(Left) The .22 barrels (LR and WMR) shot to nearly the same place without sight change. (Right) Disassembling the Quad between groups didn’t materially affect zero with the .22 LR barrel.

Below Lapland a patchwork of small farms breaks up the sprawling forests that cover 80 percent of Sako's home country. Reminiscent of our Upper Midwest, the Finnish heartland supports a growing herd of whitetail deer--courtesy of the USA. In 1938 six whitetails that had been imported from Minnesota four years earlier escaped from their pens. By 1960 Finland had a huntable herd of about 1,000 deer. Now Finns shoot 17,500 each year.

Still, the moose is the Finnish hunter's mainstay. And though these ungulates abound, hunts are tightly regulated. All game is managed by 300 state-sanctioned hunting associations that comprise 2,370 clubs and about 140,000 members. Club membership affords access to good spots in 15 game-conservation districts administered by the Central Association of Hunters. Finland has more moose hunters--300,000--than any other European country. About 84 percent of the 22 million pounds of game sold here is moose.

THE FIRST SAKOS
It might come as a surprise that the first important Sako rifle was designed for hunting small game. Chambered for the .22 Hornet and .218 Bee, the Vixen came out around the end of World War II. Stoeger imported the Vixen to the States beginning in 1946. A year later a heavy-barrel version and a full-stocked carbine appeared. New chamberings followed: the .222, .222 Magnum and .223. In 1957 Sako introduced the L-57 Forester. Bored for the then-new .308 and .243 Winchester, the L-57 would also appear in .22-250 and in sporter, carbine and heavy-barrel configurations. The L-61 Finnbear followed three years later, a longer action chambered for a host of popular big-game rounds, up to the .375 H&H.

Sako broke with tradition in 1961, announcing the Finnwolf, a hammerless lever-action rifle with a one-piece stock. Available in .243 and .308 with a four-shot detachable magazine, it survived for a decade and was succeeded by an even shorter-lived Model 73. The company was acquired by new owners in 1967, and eight years later the Model 74 had replaced the Vixen, Forester and Finnbear. Sako offered it in three action lengths until 1978, when the "A series" replaced it. The Hunter came along in the mid-1980s, also in three action lengths and with a left-handed option. By this time Sako was building the Model 78 rimfire, a bolt-action repeater built in .22 Hornet as well.

In 1993 Sako trotted out the TRG rifle. The long, three-lug action has a detachable straight-stack box magazine. Four years later came the current flagship hunting rifle, Sako's Model 75. To accommodate a broad spectrum of cartridges, the 75 comes in four receiver lengths. Its three locking lugs are a departure from early sporters, reducing bolt lift to 70 degrees. Barrels are still hammer-forged; they're offered in 18 chamberings. Several versions of the Model 75 have appeared, in wood and synthetic stocks.

The hand-checkered, high-gloss walnut stocks that characterized Sako rifles during the late 1950s complemented finely polished, deeply blued steel and tight wood-to-metal fit. Never inexpensive, Sako's rifles earned a reputation for fine accuracy. They featured crisp, adjustable triggers and bolts that slid as if in Crisco. Dovetail receiver rails required costly Sako rings, but enthusiasts happily complied. The external claw extractor, much smaller than a 98 Mauser's, has proven so reliable that it has been retrofitted to other rifles with bolt-face extractors. For decades Sako was the European equivalent of Weatherby, turning out high-quality rifles with a singular look. They were coveted by hunters worldwide.

The Quad offers smooth feeding, an oddly shaped but comfortable bolt handle and brisk ejection.

THE TIKKA CONNECTION
Then in 1983 Sako joined with another Finnish firm. A gun-parts-maker for 80 years, Tikka was older than Sako. During World War II it had built sewing machines and submachine guns. A collaborative venture building a Model 555 rifle resulted in Sako's acquisition of Tikka (and Valmet, a shotgun-maker). By 1989 Tikka's production at Tikkakoski Works had been moved to Sako's Riihimaki plant.

The Tikka Whitetail, a rather clumsy, if functional bolt rifle introduced in the 1990s, drew a tepid response stateside. Then Tikka announced its T3, also built in the Sako plant and to the same tolerances as the more expensive Sako 75. It looked and handled much better than the Whitetail. It featured the two-lug bolt of earlier models but with the 70-degree lift of a three-lug Sako 75. The T3 receiver is slimmer than the Whitetail's but just as stiff, partly because the ejection port is smaller. Rifle weight depends on style; the T3 Lite weighs just 61⁄4 pounds

"We've paid attention to the U.S. market," says Paavo Tammisto, who handles press relations for Sako and Tikka, "and this rifle should appeal to hunters there."

It does. The T3 is technically excellent. The bolt glides; the trigger breaks like an icicle; cartridges cycle without bumps. Close your eyes, shoulder the rifle, and the crosswire is on target. In fact, the current challenge at Riihimaki is to keep Sako 75s competitive at market. The excellence of the T3 has become as problematic as the sliding value of dollars against Euros.

But challenge is hardly new to Finns. And the invention of the switch-barrel Quad shows they're still adept at reinventing bolt rifles.