icebear
Sako-addicted
We haven't had any Valmet posts in a while, so I thought I'd post pictures of my Valmet M/76. Actually the gun itself isn't all that rare - all semiauto Valmets are scarce and expensive these days, but in the configuration shown, with fixed wood stock, it's probably one of the less rare Valmet semiautos. The rare item is the magazine, a 100-round Beta Mag with a Tromix Valmet feed tower. There were only about two dozen of these feed towers built, making it possibly the rarest of all Valmet accessories. Sometime in the late 90's or early 2000's, a guy named Tony Rumore in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma was converting East German .223 AK magazines to work in the Valmet 71 and 76 rifles. He built a Beta Mag adapter for himself and then took orders for more of them from Valmet owners. Once he completed the original orders, he stopped making them because they were too much work in relation to what he could sell them for. Tromix is still in business, mostly making large-caliber AR-15 uppers.
The Beta Mag was designed for use with full-auto weapons in special operations where a small number of operators may need to lay down a large volume of fire in a hurry. SOCOM was the original customer and I believe it is still in their inventory. It isn't especially useful on a semi, but it's fun as a range toy and it gets a lot of comments. I have loaded and fired mine and it has been reliable. You need a loader to fill it all the way. Beta doesn't make one that will fit, but a Maglula made for an AK works well. The Beta Mag makes the weapon very heavy and somewhat unwieldy. Beta also makes versions in 7,62x51 NATO and 9mm. Can you imagine the weight of an FAL with a fully loaded 100-round Beta Mag? It would take a gorilla just to lift the thing, let alone fire it accurately in combat. Maybe on an L2A1 SAW.
Here's a shot of the Valmet with the Beta Mag attached.
And here is the same rifle with the standard 30-round Valmet mag
A friend with a Valmet and a Soviet admiral's hat (at least, that's what they said it was at the flea market in Estonia)
And an original Tromix ad. You can't fold the stock with the Beta in place, so I only use mine on the fixed stock gun.
The Beta Mag was designed for use with full-auto weapons in special operations where a small number of operators may need to lay down a large volume of fire in a hurry. SOCOM was the original customer and I believe it is still in their inventory. It isn't especially useful on a semi, but it's fun as a range toy and it gets a lot of comments. I have loaded and fired mine and it has been reliable. You need a loader to fill it all the way. Beta doesn't make one that will fit, but a Maglula made for an AK works well. The Beta Mag makes the weapon very heavy and somewhat unwieldy. Beta also makes versions in 7,62x51 NATO and 9mm. Can you imagine the weight of an FAL with a fully loaded 100-round Beta Mag? It would take a gorilla just to lift the thing, let alone fire it accurately in combat. Maybe on an L2A1 SAW.
Here's a shot of the Valmet with the Beta Mag attached.
And here is the same rifle with the standard 30-round Valmet mag
A friend with a Valmet and a Soviet admiral's hat (at least, that's what they said it was at the flea market in Estonia)
And an original Tromix ad. You can't fold the stock with the Beta in place, so I only use mine on the fixed stock gun.
