• How I came to buy the gun: TRG-21
• My experiences with the TRG-41
• Technical facts
• Additional features
• Factory loads
• Handloads

Our use of the gun is purely civic; therefore, tactical considerations don't play a role here nor is it necessary to take military or police requirements into consideration.

Three friends had bought SAKO TRG 21's in .308Win, all black, with muzzle brake, bipod, and scope. Nice looking guns! Now - a nice looking gun is not what we were looking for; we wanted performance. To make a long story short, the TRG21 delivered what was promised: one-hole accuracy at 100m (8mm spread!). That's good! Everybody was impressed by the clean and excellent build of everything. The action was smoooth, no rattling, just perfect. Technical details follow below. Since our guns were that precise, we decided to practice 300m shooting. We did this with the gun rested on sand-bags. Kind of bench rest shooting, but not quite that serious.

I decided to buy the TRG-41 in .300WinMag. I wanted to have a magnum gun. I thought, if the TRG 21 in .308Win is that precise, the .300WinMag would be similar, but results from other brands were generally worse, according to the data available to me.

However, my pleasure about my new gun didn't last very long. My first test at the range was less than satisfying, with groups ranging from 2MOA to worse. After a lot of testing, I could verify that my scope was faulty indeed and so I had it fixed.

With the fixed scope newly mounted, again I went to the range. I had prepared a bunch of handloads with different bullet-weights (190gr, 200gr, 220gr), and different powder-measures. I intended to find my very best handload.

Surprise: around 1 MOA and worse (up to 2MOA), whatever load I shot with. This was UNEXPECTED. Talking things over with different people, the phenomenon was attributed to the .300WinMag cartridge, as this cartridge was considered less precise than the .308Win. My reasoning was different. I thought that SAKO would not sell a precision rifle that can easily be upped by any other type of gun.

So I decided to have the gun checked by my dealer. He would test the gun with various factory loads, and, if not satisfied, would send the gun back to SAKO. The first test proved my findings; however, we decided to give it another try, this time without the muzzle-break.

Meanwhile, I surfed the 'Net and found a table with SAKO cartridges on the SAKO homepage. Luckily, there was a cartridge in .300WinMag, and - surprise - this cartridge sported a 168gr-bullet.

Okay. I quickly handloaded some cartridges with that bullet (also with 180gr) and took that ammo to my gunsmith.

Just 2 days before the second test was performed, I also talked with a SAKO representative, and he suggested I send the gun back, and they check it and replace the barrel if it shoots that badly.

SURPRISE! After the second test, with the 168gr-bullet, the gunsmith produced ONE hole at 100m with 5 rounds!! I could have saved me lots of desperation and thinking and cursing had I experimented with a variety of bullet weights OR had looked at the ammunitions table earlier. And - if I wouldn't insist on having a really tight group, 1MOA is not bad. But my expectations were around 1/4MOA, and this I finally could achieve :-)) As I see it now, the gun is excellent, as expected. What remains to be seen is: how will the gun perform if numerous rounds are fired and the barrel really heats up?

Let me now stick to the facts and give you some technical data as shown in the manual:
(?) indicate that this data was not taken from the manual. Unfortunately, the manual gives the data for all calibers except the .300WinMag. Some I could verify with a vendor, others not, but the given numbers are equal to the TRG-21 for all other calibers, so they are probably valid for the .300WinMag, too.

I give data I found in publications. I have included it only, when the spread was given too, or, in the case of SAKO to show its factory cartridges available.

Handloads taken from different sources, or worked up by me and other handloaders of our club. These data are for information only. Use at your own peril!
For reference I have included some data of the factory load of Sako. Sako gives the powder it uses!