4godsako

Apparently the 3006 in Sweden that blew up was a stainless T3. A 16 year old kid got hurt with it I recall. Also elsewhere on this forum there is reference to a report that a Tikka in 243 also blew up. So its not only Sakos with fluted barrels that have had the problem.

What I would like to know is are there any Sako/Tikka blowups that have occured to rifles with serial numbers outside the recall. If not this will give us a good indication that Sako is correct with their analysis.

But if there have been rifles blowing up outside the recall serial numbers, then those of us who have a stainless T3 or Sakos are sitting on worthless pieces of (dangerous) scrap metal unless Berretta can be persuaded to take the whole dam lot back and refund.

Can anything be said about the reliability and/or strength of stainless steel barrels compared to barrels made of non-stainless kinds of steel?

The only reason I said that is because the other letters (email's I should have clarified) were answered in one day, and I was emailing back and forth between the same person. It's now been three and still nothing. Based on the other response times to my other emails, I'm thinking if I was going to hear something I would have already. The did send me a suvery today wanting to know my opinion of their customer service though. I had to laugh, I gave them the worst rating on every question, and told them since my last questions still have not been answered, that I thought the had the worst customer service I have ever experianced. I also told them I thought it was irresponsible that they have put no imfo on their website about the recall. Last line was that I might be inclined to change my opinion if they responded to this, but I doubt they will. Many people will say I'm over-reacting. But my issue is more in how they handled this situation, than the fact that I have one of the guns in question. Through several conversations with others I feel more confident that my gun is safe, but companies who seemed more concerned with protecting their reputation than their customers safety make me VERY angry. I know, I know, welcome to big business where nothing means more than the almighty dollar.

Thin barrels made of 416 SS are not the greatest idea in the world. 416 SS in general gets brittle at low temperatures. Definitely not a good idea to use one on your next Musk Ox hunt.
JCN

Hey Harry, from your post it sounds as if you may be affiliated with SAKO/Beretta. I am very curious to know what exactly ferrite inclusions means, and exactly how SAKO is determining which rifles have problems. I was told verbally over the recall line by Cheryl, that none of my guns were under the recall, and I was completely safe in shooting any of my SAKO's. I have called back twice since then asking for a written confirmation of my guns being safe as she stated, but no response at all. Really pisses me off. Also, can you state why it would be only stainless barrels with the issue as we have been told? I would really appreciate some feedback. Finally, if you are in fact affiliated with SAKO/Beretta in some way, why can't you guys at least post this issue on your websites and contact your dealers telling them to let any customer who bought any rifle of the models in question know? Many folks may have traded or resold their rifles in question, so just checking with dealers that have purchased rifles with serial numbers in question is NOT thorough enough.

Thanks for your post and I look forward to a reply.
Thanks in advance--Don

I wish the fellow a speedy recovery, and hope to God his injuries won't cause any permanent problems. My prayers go out to him and his family.
I do hope that you all will keep us posted on what the root cause of this horrendous accident was and how Beretta/Sako handles it. I'm kind of synical about how big companies handle problems like this. I really wish Sako would have made a public announcement of the problem and taken a more proactive approach to contacting owners. This, at least to me, shows a total lack of care, or responsibility toward those who have supported them by purchasing their product. I wouldn't have known about this problem had I not been a frequent reader of a few forums, and in the last year, two Sako Finnlight stainless rifles have gone through my hands. Thankfully I've never been a Sako fan, so they got traded. I'm not likely to buy any in the future, or take them on trades either, for a long, long time. For one thing Sako hasn't posted a list of serial numbers to look out for. If they want to keep it a secret, then they can keep the guns too.
I'll say one thing, you wouldn't see Ruger hiding a problem, they'd be advertising what was wrong and how to take care of it. Now I have GREAT respect for them.

You know, I find all of this pretty amazing, that inm this day and age we have to be MORE AFRAIND of a new, modern gun blowing up than we did fifty years ago when all we had were old Springfields, some old Mausers, and those who could afford them, pre-64 M 70 Wins. and Rem. 721-722's! Oh yes, there were a few blowups back then too, but ususally due to "pilot error".

Hi
it was a case of simmilar problem in Sweden last month which caused som injury to a 15 years young shooter his new tikka 3006 eploded only after shooting a dozen rounds and in sweden upp to 60 tikka had sako stailess had been recalled.sako says it is du a wrong heat treatment causing excesive britleness.
danny

Hi
It seems It is not only Sako and Tikka stainlees exploding there are others too and it seems there is a kind of steel problem too? and again it is the barrel which goes off too. as far as barrels are made of crappy steels there are more incidents to see in future.
regards
danny

The first story Berretta put out was that it was a bad lot of steel. The latest is that the steel was improperly heat treated and became too brittle. Perhaps that accounts for the appearance of the cleavage planes in the metal. Both rifles look to me like they were dunked in liquid niotrogen. I was a chemist long ago in a far away galaxy, and don't know beans about metallurgy, but I would still also like to look at these rifles under a microscope. Perhaps I can get a copy of the forensic report down the road.

This whole mess is sad to me. Sako had an excellent reputation for several decades that just got pissed away by some bean counting, amoral, corporate officers.

Like someone above posted, if this were Ruger they would have taken out adds in all the hook and bullet magazines to warn everybody and the problem would have been taken care of quickly, and without damage to the reputation.

JCN