Valmet M76 223-

I bought five East German 223 Wieger mags To convert for the rifle.

I tried to convert one last night and one this morning.
An hour and a half or two each of hand filing / test / file / test / file. Mark it with a red marker, slide the bolt, remove material where the red marker is wiped off, repeat repeat repeat. I’m not interested in spending 700 on two original / factory mags. After the second mag was jamming the same way the first one was I even took a cunt hair off the underside of the feed lips to try to raise the nose of the bullet and it still jams, and the second bullet in the mag is shortened / pushed into the case. It sucks cause I have the mag locking in beautifully and I didn’t get excessive removing material anywhere. I filed and tested the fit the whole way.

Not sure if I even want to burning up another $50 into trying a Bulgarian mag or not

Did you look at the pics I posted inside the "Valmet 3D ..." post just below yours? Are your mods basically the same -- you may need more work on the front especially to raise the front edge. Tony Rumore [Tromix] may also have advice if you post pics.

Don

I have browsed many online tutorials over the last month or so and used pics from them, and held my original Valmet mag next to it for a comparison also.

I spent a hell of a lot of time filing these little by little.

It doesnt matter how many rounds are in the mag, itll randomly jam while hand cycling while shortening the bullet under the one it jams on.

the ONLY thing I can think of is maybe I filed it in a way that raises the rear of the mag too much.

Either way Im not a happy camper !

This is how I converted them for my Vepr 5.56

A short blurb on what to do to fit the Weiger magazine to my 5.56 VEPR. I do not know much about the history of the Weiger mags but they are top notch IMHO. I have a few Circle 10 mags which are great but its nice having a mix of quality steel and polymer magazine.

Basically there are two areas that needed a small amount of material removed from to fit the VEPR. The "pads" on the front of the magazine are too wide by .070" total or .035" per side needed to be milled off. There are two spot welds in this area and can be tough on an end mill. I used a carbide end mill and it cut easily. You can see the welds clearly once its milled down.



Clamped secure~





Once the pads were reduced in size the magazine could be inserted but still not lock in place. The rear face above the magazine catch made contact with the receiver. You can color it up with a Sharpie marker and see the contact point/s. My mags needed  .025"~.035" removed to allow the mag to lock in place. I used a hand file with a non cutting safe edge and did this the good old fashioned way.





Now that my mags fit they have a few bald spots of bare steel.....

Rustoleum appliance epoxy (black, duh) sprayed on steel Weiger magazines. Let dry overnight and baked in the oven @ 400 F for one hour. You can definitely see how much shine the epoxy has air dried without heat cure ( bake ) then the change after baking. The stuff sticks to everything it touches....

Air dried overnight BEFORE baking, you can see the reflection off the painted surface~



Baking one hour @ 400 F yields a nice satin finish~

Sorry you went through that much trouble and still have no functioning mags.  I had exact same issue with Weiger mags, after screwing around with 2 for a day, ended up using Bulgarian Circle 10 556 mags and told myself after that I should have gone this route first.

Stop using Bulgarian, East German and Galil mags. The only way to go is Yugo M85/M95 5.56 mags. The feed angle is correct and they need very little fitting. Less then 15 minutes with a hand file and about 5 minutes on a Bridgeport. They fit the full size 7.63x39 magwell just like Valmet mags. I have converted over 200 of them and only 1 didnt fit.

Where are they available except gunbroker?   Need a working mag for the Valmet I am looking at.

Thanks

Details?
I assume hand file on the front and rear lugs and Bridgeport on the sides to thin the side plates?

@Teamafx
We'd love to see some pics and info on the mods you are doing to these Yugo M85 mags to fit in 5.56mm Valmets.
Please and thank you!

When I get some time I will post some pics. Its only the front and rear tabs. Very little work. Nothing on the sides. And best of all, unlike the others it doesn't move side to side and DOES have the correct feed angle.

If you do a search there are pics of how its done. I posted pics of all of it about 20 years ago. To bad I no longer have them and will have to take more pics.

I made a new one just to take pics of it. I can take more pics if needed. Very easy to do.

On the front of the mag you just have to remove a little at the top.

On the catch at the rear you only have to change the angel a slight bit.

Huge thanks for the pics.   Now to find a few and get them converted.

Thanks Teamafx for the great post!
That definitely looks like an easier conversion than many other mags that have been attempted. Good to hear that the feed angle looks correct as well.
A friend just gave me nine of these mags a few days ago and I was wondering whether they would work in my Valmets.  
This could be great news for Valmet owners.

Interestingly enough my Tromix converted Bulgarian and E German mags fit and function fine in my Yugo M85, albeit a bit looser in the mag well.

At one point, Yugo M85 mags were $7.99 ea at JG Sales when Zastava stopped importing the M85PV and switched to the M85NP that took AR mags.

Zastava USA have recently announced that they will be bringing back the original M85PV with the original mags, so hopefully there will be a source for new mags soon.

Thanks for the detailed pics!  I didn't even know about these Yugo M85 magazines!

Did anyone save the pictures from Teamafx? I’d like to see them, but they aren’t showing.

I have some m85 mags for sale in the EE if anyone needs some.

James