I don't like the conversion. I have copied and pasted below previous postings about this by myself and by Jackie...
Sako and Sako extractors... there is nothing wrong with them. They are strong and safe, but I do feel the Remington bolt head set up is superior to the Sako setup in strength and safety.
Sako extractors in a Remington. They are strong BUT they are not as strong and safe as the original 700 set up. Remington's 3 rings of steel surrounding the case head support the brass under extreme pressure as no other set up does. The case does not rupture due to all the support. You may not be able to open the bolt, and when removing the barrel you find the case head "welded" to the bolt face. I have seen that with a 222. The brass almost had to be machined off the bolt. I had to install a new extractor and there was no other damage to the rifle. I had one case of a 303 British fired in a 7mm Mag... I had to remove the barrel as the bolt was locked shut, but the case removed from the bolt face then with no damage at all. These incidents show how great the design is of the 700 system. I do not think there is a better extractor system. That is my belief anyway. I have seen other commercial actions blown to pieces or damaged beyond repair. I have never seen that of a 700. (Not to say it has not happened, but it must be rare)
The angle of ejection is changed a lot with the Sako conversion. Take a factory 700 bolt and look at the face of it. Take a case and insert it into the bolt face and observe where the ejector wants to push it. That angle is only slightly higher than straight sideways. With the Sako extractor fitted as close to the top of the right locking lug as you can, the angle of ejection with a fired case is high enough to always hit a 30mm scope tube with low mounts, or the windage adjustment turret. A fired case is shorter than a loaded round and has no weight at the front of it to help hold it down. I found out all this when I did the first and only conversion I have done, on a customer’s request. The conversion was done perfectly and as close to the locking lug as possible. I encountered no problems doing it. I recommend not doing the conversion now.
With a Sako style conversion, you remove the total support of the design when you machine a slot length wise to install the Sako extractor. This causes a weaker area where one of the 3 rings of steel has now been removed. Total support has been reduced, and if a case ruptures the gases may blow back through this area with the extractor. It is the weakest link in the support of the case now.
I feel the conversion to Sako style is unsafe... it isn't as strong or safe as the original 700 extractor and the angle of ejection changes a lot... enough to cause some people problems.
I have had very few problems with 700 extractors.
Posted by Jackie:
Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with any of these extractors.....UNLESS you have some sort of catastrophic occurrence, such as a blown case head. As Dennis said, even in this event, a Remington has no place to go. It is the safest bolt face made. The "three rings of Steel" does work.
With sliding plate extractors, there is very little room for any thing to escape either. It is not, in the end, as safe as a Remington, but nothing else is either.
The Remington Sako modification is the least safe as far as containing shrapnel if some thing really bad happens. We have discussed this quite a few times on the Forums, and I personally know of one incidence where a Sako Extractor ended up in a shooters brain when he blew a case head off of a 243 Ackley. This episode was so severe that the brass was litterally welded to the bolt face. The Sako extractor was blown straight back through the bolt race way. The shooter just happened to be a lefty, shooting a right hand bolt rifle with the modifications.
So two things had to happen to cause the injury. First, the shooter made a horrific mistake by accidentally shooting a load that was this hot. Second, he was left handed, looking right into that right race way. If he had been right handed, the extractor probably would have missed him. But even at that, it is not a good thing to have pieces of metal flying out the back of the action.
When the subject of Sako Extractors in Remington’s comes up, the same conclusion is usually met. That being, thousands have been performed, and I know of only this one instance where something really bad happened. Case failures are extremely rare. In fact, 99 percent of these types of failures can be attributed to gross shooter error. The Remington-Sako conversion provides a very efficient alternative to the Remington, as it is a very good system. I even have a couple myself
So, is the Sako Conversion OK. Yes, unless you experience the rare occurrence of a split case or a blown head.
It is my contention that one of these days, something like I described is going to happen, and a sharp lawyer is going to get a Gunsmith on the stand and say this. "You took what is arguably the safest bolt face in the world, and by a modification, performed by you, rendered it the most unsafe bolt face in the world." Millions of dollars could be involved........Jackie
