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Valmet Petra

About the Valmet

The company Valmet has produced almost everything throughout history; church bells, trains, underwear, washing machines, ammunition, ships, paper machines, tractor machines, computers and aircraft. The name of the company comes from several metal workshops owned by the Finnish state, which were merged to form the Valtion Metallitehtaat (English: State Metalworks), abbreviated as ValMet.

The company’s engineering industry flourished at the start of the 20th century thanks to Russia’s military reparation orders because of the Russo-Japanese War and soon after because of the needs of the World War I. In 1986, Valmet's gun manufacturing unit in Jyväskylä was transferred under Sako-Valmet Oy, which was later renamed to Sako Oy. The old company’s gun manufacturing unit is owned by the Italian gun manufacturer Beretta since 2000, while the rest of the Valmet Corporation got restructured in 2013 and is now focused on pulp and paper production.

Valmet Petra Rifle Review

Valmet Petra, Petra meaning "deer" in old Finnish is also sometimes called Hunter or M88. It was manufactured from 1983 till early 1990s. It is a semi-automatic gas-operated rifle, based on Finnish RK 62/72 assault rifles. All of these rifles are based on Kalashnikov, which is very reliable and durable.

The gas system can be shut off by removing the locking screw and that enables the rifle to be used as a hand-cocked single-shot weapon, which means the rifle can be used in competitions, where the use of semi-automatic weapons is not allowed. It is chambered for .223 Rem, .243 Win, .308 Win and .30-06 Springfield. In addition to the pre-installed hinged sights, the rifle also has a 12 mm dovetail with a transverse recoil notch, which enables attachment of scopes.

Valmet Petra

Source:https://www.wolverinesupplies.com/ProductDetail/VALUHUNTER308_-Valmet-Petra-Hunter--308win-Iron-Sights-Wood-Stock-

Valmet Petra

Source:https://www.gunbroker.com/item/889592762

Which rifles have interchangeable mounts

  • Valmet 412S
  • Tikka 412S, 512S
  • Marocchi FinnClassic 512S, 612S
  • Steyr Mannlicher Duett
  • Haenel Jaeger 9
  • Brno Combo, Express
  • Baikal IZH 18 MH

This means if one of the rifle mounts is named for one of the rifles mentioned in the list, it will fit others as well.

Our recommendation for mounts

Fixed mounts:

One of the most appropriate fixed mounts would be this Kozap mount, as it is placed in the perfect price range for this rifle.

Detachable repeatable mounts:

The price of this INNOmount is somewhere in the middle, but an advantage compared to other detachable mounts is clamping mechanism, which ensures better repeatability.

Picatinny rails:

We would recommend MAKipp Picatinny rail, as it is one of the few that would fit this rifle.

Help us build our riflescope mounts database

If you have this rifle or any other rifle at home, we would really appreciate it if you could send us some photos of the rifle receiver (mounting surface of the rifle when there are no mounts installed), because it would help us expand our rifle mounts database. If you send us a photo of rifle receiver which we don’t already have, that would be of great value to us and we will definitely reward you for your help.

Please send us an email for more information. You can contact us here: info@optics-trade.eu

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VIDEO

Introduction

In recent years we can observe that a trend of Picatinny rail has become widespread and global. It is driven by the NATO standardized rails, more commonly known as the Picatinny rail standard. Picatinny rail being the New Jersey Arsenal that developed it in 1995.

These mounting options are revolutionary. The biggest and best advantage being that the Picatinny rail can be used its entire length and not bordered to a few pre-designed slots like for example the Weaver rail standard was before.

The other main advantage is the ease of use and interchangeability. If a product is meant for a Picatinny rail design it will fit all Picatinny-rails, no matter the manufacturer or date of production.

Picatinny/Weaver Rail

Picatinny Rail and Weaver rail profile

Design

The Picatinny rail is almost exclusively crafted from a single piece of metal (in some cases aluminum). In this manner, the axis of the Picatinny rail is perfectly straight and aligned with the axis of the firearm. Therefore the rifle scope which is mounted onto this kind of configuration is certainly aligned with the rifle / gun and the trajectory of the ammunition.

Weaver rail design on the other hand is usually manufactured in two separate pieces, greatly increasing the possibilities for the axis to be crooked, overlapping, and out of line.

It is always harder to align two separate pieces to a third line than it is to align one piece to another. In this way, the lapping of two mounting rings on a single-piece Picatinny rail is no longer required.

The single-piece rail will assure that both rings are perfectly aligned to each other and that no unwished stress is transferred to the riflescope.  

Picatinny compare to Weaver Rail

The Picatinny rail itself is an evolutionary step forward from the older Weaver rail. The main difference between Picatinny rail and Weaver rail is the spacing of the slots. Picatinny rail design has them evenly placed exactly 5.23 mm from one slot to the other, 3 mm deep. For this reason, the mounting options are repeatable and the same as other firearms using the Picatinny rail standard.

Interchangeability was a major driving force in the development of the new standard as different NATO armies need to be compatible with each other.

Weaver rail has 3.8mm wide slots and these slots can be placed anywhere on the Weaver rail and in any number that the producer wished.

Advantages of Picatinny design

A big advantage for using the Picatinny rail design is the ever-present recoil stop. Furthermore, the manufacturing of the rail is not very technically demanding and can be done without the use of state-of-the-art machines which greatly reduces the cost of the finished product, making it very affordable.

The Picatinny rail is easy to mount and usually, this type of configuration does not transfer negative stresses and forces from the fired weapon to the rifle scope.

In addition, the Picatinny rail with its very long useable surface works well for mounting longer rifle scopes or to achieve optimum eye relief.

The durability and toughness are other big pluses for this solution.

Manufacturers of Popular Models

A majority of the Picatinny rings are fixed, but a number of best rated European manufacturers (EAW, MAK,..) have, in recent years, put a lot of effort into the development of detachable ring with100% repeatability, with which it becomes easy to remove the scope from the weapon without the use of tools.

No re-zeroing is needed with such mount options, but these models tend to be expensive

Weaver and Picatinny Rings

Picatinny rail and weaver rail share one more thing. It is possible to use the Weaver ring and the Picatinny ring on the Picatinny-rails, but it is usually impossible to use the Picatinny ring on the Weaver base. The reason being the above-mentioned positioning and spacing of the slots.

  • Picatinny mounts have a 5mm recoil stop that goes into the rail slot and since
  • Weaver rail only has 3.8mm wide slots such rings do not fit on Weaver rails.

Due to this reason, the Picatinny-rails are popular and prevailing on the market in recent years and eventually, these options will completely oust the Weaver rail from the market.