what was the normal twist on the sako rimaki's say 20 years ago---thanks

1:14

- mike

I have the current Sakos in 222 Rem listed as 1:14 and the early Sakos listed as 1:16.

i read on 50 grain ttsx had to have at least 1:12 to stabilize so i know nothing about the twist I should be ok? is that right?

i think you'll be fine

"Riihimaki" and "20 years ago" don't exactly go together. The L46 Sakos, often referred to as the "Riihimaki" model, were replaced with the L461 in 1961, so the youngest of the L46 Riihimakis is now at least 50 years old.

The early .222 L46's used the same barrels as Sako had been using for the .22 Hornet and .218 Bee, which measured about 1-16". These worked fine for conventional 50 grain bullets, but might be marginal for monometal bullets. Sako later tightened the twist, however it is not exactly 1-14" or 1-12" since they used metric equipment. If you have a late L46, it likely has a twist that measures pretty close to 1-14". My Sako A-I in .223 from the early 1980s measures about 1-13" (and incidentally will stabilize the long 60 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip just fine).

Monometal bullets tend to be tempremental in their performance. When they shoot, they shoot fine; and when they don't it seems that no amount of fiddling will bring them in. Lots of folks like to blame poor accuracy from monometals on too-slow twist. In actuality, when poor accuracy occurs with monometals it may be something quite apart from the twist rate that is causing it.

quote:

Originally posted by gerryb:
i read on 50 grain ttsx had to have at least 1:12 to stabilize so i know nothing about the twist I should be ok? is that right?

One sure way to find out!

GWB

stone creek, you are right I was given the gun and it is older so it is probably what you said. I will just try a few and see what happens. I have never shot one of these but people seem to think they shoot good so i will see.