shelves.



Mark was very badly injured. The details are not for me to divulge, but think about how you hold a rifle, and what might happen if it blew apart on you.























Just like the pictures that were posted on this forum a few weeks ago, the barrel is neatly split into three pieces. The cartridge case has opened into a tri leaflet pattern that corresponds to the barrel pattern. The Receiver split along the seam from the investment casting.



The fired cartridge was one with mild pressure, well within SAAMI/CIP specifications. The bore was not plugged.



If anyone knows a good forensic metallurgist please send me some contact info. This is not going to be a class action bullshit thing. It is important to know what is causing these rifles to fail in this pattern.



If you own a FinnLite, please do not shoot it.



When Mark is up for visitors I'll let those guys who live close to him know so you can stop on by.



JCN



Here are those pictures from the first blow up we saw:

John, thanks for the photos. Your term is incorrect, 'forensic' implies criminal action. What you mean is a metallurgist specializing in failure analysis.I have done quite a bit of failure analysis but unfortunately am retired and no longer have access to a lab.I certainly would be interested in a close up look at that rifle.The failure in the first blow up seems to initiate where the bullet was, the second blow up photos are too poor to determine.A thorough exam, microscope etc is necessary.

WOW!!!!!!

Just hope that no one get killed over thier "Increased Production"

MY NEXT question was going to be whether or not it was Magna Ported, but I guess not.

Have seen 3 firearms that were Magnaported where the bbls split from the rear of the EDM cuts all the way back into the receiver. One .338/378, one .378wby and one .45WinMag in a LAR grizzly pistol. All high pressure firearms. The point of origin was at a rear corner of the EDM cut and when one side let go, the other did causing parallel lines to run back down the bbl into the receiver rings on the rifles. On the LAR pistol the splits ran all the way through the chamber, locking the gun up. I was standing next to the guy shooting the LAR when it happened. Not as spectacular as what happened in the pics but there was some impressive flash. THe slide was what probably saved us from an "interesting" moment. THe .338/378 belonged to a police detective friend of mine and he had me come over and look at it when he returned from the range. The 3rd one had been dropped off at another buddies shop for bbl replace and what ever else. ALL of them looked exactly the same. split bbl with parralel lines back into the receiver.

Those pictures sure are unsettling.To think that each time one of us squeeze the trigger, we are detonating a potential pipe bomb.

Paul K

Lawcop, that's interesting .The pressures at the end of a barrel are not high [unless it's obstructed]. However EDM [electro discharge machining] works by actually vaporizing the steel and is done with in a fluid. The temperatures to vaporize are very high what is left is a thin layer of steel that has been hardened by the high temperature but not tempered.This is very brittle.We had to educate people on this in the days when EDM first started to be used.Always temper after EDM. That was probably the cause of failure with those guns.

I contacted Beretta this morning and spoke to a live human for about 20 seconds, and then he transferred me to the 'recall line' There was a voice message stating that any SAKO stainless rifle received by the customer after February,2004 was subject to the recall. The recording then requested that you leave them your serial numbers for any guns that you owned and that they would contact you telling you how to proceed.

Just an update, I thought all might want to know.



P.S. Just got off the phone with Cheryl from Beretta.(1:17 pm EST) She stated that none of my guns were on the recall list. They had tracked the problem down to a 'specific batch of raw material used in the barrels' on the guns that had problems. She stated that there were quite a few, but not a large number, ??? of guns with this problem. I spoke to JB at Accuflite which is where 3 of the 4 stainless guns I purchased were from. He told me that Beretta had called in September requesting the serial numbers of all of his recent SAKO deliveries, but without telling them why. This might support your position MarknLinda that they are handling this recall in a 'hush-hush' manner. JB at Accuflite was perturbed that they as a Dealer ( a large SAKO dealer) were not/had not been better informed by SAKO on this issue.

I don't think I will be owning a SAKO anytime soon. I can't believe they let their QC get this bad.

Reloader

You could try posting your experience over at www.24hourcampfire.com They have a pretty high traffic rate as well as a number of people who have worked in the industry.

Turok

Hey mete,
Thanks for straightening me out on the use of forensic. I have used the word as meaning to investigate physical evidence to determine what happened. I finally pulled out a dictionary (20 years later!) and see that it is specific for criminal and civil law.

Here are a few more pictures:

doesn't see these pictures! Man, I almost wish I hadn't seen em. That is some woah scary stuff! I'll be praying for the shooter.