SAKO
SAKO, Limited (Suojeluskuntain Ase- ja Konepaja Oy, Civil Guard Gun- and Machiningworks Ltd) is a Finnish firearm manufacturer located in Riihimäki. It is now owned by the Italian firearms holding company Beretta Holding.
Origins
In 1919, a year after Finland declared independence from the Russian Empire, the Suojeluskuntain Yliesikunnan Asepaja (Civil Guard Supreme Staff Gun Works) opened in a former Helsinki brewery to repair private arms and recondition Russian military rifles for Finnish service. The rifle repair shop became financially independent of the civil guard in 1921. The Suojeluskuntain Yliesikunnan Asepaja moved from Helsinki to an ammunition factory in Riihimäki on 1 June 1927 and reorganized as SAKO in the 1930s. Sako started exporting pistol cartridges to Sweden in the 1930s and continued manufacturing submachinegun cartridges through World War II. The firearms manufacturer Tikkakoski, which owned the Tikka brand, was merged into SAKO in 1983. The Valtion Kivääritehdas (VKT) opened at Tourula, Jyväskylä in 1925 had become a part of Valmet in the 1950s and in 1987, the state-owned Valmet and SAKO fused into SAKO-VALMET, with ownership split evenly between Nokia and Valmet. After several organizational shifts in state ownership, the SAKO name remained for the privately owned gun- and cartridge-producing company located in the cities of Riihimäki and Jyväskylä (former Valmet factory in Tourula, which was later closed). The company now is owned by Beretta Holdings.
