Sako Finfire / 17 HM2

Dovebob

Well-Known Member
All,

I've just been reading a thread which mentions converting a Sako Finfire .22 LR into a .17 HM2. I understand that the barrel unclamps and a new, .17, barrel is clamped in its place. The mag and bolt is the same.

I'd be interested to hear how difficult / expensive it is to do the above. Also, is .17 HM 2 useful for rabbits and how easy is it to buy.

cheers,

Bob

P.S.

Fizbangwallop, I've started a new thread so as not to crash the previous one, but would be very interested to hear your experiences.
 
All,

I've just been reading a thread which mentions converting a Sako Finfire .22 LR into a .17 HM2. I understand that the barrel unclamps and a new, .17, barrel is clamped in its place. The mag and bolt is the same.

I'd be interested to hear how difficult / expensive it is to do the above. Also, is .17 HM 2 useful for rabbits and how easy is it to buy.
.

thats the important bit
if you find a source, buy lots!
get a decent allowance in order to do so

I think the HM2 is the bunny gun the HV .22lr should have been
out to 120yds it is pretty much point and shoot, further is doable on a still day or with lots of practice
very sweet little round that doesn't disembowel or mince them on impact

not sure about the Finfire barrel change, I thought they were standard screw in barrels
The Sako Quad is the one that just unclamps
it does so very neatly and without loss of zero
 
Bewsher,

Thanks for the info. Availability seems to be a significant factor.

The barrel on my Finfire is held in place with a screw that clamps it into the action. A barrel swap doesn't look too difficult, although I don't think it was specifically designed or intended to be a switch barrel. The action needs to be taken out of the stock in order to swap it over, so its not like the quad in that sense.

I'm not sure how easily available the .17 barrels are, or how difficult it is to get the head spacing correct (although I assume that's less of an issue on a rimfire.

Cheers,

Bob
 
Bewsher,

Thanks for the info. Availability seems to be a significant factor.

The barrel on my Finfire is held in place with a screw that clamps it into the action. A barrel swap doesn't look too difficult, although I don't think it was specifically designed or intended to be a switch barrel. The action needs to be taken out of the stock in order to swap it over, so its not like the quad in that sense.

I'm not sure how easily available the .17 barrels are, or how difficult it is to get the head spacing correct (although I assume that's less of an issue on a rimfire.

Cheers,

Bob

headspaces off the rim so that won't be an issue and to be honest with the pressures involved its not an issue (its the reason you can shoot shorts in LR chambers) unless they have cut the chamber waaaaay too deep

​I am lucky as there are two places that I can get ammo, to be honest unless you are shooting thousands it won't be an issue
 
The barrel on the Finnfire can be swapped as you say but you need a go gauge but not required with the Quad.

York Guns had a lot of HM2 ammo in stock (Eley) when I enquired but that was 2 or 3 years ago. I can't remember the amount they said they had in but I remember thinking at the time they would never run out.
 
Yes steve pope use to do this conversion. But richard pope of swift rifles got some of the lothar barrels when venom closed its doors.

Richard would be worth a call
 
Let me get this straight.

You have a perfectly good Finfire in 22lr. You are proposing to pull the tube on this very desirable rifle and replace it with a 17HM2, a round that basically died at birth?

Barking. :cuckoo:
 
As far as I know, I can swap between barrels without causing any harm to the rifle and can refit the .22 one when I need to.
 
Let me get this straight.

You have a perfectly good Finfire in 22lr. You are proposing to pull the tube on this very desirable rifle and replace it with a 17HM2, a round that basically died at birth?

Barking. :cuckoo:

Yes, crazy isn't it? I suppose it depends what kind of rabbiting you imagine you're going to do but this old f1rt would say you'd do better with a nice quiet subsonic round but if you're not working from a truck or a high seat and you absolutely must try to knock 'em over at 120 yards plus under field - not range - conditions maybe you need a noisy little supersonic round after all. Personally I'd still work up my competence with .22 but then I'm a bit of a traditionalist.
 
No worries Brian. I've thought about it due to some new ground where a bit of extra range wouldn't go amiss. I don't want to go to the expense of buying a new rifle, but an easy barrel swap might do it.
 
Hi Bob,
Just found your thread..... yep, I got my HM2 barrel from Richard Pope at Swift Precision.

He had a stainless 16" on the shelf but I went for a blacked one to match the action which took a few weeks to make and proof.

As mentioned above, swapping barrels is simply a matter of taking the action out of the stock, undoing the 2 cross bolts clamping the barrel and changing it for the other. I specifically asked Richard about headspacing and as Bewsher says... it's off the rim so no need for a go/no go gauge. No need to remove the 'scope either.

As for ammo.. I found Henry Kranks advertising some Eley and gave them a ring to find out if there was a shortage or if Eley were ceasing production. They hadn't heard of this.... unless someone knows different. I bought a 1000 from Richard. Less than half the price of HMR!

Accuracy... spot on as you'd expect. Richard's .17 moderator is a cracker too.

One thing I would warn against from bitter experience is over-tightening the cross screws on a Sportsmatch one-piece mount... just gave it that little extra tweak and it cracked the action of my original F'fire along the line of the LH groove forward of the ejection port!! Still... it gave me some spare bits which I part-ex'd with Richard.

There was one with both barrels for sale on here some months ago. That had the stock drilled so the barrels could be swapped without taking the action out.

And I still like the .22.

's me,

Cheers

Fizz
:cool:
 
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Fizz,

Great stuff. Thanks for your help with this.

It sounds like I can give a .17 rim fire cartridge a tray for not too much money.

Cheers,

Bob
 
Hi Bob.
I've just done exactly what you mention, putting a HM2 barrel onto a Sako Finnfire.

What no-one else has mentioned is that you don't really need to go the lengths of a Steve Pope job, nor a headspace gauge . . .

Sako Quad barrels fit into a Finnfire just fine . . . Take the action out of the stock, undo two allen screws and the original barrel will come out easily. Acquire a Quad barrel in HM2, and slide it into the action in place of the original. There a peg which ensures correct orientation for the extractor, you headspace it against the closed bolt and tighten the two allen screws. Easy Peasy and takes all of five minutes to change barrels.

The advantage of having it done professionally is that they'll drill the stock so you don't have to take the action out to undo the two allen-screws. And possibly you get a better barrel than the Quad one. HM2 ammunition is available just fine, though you might consider getting say 1000/1200 rounds on your FAC so you can order a decent quantity in from a gunsmith.

I paid £70 for a second-hand Quad HM2 barrel off another member here and shot a 1.2MOA 10-shot group with it straight-off with a 6x scope. I'm 100% happy with that.

There is quite alot of re-zeroing to go from .22 to HM2. . . 30-odd clicks of elevation on my scope as a starter, so it's not something I'd suggest a realistic in the field unless you make sure you've got the time to re-zero properly.

Hope this helps
​Triffid


Sako_HM2_190413.jpg
 
Let me get this straight.

You have a perfectly good Finfire in 22lr. You are proposing to pull the tube on this very desirable rifle and replace it with a 17HM2, a round that basically died at birth?

Barking. :cuckoo:

You have that right.
I have two or three M2's and none get used. I mean, I can't even remember the last time I put a M2 barrel into my Ruger m77/22. The last time I remember shooting an M2 was test firing my prototype bolt retarding unit for the 10/22 that allowed safe usage of the M2 round in that rifle.

Claims that is shoots flat are true but it gets past 100 yards with less energy than a 22LR 40 grain. I live in wide open, flat country where shots of 15 miles are available if you had the gun. The M2 is a weak sister to a good 40 grain 22LR high speed on open ground. It is the perfect squirrel round, but it is dying a painful, slow death in the States. I believe that no major gun makers here are chambering for it anymore. Once it was learned that it was unsafe to fire in an unmodified Ruger 10/22 it began to die, unable to live up the main task it was designed for.~Muir
 
​is that due to ammo issues? or a mechanical issue?

A little of both. Because of the design of the 10/22, there is a limited amount of resistance to recoil velocity of the cartridge. Because of this, the peak pressure hits when the bolt is open. Cartridge heads blow off and the bolt crashes the action. The current conversion kit to shoot M2 in a 10/22 is a weighted replacement bolt handle offered by E.A. Brown in the US.

The M2 was supposed to be for the 10/22. I have a 10/22 owners manual that lists "10/17" as one of the models the manual covers. It never came to be. ~Muir
 
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