A former Air Force Service Rifle Champion and Olympic Trials competitor from back in the early 1960's donated his 1952 Valmet Model 45 to our junior precision small-bore program. An old, cut-down club rifle he bought for $25, he thought the barrel was shot out.

Turns out all it needed was a new crown, although we cut the barrel to 500mm and added weight to the buttplate so as to bring the rifle's balance to the front of the receiver ring to match our Annies.

It's still too heavy (13lbs 14oz) for our juniors and looks like a barking dog, this old dog can still stand up and sing.

Is that a Unertl Programmer 20 you're using for your bench testing? I once had one I could never get the parallex adjustment to work right on and ended up selling. Obviously you did not have that problem, or overcame it.

How was the crown damaged and how did you resolve the problem?

The parallax adjustment is stiff, making it a pain to change ranges, but as it's rarely used for anything other than 50 and a hundred yard testing, it's no big deal. I like it because, besides good optics and tough construction, it's compact and fits well in a case.

Interesting setup. Are you using the standard rifle barreled action in the free rifle stock? My 1413 barrel would not fit in a 1407 stock, if I recall correctly. What is the device mounted on the receiver?

I used to carry two 1407's around in the same case, one with iron sights and one with a scope. I have to confess that after years of shooting with external adjustment scopes, I finally switched to a Redfield 6400. I don't shoot smallbore any more, or for that matter competitively, and all my smallbore match rifles have gone on to other owners.

The 1413 barrel fits the standard-rifle stock, the idea being to have the rifle do multiple duty in Metallic Silhouette and Schuetzenfest (100-yard offhand) matches. But the rifle less scope is currently loaned out to a promising junior and I haven't got around to working on that stock.

The barreled action has sight-riser blocks mounted to aid in keeping the head upright and eyes level.

Looking at that old Valmet brings back fond memories. My first smallbore target gun was on of those with the Valmet sights. I "upgraded" to a Walther GX-1, which I shot no better than the Valmet!

In spite of my best efforts, the Valmet is still too heavy for our juniors who don't already own their own rifle, and with the donor's permission we are selling it to use the proceeds for another Annie. It can be found on Gunbroker.