Sako mag conversion

ejg

I finally got around to converting my old Sako L579/ 308 to a AI magazine. The old Sako never fed well from the original drop plate setup, she either failed to pick up a round or jammed. Small diameter bolts and double stack feeding can be troublesome as some remington owners might have also noticed. The AICS magazine has a kind of double stack that comes together and feeds from a zentral position making it much easier to get to work well. I wanted 100% reliability from my rifle.
Conversion was a bit awkward as I needed to rework the action slightly also the Roedale Howa mag system needed a bit of reworking. The front screw suited but the rear didn't and I had to insert steel in the rear tang. The back of the bottom metal is fixed with it's own screw and the rear of the action has it's M6 screw below the bottom metal.
Stock also had to be converted and needed to be resprayed. This time I chose magpul flat dark earth colour, for a change.
edi

poulo6.5

very tasty work there edi, well done. can you do a stock like that with an adjustable cheek piece

FISMA

ejg,
That's so depressing, but thanks for your honesty. Any manufacturer that has failure to feed problems should be ashamed.

Again, never a problem on old war guns, but newer models.

I am currently dealing with two failures on my SPS 700 and 1500 to feed.

Did you take pictures? It would be nice to have a tutorial on how to do this conversion.

With that said, I plan on joining the ranks of ye Sako owners soon. However, I will not be putting in a drop free mag, I'll leave it stock.

When you had feed problems, did you notice any scratches along the brass?

ejg

Paulo, I'm just working on a adjustable cheek for our tactical stock.
We could use that system on a hunter stock I presume, just a bit of work.
Will take a few weeks till we are ready.

Fisma, I've seen several original mag systems that work fine, my guess is that the long actions feed better because they tilt less. As I said my 243 rem 700 didn't feed right either. Fitting the military style AICS mag was easy because aftermarket bottom metals are available.
The Roedale bottom metal for the 700 only needs a few file strokes to open up the original bdl stock to fit. The original stock depth of both tangs are good. Badger bottom metals need a bit more work to fit and the front tang must be deepened at a guess around 5mm.

Roedale remmy SA AICS mag system.



Fitted


That was easy,
but for the 1960's Sako there isn't a mag system available.
The Howa Mag system was the closest with at least the front action screw fitting.


The bottom metall needed quite a bit of filing. The bottom of the action needed to be opened so that the mag could get high enough to get the cartridges to the bolt. Shiny parts have been worked.


The rear action screw needed a steel plate to rest on so that the action could be tightened. The rear bottom metal screw sitzt about 1/2" too far back and I fitted a 10mm steel rod with a 6mm thread going cross ways.
This was epoxied in and faired. Bottom metal was bedded at the same time.


Position of rear action screw below the bottom metal.


edi