Valmet's Bullpup: The M82
Forgotten Weapons
•
10m
The Valet M82 is a bullpup conversion of the Valmet M76 rifle, originally designed in the hopes of attracting Finnish military interest for paratroopers. These initial military rifles were made with wood stocks and in 7.62x39mm. For a multitude of pretty obvious reasons, this did not work out - but the rifles were sold commercially on the civilian market, mostly to the US. The commercial guns were chambered for the 5.56mm cartridge, and used a urethane stock instead of the original wood. A total of about 2,000 were made and sold between 1982 and 1986, when "assault weapon" importation was cut off. Today they are one of the scarcer Valmet variants, and definitely the strangest.
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Thompson's .30-06 1923 Autorifle: Bli...
This is a Model 1923 Thompson Autoloading Rifle, one of a batch of 20 made by Colt for US military testing in 1924. The system is designed on the same basic Blish principle as the Thompsons submachine gun; the idea that two sliding surfaces will lock solidly together under enough pressure, and no...
-
S&W 1940 Light Rifles: Receiver Break...
Designed in 1939 by S&W engineer Edward Pomeroy, the S&W Light Rifle is an extremely well manufactured but rather poorly thought out carbine. It is a 9mm Parabellum open-bolt, semiautomatic, blowback carbine feeding from 20-round magazines. It was tested by the US military at Aberdeen Proving Gro...
-
Suomi m/31 - Finland's Excellent Subm...
Designed by Aimo Lahti, the Suomi m/31 submachine gun is in my opinion one of the standout submachine guns of the World War Two era. Despite its hefty weight (10.4lb / 4.7kg) and lack of a good pistol grip stock, it still manages to be tremendously controllable and accurate, with a very high rate...