Hello Fellows, as per another post I've just bought into a Sako A7 stainless in 308 Win.
Just thought I'd share a few views on it. I've had it seven days now, with about 150 rounds in various configurations down the spout.
Initial loads which were leftovers from an old clunker 308 Win went into some pretty nice groups, even 150g Core Lokts loaded to a quite sluggish 2500fps. About 0.75 to 1.25 moa was consistent.
Couple of interesting stats (I think):
The OAL you can load to in the magazine is 2.907. More generous than I expected and better than some others.
The 168g Amax (which has a similar profile to many LR bullets suitable for the 308 Win) engages the lands at 2.891". This is a pretty short throat for a 308 in my experience and I thought augered well for getting bullets near the lands...
Here's the A7 magazine....
Here's the same mag with a 168g Amax (Zmax) loaded to 2.898"...
Went through a hit and miss process from there with some bulk 168g Amax / Zmax bullets. Eventually came up with a nice mild load of 49.0g of Reloder 17 which is doing 2700fps from the 22 inch bbl and printing nice 3 shot groups between 0.5 and 1.25" at 260y.
Here's three different charge weights with the 168g Amax at 260y...
Nice rifle. Very well finished. Chamber is tight, ie the die needs to be RIGHT down on the shellholder to get ammo to chamber. Not the worst thing I believe.
At present the rifle has a second hand Redfield in secondhand Leupold QRW rings. This will change in time and so might a few other things, but in the meantime this is a really good going concern.
Just thought I'd share a few views on it. I've had it seven days now, with about 150 rounds in various configurations down the spout.
Initial loads which were leftovers from an old clunker 308 Win went into some pretty nice groups, even 150g Core Lokts loaded to a quite sluggish 2500fps. About 0.75 to 1.25 moa was consistent.
Couple of interesting stats (I think):
The OAL you can load to in the magazine is 2.907. More generous than I expected and better than some others.
The 168g Amax (which has a similar profile to many LR bullets suitable for the 308 Win) engages the lands at 2.891". This is a pretty short throat for a 308 in my experience and I thought augered well for getting bullets near the lands...
Here's the A7 magazine....
Here's the same mag with a 168g Amax (Zmax) loaded to 2.898"...
Went through a hit and miss process from there with some bulk 168g Amax / Zmax bullets. Eventually came up with a nice mild load of 49.0g of Reloder 17 which is doing 2700fps from the 22 inch bbl and printing nice 3 shot groups between 0.5 and 1.25" at 260y.
Here's three different charge weights with the 168g Amax at 260y...
Nice rifle. Very well finished. Chamber is tight, ie the die needs to be RIGHT down on the shellholder to get ammo to chamber. Not the worst thing I believe.
At present the rifle has a second hand Redfield in secondhand Leupold QRW rings. This will change in time and so might a few other things, but in the meantime this is a really good going concern.
