Thread: New Tikka & Sako

I have no photos of the plastic washer or ring used to cam the locking fingers into place , heard that after a few failures they changed the 338LM model to steel , what seems to be the issue was when gas from a blown primer vents back down the firing pin hole and cuts/melts this washer/ring that cams the fingers into place , when that happens , then basically you have a un-locked bolt during the firing phase .

RE : The Accuracy international AW rifle , yes some how a rifle did get assembled with out the breeching/locking insert , and was test fired , opps , but due to the design of the bolt handle slot , the bolt held in place and did not bite the user , so yeap thats happened .

Swazi man , use to use Blaser rifles a lot , until his 300Weatherby mag rifle blew the barrel .

The Aussie Army is one of the few Armies that use the Blaser R93 in 338LM , they did a emergency type buy , and did not do a full trial , a year ago they had some problems with the Blasers , not sure what they where , maybe safety mech problems like what the Brits had or worse .

All this is second hand info & was not personally witnessed by me , so maybe none of ever happened .

The only photo I have seen of a Accuracy International rifle with a blown barrel , was a AW50F , ie the big 50 BMG bolt action rifle , do a search its a good photo , barrel is split really good , looks like the barrel steel gave away , and it did , but not due to poor grade steel or manufacture , the bolt held and the firer did not have the bolt move back . AI did tests and found out , that the rifle had been fired and then cleaned and then fired again .
They were using exposive ammo , and a patch had been left in the barrel ( so the barrel was blocked ) and then fired with that ammo , so operator error , not a faulty rifle .