Anybody else here like the Savage/Valmets?

Don't see much about them here, but thought I'd ask.

I got introduced to Valmet back in one of our periodic "downturns in the economy" in the mid-1980s. My wife and I were working for a public university when the state's economy crashed due to a the combination of very high interest rates and sluggish growth. We both "read the tea leaves" and knew that we would both likely not get new contracts when ours ran out. I had most of my year left, so I told her to find a good job someplace nice and I'd finish my contract and move me and the kids to that nice place and find work.

She moved to the University of Vermont, a very nice place but a long way from Moscow, Idaho! By the time I got there, we needed cash to put down on a house, and didn't have any--our house in ID wasn't selling. So we sold everything we had that was liquid--her family jewelery, our first edition and classic jazz collection, and 20+ years of guns I'd collected. Got a really nice little house, but I had exactly three guns left: a Winchester single shot .410 (my first gun), a Winchester '92 .25-20 that my granfather had given me, and a Colt .44-40 New Service that I'd inherited from my other grandfather. Hunted my first small game/bird season in Vermont with the .410; had fun, but not a lot of meat.

My wife remembered that I'd admired a Savage/Valmet 330 a friend used for birds in Eastern Washington, so when we got back on our feet financially (almost), she asked a local dealer if he could find a Valmet shotgun for a gift. He found an old pre-Savage import Valmet "Lion" 12 guage O/U at a bargain price that has a stock of Turkish walnut that looks more like rosewood. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed to find it on the dinner table one night when I returned from work.

I've used that gun, which fit me perfectly, all the seasons since then and use it still--last gun I'd get rid of.

Since then I've become a Savage/Valmet nut and have 4 of them--a 330 30" 12 Magnum, a 333 26" 12 guage Skeet, and Model 2400 combination guns in 12ga.over .308 WCF and 12 ga. over .222 Rem, plus the "Lion." My younger son shoots a regular 2 3/4" 12 guage 330 as well.

Anybody else like these Savage imports????

Had a shot at a pair of 330's last year but the seller backed out at the last minute, guess he thought he could do better. Actually I know the tool screwed me over cause I already had them transferred in my name and all of a sudden he cancels it so I'm pretty sure someone else made him a better offer.

I was just looking at a Lion the other day on auction and I thought right away it was a 333 because it had the rib on top of the barrel but the description said Lion. So now you've clarified to me that the Lion was an earlier offering from Valmet and when Savage ordered them they more or less just changed the name on the same gun.

Still looking for a 330. I've got a sweet Savage 430 in 20 ga right now, a Savage 242 410 and a raft of Savage 220's in 28, 20 and 16 ga but another nice O/U 12 ga would fill the gauges perfectly. I know Stevens offered one of their 94's in 10 ga but I already have a Browning BPS 10 ga for turkey season so a single shot just doesn't fit the bill for me.

yeah, Mad Dog, I like the 220/219s, too and have a couple that I found (after selling a bunch in the house deal). Typical Savages; they work.

The "Lion" ("Leijona" in Finnish) isn't quite like a 333, just looks like it. They were imported by Sloans in the 1960s and some had an aluminum Polychoke rib added after they got to the US--it isn't as nice a rib as the steel Valmet-made one on the 333. They have a somewhat different receiver than the 333; their barrels interchange with the 330 but not the stock and other parts. And they don't have ejectors like a 333, so their forends don't interchange with a 333 forend either.

One problem with all these guns is that they don't come on the market very often--people that have them KEEP them! I was able to buy a near-mint 330 26" 12 guage for my Marine son last year because the dealer saw "Savage" on the barrel and figured it was either a Stevens or Turkish-made, so let it go for less than the usual Richifornia/OC prices we usually see on any gun that isn't a lump of rust (even on some of those).

The Valmet O/U was designed by a Czech exile in France right after WWI. When the French patent ran out in 1932, Remington picked it up as their Model 32. That died with WWII and the design was picked up postwar by the Finns and by the German firm of Heinrich Kreighoff (HK). HK makes mainly trap guns on it, very expensive.

Valmet redesigned the 32 to be as simple as possible and to work, and be able to be worked, in VERY cold weather. Having lived all my working life and much of my hunting life in cold climates (Wisconsin, Northern ID, Vermont, upstate NYS), I really appreciate that design. Like the American-made Savages, they were made for ordinary shooters and hunters, and they work.

Only downsides I can see to these is that they are fairly heavy-for-guage, especially the 20s, and the 330s have factory wood that is all over the place in quality, from exhibition Turkish walnut to gray/blonde "pallet grade." The blonde wood is light, which might be seen as offsetting its ugliness, but it is also weak and the small of the stock tends to split at the place where the impressed "checkering" die crunched it (I have seen this on a 20 guage 333, too).

To further belabor this obsession, I'd be interested to hear from anybody that has or knows of a Valmet or Savage/Valmet double that has double triggers, or is in any guage other than 12 2 3/4", 12 3" Magnum (NOT common), or 20 3" Magnum.

I know Valmet made O/Us in 16 guage, but have never seen one. I've seen ONE double triggered Valmet (a 12), an early model like the "Lion," but with a model number instead of a name. It was apparently made for the Scandinavian market only.