Sako 90 Hunter: A Bołt-Action with Craftsman Refinement

You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve told this story before, because I may have. When I was a wet-behind-the-ears assistant editor at American Rifleman magazine—and way more a hunter/shooter than a “gun guy”—I had the good fortune to have the late, great NRA technical editor Pete Dickey as my mentor. He’d hold court every morning before work, and I’d pester him endlessly about various hunting rifles I was thinking about buying. “Scotty,” he finally said, squinting through a blue haze of cigarette smoke, “just get a Sako .308.”

A couple of Sakos have passed through my hands since then—a 75 and an 85—and both made me appreciate what Pete was talking about. I’m even more impressed with the new Sako 90 Hunter, a traditional beauty that showcases both the company’s craftsmanship and its forward-thinking designs. The Sako 90 represents the latest iteration of the brand’s hunting rifle. It’s available in several models, including the synthetic-stocked Quest, Quest Ultra, Peak and Adventure, and the wood-stocked Varmint, Bavarian and Hunter.

The Hunter is available in black or stainless. However, we received word just before we went to press that the stainless version won’t be imported into the United States, although that’s what they sent me to test.

Aesthetics

The stock is a real looker, 2.5-grade select walnut that on my sample showed beautiful figuring on the butt and fore-end. The checkering on both was well-executed. The comb is ever so slightly raised, and it has a gentle forward slope. The left side exhibits a gracefully carved cheekpiece, and the butt features the classic red rubber pad with black spacer.

The stock’s wrist has a nice curve to it, and it’s comfortably hand-filling, with a small palm swell on the right side and the Sako logo on the grip base. The fore-end gently rounds into a relatively flat bottom. It feels good in the hands and sits nicely on a bag or pack.

The barrel on my .308 sample measures 22 inches long, with a sporter contour that tapers from 1.125 inches in diameter in front of the receiver to 0.65 inches at the target-crowned muzzle. But it turns out Sako sent me a pre-production sample, and the barrels on production models are threaded M15x1 and come with a 5/8x24 adapter. The barrel is cold hammer forged, a process that produces consistent, smooth bores, and a look at the 90 Hunter’s with a borescope showed it to be pristine indeed. The finish is matte, so you won’t get glare in the field, and it looks fantastic against the walnut.

There are two receiver types for the Sako 90. Most versions have a Picatinny rail, while the Hunter has the company’s Optilock scope-mounting system. Regardless of type, the receiver is a flat-bottom design, sculpted on the left side to shave weight. That flat is engraved with the model and serial number.

Action Rigidity

The action has been redesigned from the 85 to provide more torsional stability. The 85 had an open ejection port while the 90’s is partially enclosed. It’s not as crowded as some designs of this kind, and the port’s edges are gracefully beveled. I think it strikes a nice balance of allowing easy access to the chamber while still providing the added rigidity of a partially enclosed receiver.

The forward action screw threads into the recoil lug, and the lug in turn fits into a cut in the stock. This cut is reinforced with a metal plate that extends about 1.75 inches forward of the lug. To my way of thinking, this should help prevent point-of-impact changes due to changes in humidity—as a portion of the barrel is resting on the plate and not the wood. It’s almost but not quite glass bedding or bedding block.

The Sako 85 was a controlled-round feed, but the 90 action is a push feed. It retains the three-lug design for a short lift, as well as the claw extractor, but instead of the fixed blade ejector of the 75 and 85 you’ve got twin plunger ejectors opposite the extractor for positive ejection. This design comes from Sako’s TRG action, which has been embraced by the tactical world for its dependability.

The Sako action sizes are tailored to specific cartridge families. This approach provides the shortest, most efficient bolt travel so you’re not hauling the bolt way back on, say, a .243 Win. that has a .30-06-length action. Optimizing receiver length also means you don’t have to carry more weight than necessary.

Locking Strength

The bolt’s three lugs are machined to match the receiver’s broached raceway, a sort of ridge/valley profile that minimizes contact but keeps the bolt running smooth and true. Like the receiver sizes, the lugs are optimized so each caliber group has maximum lug surface area, furnishing the appropriate amount of locking strength.

The bolt is easily disassembled for maintenance. Sako supplies a cocking tool that fits over the shroud. With the tool positioned on the shroud, push the shroud release button and twist the shroud clockwise—maintaining control of the parts since they’re under spring pressure.

Clean and lubricate and reassemble in reverse order. Note that reinstalling the bolt requires the safety to be in the Fire position.

The safety is a two-position bolt-locking design, and there’s a bolt unlock lever forward of the safety so you can open the bolt with the safety engaged. A silver tab with a red dot protrudes from the rear of the bolt shroud when the rifle is cocked.

Adjustable Trigger

The trigger is really something. First off, it’s adjustable, which isn’t uncommon these days, but two things stand out. One, it’s externally adjustable and two, it offers five different preset trigger pull weights, denoted by white hash marks of differing widths on the black adjustment screw.

It comes set on the middle/third mark, and the average pull weight on my sample at this mark was two pounds, three ounces. The lightest setting/smallest hash mark averaged one pound, six ounces; the second lightest was one pound, 12 ounces; the fourth was two pounds, nine ounces; and the fifth, heaviest setting came in at three pounds, three ounces. The adjustment screw is accessed through a hole in the trigger guard, and Sako provides a long Torx wrench with a polymer grip to accomplish this. And lo and behold, it’s the same Torx size as the action screws, which is super convenient.

It gets better. If you pull the barreled action, you’ll find the trigger finger lever has a small set screw in it. If you loosen this, you can move the finger lever forward and back on its bar to customize trigger reach. There’s about 0.3 inch of adjustment. Sako doesn’t provide a wrench for this, but it’s a standard 2mm Allen bit.

I’m sure I’ve seen this before on competition rifles, but I can’t recall offhand if I’ve seen it on a hunting rifle. All I can say is it’s a truly welcome feature and another indication of how much thought went into the Sako 90.

Total Control Latch, Reliable Feeding

The rifle feeds from a detachable box magazine secured by the company’s Total Control latch, which made its debut on the Sako 85. It’s ingenious, but there’s a trick to it. If you simply press the latch, it won’t budge. What you have to do is push inward on the magazine first, which frees the latch for operation. It works best for me to wrap my left hand around the receiver, thumb across the top, and press in on the mag with all four fingers while my right index finger works the latch.

The benefit here is obvious: There’s no chance the magazine is going to fall out accidentally. The possibilities of this happening with other designs are small, but they’re not zero, and the Total Control latch gives you the peace of mind that your magazine is secure.

The magazine can easily be top-loaded, which is important to me. Granted, I’m used to internal magazines with hinged floorplates, and snapping more rounds into the ejection port is familiar. But I think it’s also faster—and easier to keep your vision downrange—than even swapping an empty mag for a full one. And if you have to eject your one and only mag in order to reload it, well that’s super slow.

When I ordered the test rifle, my contact at Sako asked if I needed bases and rings. I figured I didn’t because I had a set of Optilocks on hand from a previous project. Thankfully he sent rings and bases anyway because my older Optilock bases didn’t work on the 90.

Ready to Mount Optics?

The receivers on the 85 had a tapered 17mm dovetail while the 90’s dovetail is straight. The benefit here is that while the 85 Optilocks required action-specific bases, with the 90 any new-style Optilock base will fit the dovetail—regardless of receiver size or chambering.

I mounted a Burris Veracity PH 4-20x50mm on the 90 Hunter for range testing. As I mentioned, I’ve shot a Sako 75 and an 85 in the past. The 75—a .280 Rem. I still kick myself for not buying—was a real tack-driver. The 85 was just okay. So I was anxious to see what the 90 would do. In a word, it was great.

Accuracy

As you can see in the accompanying table, of five loads, three were under an inch, one was right there, and only one was significantly over. The trigger was everything Sako promised and more—light and perhaps the crispest, cleanest-breaking factory trigger I’ve shot.

The Sako 90’s fire-control system boasts a 1.3 millisecond lock time—the time that elapses between when the sear is released and the firing pin strikes the primer. The faster the lock time, the less chance a minuscule change in your hold can influence the shot. I could go way into the weeds explaining this concept, but I’ll just say it does actually matter, and it’s one of the small details that Sako sweats to produce the best possible rifle.

The action is everything Sako says it is. It’s incredibly smooth and incredibly fast to operate. Why does smooth and fast matter? Fast is self-explanatory; there are times you need to get a follow-up shot down the bore in a hurry. The smoother an action is, the less force you have to apply to operate it, and with less force it’s easier to keep the rifle on target—recoil notwithstanding. I can’t remember the last time I worked an action I liked this much.

A Solid Rifle, Plain and Simple

At seven pounds, two ounces, the 90 Hunter is not a quote-unquote mountain rifle. Sako has other 90 versions to satisfy those looking for a super-light gun. While the scope I paired it with weighs a hefty 29 ounces—taking total gun weight to nine pounds, four ounces—if you hung a lighter scope on it you could shave as much as a pound. Then you’d have a rifle tipping the scales at a bit over eight pounds, and that’s the type of gun most of us have been carrying all our lives.

Everybody seems to be ultralight-crazy these days, and I do appreciate lighter rifles. But there’s absolutely still a place for “normal” weight rifles. They carry just fine, and while the Sako might not be my first choice for lung-busting death marches above tree line in the Rockies, it would be right at home in any of the places the majority of us actually hunt—the Eastern hardwoods, Southern tree stands, the plains and foothills of the Midwest and West.

For years, the Winchester Model 70 was considered “the rifleman’s rifle,” but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since that was the case—if it ever truly was. I do apologize for circumstances beyond my control that the rifle Sako sent doesn’t exactly match up with what you can buy here, but if I had to nominate a modern production gun for the “rifleman’s rifle” title, the Sako 90 Hunter would be a top choice.

It’s nothing fancy per se, just an incredibly well-engineered and well-executed hunting rifle with all the performance, accuracy and good looks you could want.

Sako 90 Hunter Specs

• Type: 3-lug bolt-action centerfire
• Caliber: .243, 6.5 Creedmoor, .270 Win., 7mm Rem. Mag., .308 (tested), .30-06, .300 Win. Mag.
• Capacity: 5+1 (as tested)
• Barrel: 22 in. stainless (as tested, not imported here); threaded M15x1 w/5/8x24 adapter (per specs)
• OAL: 42.25 in.
• Weight: 7 lb., 2 oz.
• Stock: 2.5 grade walnut, red rubber buttpad
• Trigger: single-stage adjustable for weight and position; 2 lb., 3 oz. pull (measured, middle position)
• Sights: none; Optilock scope mount system
• Safety: two position bolt-locking w/bolt unlock button
• MSRP: $2,499
• Manufacturer: Sako, sako.global/hunting

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