Hello everyone,

I am a new guy in this forum and I'd like to start my postings with this rifle project I'm starting out tomorrow morning. All the bits and pieces are together and a new rifle will start to form.

Some history behind this project:

I had a problem deciding which caliber to choose as my "over .40 cal" rifle. There are two things that I personally look for in a rifle caliber: history and a sound technical desing. There seems to be enough to choose from expecially if you look at the history part of this question. There is however a problem if you look at these historically correct cartridges and their technical features. They are usually built around stretched out Mauser 98 actions and therefore reguire a lot of work around the feeding and extracting these cartridges correctly. From somewhere stood out a .400 H&H that was the answer. History side was taken care of as there stands H&H in the headstamp of a cartridge case and the bullet is the same as in those .400 NE cartridges. Heavy pressures will be there but otherwise the technical stuff is sound. This cartridge can be housed in most .375 actions without modifications.

Parts to be used:

I already have a whole bunch of older Sako rifles with long actions (.300 H&H, .375 H&H and .30-06). There is no action I like more - not even several different Mausers I have. So the answer is obvious. Sako L61R magnum action. Trigger and safety are there and no modifications are really needed in the starting point of the project. Oberndorf style bottom metal would be nice, but time really tels if I still want that after I get the piece together.

I ordered a Douglas Premium barrel from Midway Suomi. Chamber reamer was ordered from Dave Manson precision reamers. Cases are from Quality Cartridge. Die set came from CH-4D.

So there it is. Tomorrow the lathe will start to turn and Sako L61R that started out as 7 mm Remington Magnum will end up having a totally different chambering. If enyone is interested, I will keep up posting as the project continues.