As this morning's forecast offered temps in the upper 60s and a gentle breeze, I was up before the sun and had the UTV loaded to drive down to the range and begin the serious load development process for Jane's (aka the "She-Wolf") new shooting rig.

Shortly after we married thirty-odd years ago, I set her up with a Remington 700 Mountain Rifle in .270 and had Brown Precision stock it to fit her. Equipped for the first time with a rifle that placed her eye behind the scope properly, she has since proceeded to lay waste to game on three continents for three decades. Deer, turkey, hogs, elk, pronghorn and coyote have fallen here at home...as have red stag in Argentina and impala, warthog, Kafue lechwe, puku, reedbuck and Lichtenstein's hartebeest in Africa (almost always with a single shot apiece). She's a cheap date...

It occurred to me a while back that Jane deserved something smaller at her disposal as the bulk of our shooting these days is right here on the place. Toward that end, I got my hands on an old Sako L461 in .222...but testing proved that the previous owner had evidently shot a few hundred prairie dogs too many and accuracy (while still MOA-ish) didn't do justice to either the cartridge or Jane's abilities. So work was in order and if we were gonna do this, we were gonna do it right. We drove up to Breckenridge to Jon Trammel's shop and put the plan together. Months passed (as nothing in this post-Covid world seems to be available!) but a couple of weeks ago the phone rang with Jon telling us to "come and get it".

The new rig (christened the "Wolf Pup") has the original tiny Sako action now wearing a 16" Brux 1:8 barrel fluted and chambered for .223 and bedded into a McMillan A-3 stock. The muzzle is threaded and (once my government decides that I'm not a threat to world peace or anything) will wear a Thunder Beast 7 can. I'd bolted a trusty old 80s vintage Leupold 6.5x20 on top and set out to discover what the Pup liked to eat. Long story short (and I'm really just getting started), it appears that the Wolf Pup (and Jane) are going to be a new force to be reckoned with!

The Wolf Pup





So far, so good...

I have custom Sako L-461 in 6x45, 18" Lothar Walthar shoots 10 shots into one hole almost every time and under 3/4" fwt. english pattern stock, its my walk about big bore for rock chucks and coyotes and has its share of deer and antelope, both here and abroad..

My 222 Rem is a Rhamaki Sako clip model L-46 IT shoots just under and inch for 5 shots as a rule and sometimes better...

Love those old Sakos..can't say much for the Sakos after the A series..

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:

Love those old Sakos..can't say much for the Sakos after the A series..

I'm with you, Ray...while I own a handful of Sakos, there's nothing after the A series.

Mark