This is the second TRG-S WarBird I have had nice caliber to reach way out there but it seems to me the barrel is produced to danm tight! On the first rifle and on this rifle I have gotten pressure signs (stiff bolt lift, shinny spots on brass ect. ) just above minimum loads! I have scrubbed the s#it out of the bore with Barnes CR-10 and there was copper fouling but not extreme. At any rate when I move up off the base load or get closer than .015 off the lands I get pressure signs. When cleaning the bore you can feel the bore tighten up on the patch as you move toward the muzzle. These Sako's don't seem to have the rifling cut any to deep either! So what to do ? I thought about pushing something through the bore coated with jewlers ruge to do a little polishing-lapping ? BUT I suspect I would polish the sharp edge off my rifling. Anybody have any thoughts?

I don't think you should be getting tight bolt lift in an expensive rifle of current manufacture, even if the pressure is too high.

It is difficult to lift the bolt because the bolt face is not concentric with the chamber, and the brass has assumed the distorted shape of the bolt-down slightly crooked chamber. When you lift the bolt, instead of the bolt face rotating around the case, it's hitting the fat part of the case, the part that formed on the part of the bolt face furthest from the center of the bore. Those shiny spots might be where that crooked case is getting rubbed against the inside of the chamber. Look for cicumferential scratches or rub marks in the shiny spots.

With modern manufacturing methods, bolts and chambers tend to come out concentric, and you will not encounter difficult bolt lift even with dangerously high pressure loads.

A gunsmith could tell you whether it is the bolt face cut off center or the chamber made incorrectly or if the receiver threads are the problem. Maybe all you need is a new barrel. Maybe the rifle is toast.

If you've got a lemon rifle, and if you will even consider asking the manufacturer to make it right, I would 1) not do any metalwork before you send it back to them (a major part of the problem is at that point blameable on you) and 2) not shoot a whole lot of hot reloads looking for pressure signs (a major part of the problem is at that point blameable on you).

If you really figure it's just a tight bore (and I don't think it is), try slugging it with a piece of soft lead before you try polishing it out. I think polishing to the point at which you have measurably changed the bore diameter will ruin the barrel.


H. C.

It is clearly over pressure causing the shinny spots and stiff bolt lift, the brass at times has been pounded down into the ejector pin hole and extractor claw.

Try this. Take a bullet, and see if it will EASILY REENTER an unsized, just-fired case. If it won't, the problem is a too-small diameter chamber throat. I noted this kind of a problem with a .300 Dakota. It was blowing primers with the starting load!! We sent the thing back to Dakota. Lo!and behold! There "was nothing wrong with the rifle"!! Cases fired in it after we got it back, however, no longer exhibited this problem! Same batch of cases, too!! IF this IS your problem the solution is a couple thousandths of an inch increase in throat diameter.

I really doubt if a "tight barrel" such as you describe will cause the kind of problems you're experiencing, since grossly oversize bullets can be safely fired, provided the bullet is freely released from the case on firing. I recall a situation in which a guy rechambered a 6.5 Arisaka to .30/'06, with no other changes. He was firing .308" bullets down a 6.5mm bore with no clue that anything was wrong, except he had a slight accuracy problem! he sent the gun to the NRA which ran tests, and discovered that he was not lying. It could be fired, and it didn't show any pressure indications.

Since the Warbird uses proprietary brass, you could have a particularly soft lot. This would give you the same results at "normal" pressures as brass of standard hardness at elevated pressures.

As another poster cautions, your brass may be too thick in the neck area (or chamber too small); either amounts to the same thing, and will elevate pressures quite noticeably.

Also, have you tried Lazzeroni factory loads as a control?

As a previous poster queried, list your components and load and maybe someone will spot something unanticipated that might help explain the apparent high pressure.

Lastly, anybody can screw up in building a gun, but Sako is about the last manufacturer that you would expect to find a serious mistake from.