A pair? of Sako Handy Fiber rifles

[stickhunter]

Hey all,

I decided to get out today and take some photos of a couple of rifles that I have, which are causing me to scratch my head a bit. The fist rifle (scoped) I've owned for years and is what I believed to be a Sako Handy Fiber in 300WM. The "Handy" refers to the short carbine barrel and the Fiber refers to the MacMillan fiberglass stock.

A few months ago, I purchased another Sako rifle (unscoped) in 338WM with fiberglass stock. When I received it, I noticed that it looked very similar to the 300WM rifle but with a noticeable difference: the barrel on the 300WM is 18 1/4" from muzzle to front receiver ring whilst the 338WM is 19 1/8". The muzzles/crowns are finished identically, and both sport the same type of Williams sights, which I understand were a factory item from Sako.

When I line the barrels up at the muzzle, the front and rear sights line up, but the 338WM has a noticeably longer full-diameter shank before the taper; it's this shank that accounts for most of the 3/4" difference in overall barrel length.

Here are some pictures of the two rifles lined up --- the 300WM is scoped and has an aftermarket DBM, while the 338WM is unscoped with the factory hinged floorplate. Unloaded the 338WM weight just under 7.5lbs.

I'm curious if anyone has thoughts about whether both rifles are really Handy Fibers --- I'm sitting on the fence knowing that details do change between calibers and age (the 338WM is a 595### and the 300WM is 608###). I'd be particularly interested if someone has a 338WM Sako AV carbine and could take a similar measurement from muzzle to front right.

 

[conor_90]

^cool guns

Sorry nothing constructive to add, inspired by the handy carbines I had an Aiii 338 wm cut to 20 inches, added a SAKO front and peep and popped it in a modern edge fill McMillan.

Curious what your 338 weighs?

 

[stickhunter]

^cool guns

Sorry nothing constructive to add, inspired by the handy carbines I had an Aiii 338 wm cut to 20 inches, added a SAKO front and peep and popped it in a modern edge fill McMillan.

Curious what your 338 weighs?

That sounds like a nice rifle! Do you still have it? The 338, unloaded, weights 7# 7.5oz.

 

[Buckmastr]

Beauties!
Sako was inconsistent on barrel lengths. I have had two 375 Fibreclass rifles with different factory barrel lengths. Neither with iron sights however.

 

[conor_90]

That sounds like a nice rifle! Do you still have it? The 338, unloaded, weights 7# 7.5oz.

Yes, it hits the scale at 7lbs. It will shoot very small groups with 275 grain Speers if I'm having a good day

 

[Rman]

Beauties!
Sako was inconsistent on barrel lengths. I have had two 375 Fibreclass rifles with different factory barrel lengths. Neither with iron sights however.

Barrel lengths and profiles were often different... The Handy barrel lengths were: 18.5, 19.25 (later series rifles), 21.125, and 21.750... As with all things Sako, nothing is absolute, and the measurements always seem to vary. There are not an overly light rifle by any stretch, and do benefit from a newer, lighter stock. They are still considered by many to be some of the nicest production rifles ever produced.
An AIV Handy in 375 H&H with the 18.5" barrel would be a fine, compact, all arounder.

R.

 

[Rman]

the 300WM is scoped and has an aftermarket DBM

Any further info on this bottom metal? Very curious as it would be a rare offering...
Thanks!
R.

 

[stickhunter]

Any further info on this bottom metal? Very curious as it would be a rare offering...
Thanks!
R.

Thanks for the info on barrel lengths, R. Given the weight of evidence, I'm going to side with both being original rifles, but I may send Stoeger/Sako a message to see if they'd have any record.

For the DBM, I believe this was an offering from Stoeger, and may have been limited to Canadian market? I'm not sure how I acquired my first one, but it was before I owned a Sako (funny how that happens) and was for "magnum" cartridges and Sako 2-piece bottom metal. When I got the 300WM Handy, it had a 1-piece bottom metal, so I eventually tracked down a DBM for "standard" cartridges and Sako 1-piece bottom metal. I ended up swapping the magazine base plates so that I ended up with DBM for "magnum" cartridges and Sako 1-piece bottom metal.

The DBM is really simple to install. You just drive out the pin holding the hinged floorplate and replace the floorplate with the DBM --- the magazine baseplate has a shelf on the nose that rocks in and supports the front of the magazine against the top surface of the bottom metal, and the floorplate release acts as the magazine release:

The magazine itself is a single stack with 3rd capacity, so you lose a round over the hinged floorplate.

Here's a picture of the box in which I received the "standard" cartridge magazine, alongside the "magnum" cartridge magazine (keep in mind that the baseplates are swapped, so it's standard/2-piece and magnum/1-piece):

And here's an abridged email I sent to the gunsmith from whom I purchased the standard/1-piece... it has more details of the differences between magnum/standard cartridge magazines and 1-piece/2-piece magazines...

Hi ###,

I just got through installing the new magazine and checking it for function. Here is a picture of your one piece magazine in relation to the trigger guard --- there's a shelf on the nose of the magazine baseplate that rests on the top surface the trigger guard and keeps the magazine from being pushed down:

The two piece magazine also fits the one piece trigger guard, but the shelf on the nose is higher, which allows the magazine to tilt down under pressure:

The next two pictures show the difference in the feed lips of the one piece "standard cal." magazine (narrower at neck) compared to the two piece "magnum cal." magazine:

The standard cal. magazine does feed 300WM, but it takes a noticeable amount of force on the bolt to get the cartridge moving forwards. Rather than modify the feed lips, I just swapped base plates, and the magazine works great.

So there is a functional difference between the "standard cal." and "magnum cal." magazines; however, it would be possible to use a "two piece" magazine with a "one piece" trigger guard by shimming the nose or just building it up with a bit of epoxy.

Anyways, that's probably more than you want or need to know, but wanted to send you that for reference.

Thanks again for your help,
###