“If a rifle functions here, it will function anywhere,” says Sako General Manager Juha Alhonoja. “Designing and stress-testing for Arctic conditions is where our design begins.” Outside there’s a light snow falling. We’re sitting in a warm meeting room that feels more like an upmarket hunting lodge than a factory office. Rifles line the walls, and there’s hot coffee, cake and chocolate on the table.

That starting point where design begins is shaped by the experience of the engineers who live and work here, Alhonoja says. “If you are not from here, it would be really hard to understand what the product actually has to go through when it’s put into the field.”

Precision and reliability are what Sako is known for globally through its two brands Tikka and Sako, but how they achieve this is less easy to explain. Some of it comes down to decades of gathered knowledge, and some of it is deliberately kept in-house. “Of course there are trade secrets,” Alhonoja says. “That’s part of understanding how to make our rifles work the way they do.”

Combining automation and craft

Much of this know-how begins in the gun barrel. “When it comes to accuracy, it’s really in the barrel,” says Miikka Tamminen, Sako’s VP of Research and Development. While hammer forging is used across the industry in barrel manufacturing, Sako does it in its own way, using their own in-tools and methods.

As Tamminen explains, the process starts with a solid steel bar. A straight hole is drilled through it, smoothed, and then shaped by hammering rather than cutting, which presses the internal twist into the metal to give the bullet its stability. Each barrel is checked by hand.

A company shaped by survival

This attention to detail has evolved from Sako’s history. Founded in 1921 in the years following Finland’s independence, the company began byrepairing firearms for the Civil Guard. After World War II, it survived a period of upheaval under the ownership of the Finnish Red Cross, remaining in Riihimäki, and keeping its design, manufacturing and expertise anchored in one place.

Today, Sako employs around 400 people in Finland and produces roughly 135,000 rifles a year, as well as ammunition. Since 2000, it has been owned by Italy’s Beretta Holding Group, active in Northern Italy since 1526, and the world’s oldest family-owned industrial company. Being one of more than 20 brands in the Beretta portfolio, which Forbes valued at $2.2 billion in 2025, has brought Sako global scale and marketing strength.

“Our Italian owners are very strong on the marketing side, while we bring the Arctic engineering know-how,” Alhonoja says.

The global market for small arms is very competitive, with major manufacturers such as FN Herstal, Heckler & Koch and SIG Sauer operating in the U.S. and Central Europe across military and civilian sectors. However, within the Nordic region there are relatively few large-scale producers, which gives Sako a solid regional foothold as defense cooperation among northern countries continues to ramp up.

Cold is manageable but not moisture

In the High North, cold alone is not the problem; it’s the moisture. Temperatures can fall below  –35°C (–31°F), but it’s when snow melts and freezes that weapons are most likely to fail.

“The real problem is not when you are out in the cold,” Tamminen says. “It’s going from the cold into warm and then back into cold. That’s the worst for equipment.” Melting snow can seep into the machinery then freeze, over and over. “There is no weapon that wouldn’t go to ice then,” Tamminen asserts. “So it’s more a question of how quickly you can make it operational again, and how easily.”

As a result, Arctic weapon design is less about radical new forms and more about what Tamminen calls “obsessive attention to detail.” That means carefully setting tolerances, or how much space moving parts have to expand or contract, and watching closely where water can collect and how components behave when ice inevitably forms. Parts can’t be too tight or too loose, and are designed to minimize jamming from ice and slush. “We pay particular attention to the firing mechanism, the bolt and the trigger because these are the most vulnerable to freezing.” Tamminen explains

Here in Riihimäki  the design and manufacturing still sit side by side, allowing ideas to move quickly from drawing board to workshop and back again. We’ve moved over to the factory floor, where we can see robots work alongside humans, underscoring how much craftmanship still sits together with automation.

At the end of the production line, down a flight of stairs, every finished rifle is taken to an underground range for test-firing. They are first fired inside a sealed high-pressure steel box, using ammunition loaded to 25 per cent above standard levels. “This is to check that nothing cracks, shifts or fails before being passed to a human shooter,” Tamminen says. Accuracy is tested at a 100-meter range, where the shots must land within a cluster no bigger than a two-euro coin, roughly the same size as a U.S. dollar coin.

War, deterrence and responsibility

Today, Sako operates across both civilian and defence markets. The launch of the company’s newest military platform, ARG – the Arctic Rifle Generation – marks a return to assault rifles. While the war in Ukraine and Finland’s NATO membership have accelerated demand, Sako’s move back into assault rifle development began earlier. Military and law enforcement now account for roughly one-third of the company’s business, a share expected to grow.

“We never fully left military manufacturing while expanding our hunting and sport-shooting lines, Alhonoja says, “and the underlying principles stay the same.” For Sako, defense is framed less as aggression and more as responsibility. “We are very proud of our roots and our legacy of making high-quality products also for our authorities — the police, border control and the military. That is part of our resilience, protecting our society.”

That responsibility goes beyond just security. The company’s identity has been shaped as much by hunting and outdoor life as by military contracts. “That brings with it a strong connection with nature and we are very enthusiastic when it comes to protecting our environment.” Alhonoja says.

Article published in Arctic Today Magazine, By Laurel Colless.