Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/642978
The buttstock with a pistol grip (with an alu- minum frame inside) and the front of rifle chassis are made from PU and glass fiber. Optional is folding buttstock which greatly decreases the size of the rifle during trans- port. In the front part of chassis there are slot for the magazine and the MIL-STD-1913 side rail used to mount e.g. clip-on night vi- sion device. In order to allow adjusting the ri- fle to the users, the rifle was facilitated with an adjustable cheek pad (by using pads) in terms of axis and height, and a stand with the possibility to adjust the length of the buttstock, angle and height of the butt plate by using additional pads. The lower front part of the stock has a UIT for bipod or sling attachment. The „resistance free" bolt has three massive lugs and requires a 60-degree bolt rotation and a 98 mm (3.86 in) bolt throw for the short and 118 mm (4.65 in) bolt throw for the long bolt-action In order to reload the weapon, one only has to rotate it 60 degrees and pull by less than 10 cm, which shortens the reloading and the time between shots, as well as enables the usage of a wide range of optical sights. At the back part of the bolt, there is the cocked firing pin indictor. The heart of the rifle is the barrel, while the durability and accuracy of Finnish barrels is just legendary. The receiver and the bar- rel are made of cold-forged steel. The heavy and thick barrel (diameter of the muzzle is 22 mm) has a four-groove right hand twist rate with the 1:11" thread for .308 Win ca- liber. The barrel length of my version of the rifle is 660 mm (26"). Sako also offers TRG 22 and TRG42 with a short and very firm 510 mm long (20") barrel. Factory-made barrel is ready for muzzle brake/compensator or a silencer. Moreover, the compensator allows mounting an anti-mirage strap, which is es- pecially helpful during intensive shooting and to avoid distortion of view in the sight due to hot air. The barrel is twisted directly into the receiver and does not have contact with chassis. When it comes to sniper rifles, such assembly is something normal. It al- lows undistorted transfer of harmonic oscil- lations when the round moves through the barrel and provides even conduct of heat. The double stage trigger mechanism is more like in the professional sport rifles, rather than the one known from military ones. The range of adjustments includes the weight (within the range of 10–25 N), free travel, or even the position of the trigger itself (verti- cal and horizontal). The whole mechanism can be easily disassembled in case of dam- age/replacement or in order to completely clean the weapon. Near the trigger, there is a safety switch, which enables securing the weapon against an accidental shot (but after reloading). It locks the bolt, firing pin, and the trigger at the same time. Everything works really smoothly. There is dovetail, that makes it possible to attach, e.g. a diopter (for sport shooting), the default Optilock mount (for scopes), or TRG related mounts by other manufactur- ers. The rifle comes with steel 10 rounds double stack magazine. The length of the standard version is 1150 mm and it weighs 4.9 kg. On my .308 Sako TRG 22 I have mounted IOR Tactical 4-14/50 sight with the illumi- nated MP-8 reticle in the focal plane, through single-piece SPUHR mount, with 24 MOA canting and a level. The MP-8 reticle allows precise shooting to point targets thanks to thin lines of the reticle. The inconvenience of reticles in the second plane is that the judgment on the distance may be made only with the zoom determined by the manufac- turer. In the case of IOR, this means 10x. One should remember that, especially during FIREARMS