New Sako Finnfire II .17HMR - failure to feed

[chris101]

Picked up a new Sako Finnfire II today, it had just arrived at he shop from GMK. I say "new" but on inspection in daylight there was signs of light wear to the Parkerising on the rear portion of the dovetail (indicating previous installation of scope rings?) and the front sling swivel stud had two bare metal scuffs/abrasions, god knows how other than by installation with a set of stilsons. Wonder if it might have been a demo gun.

 

Anyway, loaded up the mag with a single round and went to test it, wouldn't feed - the base of the case was jamming hard halfway up the bolt face when the round was only a 1/3 of the way into the chamber. Tried a mag with 4 rounds, that did exactly the same (Using Hornady). Tried some CCI gamepoint, they didn't work either. I then double checked that it actually was a 17HMR barrel! (which it is).

 

If the bolt is shaken vigorously whilst pushing forward then the round just about chambers, but not without a lot of effort, which isn't much use to me as the rabbits will have long gone after listening to all that racket and me cursing at the damn thing.

 

Disappointed that a rifle of this pedigree could fail in such a dramatic way out of the box! Rattling on the bolt handle to get it to chamber was also giving me some concern, with it being a rimfire round.

 

Any other FF2 owners experience a failure to feed like this?

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

[palo]

I would take it back and demand a new rifle.

I bought a new sako quad that had a really stiff and rough bolt. I took it back to my dealer who got me another one.

[LVSF 243]

Send it back new rifle or money back .

[stillair1]

As above, totally unacceptable.

[DL.]

Beretta have a lot to answer for.

[chris101]

Returned this rifle to the shop. Found another one elsewhere, dusty but mint, and cheaper. The bolt face is different, confirming a tooling mark on the first rifle's bolt face (as seen below) that is not actually supposed to be there, and may contribute towards the problem. Will upload pics of the 2nd bolt face later in the week.

 

Sako "Demand perfection"...... functional would be ok!

 

[palo]

Glad to see you got it sorted.

Mine is a 22lr and I had the common problem of it not ejecting some spent cases.

Eley target stuff worked fine but eley subs and most other ammo caused problems.

I didn't want the hassle of returning it to gmk again so I got my gunsmith to sort it.

He had to remove some material from the extractor and also had to remove some from the slot in the barrel. It's fine now but sako should have these things sorted before the rifle leaves the factory. I had a cz before that shot everything without any problems.

[geek]

I would take it back and demand a new rifle.

I bought a new sako quad that had a really stiff and rough bolt. I took it back to my dealer who got me another one.

 

Me too, (post on here somewhere) replaced under warrantee (bolt could not be inserted) - the replacement after little use and being well maintained (always cleaned and lubricated after each use, shot under cover etc.) has a rusting bolt - paid for what I thought was a quality product: now wouldn't buy another Sako!

[chris101]

The 2nd Sako Finnfire II feeds like and dream - effortlessly, and ejects perfectly - so glad I returned the first rifle. I've learnt to keep everything well coated in CLP to prevent rust in our damp atmosphere, so hopefully it'll stay good.