Backyardsniper
AH elite
I have spoke with at least three members here who talked about walking with a piece of 2x4 with a pipe strapped to it to replicate carrying thier rifle in preparation for their elephant hunts. Living in a reasonably rural part of Kentucky has a few downsides, however one of those downsides is not an aversion to the sight of firearms by the local populace. So I decided to take the Sako Brown Bear for a stroll today just to see how it carried and handled. I am still considering one or two different rifles including an AHR CZ 550 and a Blaser R8 as my main safari "do it all" rifle but I have to say the Sako is quickly securing a place as the front runner and is entirely likely to be the rifle filling that slot.
Here is what I observed today in a short 3.5 mile walk with the rifle. The balance point for this rifle was with the forward action screw centered in my hand, which put the objective of the leupold 1.25x5 just behind my thumb. This resulted in being able to get a good full grip around the whole rifle and the checkering on the stock is quite aggressive in a good way. So aggressive in fact that I actually took the rifle by the barrel and held it over my shoulder and used it as a back scratcher quite effectively, not a necessary requirement but it was damn sure handy, when it is hot, you're hands are sweating and so forth you need all the grip you can get. I have been known to employ skateboard or grip tape on my firearms, including the slides of my carry pistols to facilitate extra grip for high stress situations. With the medium height leupold QR rings I could grip the gun around the action with my thumb over top of the bolt and under the scope tube which allowed me to one hand carry the rifle with the barrel facing straight down and the 21.75" barrel had about 4"-5" of clearance from the ground. I'm 6'0" so results may vary on that one. With the rifle over my shoulder in the traditional "African carry" holding it by the barrel I found it balanced well with the short barrel. These are just a fee observations I made today on this rifle. So far between the carrying and the shooting the rifle is really very well put together. It holds 4+1, excellent trigger, short bolt throw, extremely accurate so far-still more testing to come. Excellent feeding, excellent extraction and ejection with hornady brass, it did not like the Norma brass but i still don't know if that is an issue with that particular batch of brass or something weird with the specs of the Norma brass or an issue with the extractor on the rifle. It was strange and I will test that further but so far it has been 100% with the Hornady. I hope to have further range reports soon when it quits raining. I have good load data worked up and I have it zeroed. Next we will test its long range accuracy out to 400yds for plains game applications and also some speed shooting up close. That short bolt throw on the Sako actions is fast and the rifles stock design and weight makes it handle recoil very well which I think will be a big plus for both the longer range work as well as CQB work.
Here is what I observed today in a short 3.5 mile walk with the rifle. The balance point for this rifle was with the forward action screw centered in my hand, which put the objective of the leupold 1.25x5 just behind my thumb. This resulted in being able to get a good full grip around the whole rifle and the checkering on the stock is quite aggressive in a good way. So aggressive in fact that I actually took the rifle by the barrel and held it over my shoulder and used it as a back scratcher quite effectively, not a necessary requirement but it was damn sure handy, when it is hot, you're hands are sweating and so forth you need all the grip you can get. I have been known to employ skateboard or grip tape on my firearms, including the slides of my carry pistols to facilitate extra grip for high stress situations. With the medium height leupold QR rings I could grip the gun around the action with my thumb over top of the bolt and under the scope tube which allowed me to one hand carry the rifle with the barrel facing straight down and the 21.75" barrel had about 4"-5" of clearance from the ground. I'm 6'0" so results may vary on that one. With the rifle over my shoulder in the traditional "African carry" holding it by the barrel I found it balanced well with the short barrel. These are just a fee observations I made today on this rifle. So far between the carrying and the shooting the rifle is really very well put together. It holds 4+1, excellent trigger, short bolt throw, extremely accurate so far-still more testing to come. Excellent feeding, excellent extraction and ejection with hornady brass, it did not like the Norma brass but i still don't know if that is an issue with that particular batch of brass or something weird with the specs of the Norma brass or an issue with the extractor on the rifle. It was strange and I will test that further but so far it has been 100% with the Hornady. I hope to have further range reports soon when it quits raining. I have good load data worked up and I have it zeroed. Next we will test its long range accuracy out to 400yds for plains game applications and also some speed shooting up close. That short bolt throw on the Sako actions is fast and the rifles stock design and weight makes it handle recoil very well which I think will be a big plus for both the longer range work as well as CQB work.
you can never be too prepared.
