Hey, guys! Thank you for tuning in to another episode of InRange
This is probably, maybe, the most highly awaited video
...of our entire InRangeTV career.
- Sure - Let's just say that
Ever since we did the now infamous AKM
...mud test, an AR15 mud test, the original ones, we revisited
...the ARs with Vietnam era Colt SP1 - Yup
- And proved the AR to function as we expected it would
...and we are now out here with an AK74 which is a Bulgarian
...Arsenal SLR104 - Awesome freakin' AK
- Awesome one. This is the one I won the Red October
...Light Category with, so this is that rifle. And you have
...what is maybe the most
...well manufactured AK variant there is - Of all time!
A Valmet M76 - Yes - A Finnish gun!
So, you know what? Someone out there's gonna say these are fake AKs...
...but, you know what, they're also on the higher end of the fake AK line
So, we'll go with that - So, that's where this comes from...
...is when we did the first AK Mud Test, we were doing it with a Romanian...
A Romanian parts kit built in the US - Uh huh
- And continue to maintain that this...
...makes absolutely no difference to how the gun performs
It just doesn't. AK is...
...an AK, is an AK, is an AK. However...
...of the 1.8 million people...
...who have currently watched that video, I think about 1.7 million
...of them have made comments about how we're not using
...the "right" AK, and if we use the right AK, it would work
...great. And usually the "right" means
...Russian. - It means whatever their particular
...proclivity is towards. For example, we see comments
"That's crap, it's Chinese." Well obviously you haven't watched the video because we said it was Romanian
Then someone would say, "Why didn't you use a quality Chinese one?"
So, one quote away, or one comment away
...one guy is saying that Chinese is the quintessential quality AK
And then one comment down, someone's calling the test we did erroneously
...a crap Chinese AK - Now here's the thing, we don't have access...
...to a Russian AK. Not a military one
We could get a Russian commercial AK: it's called a Saiga
Pretty easily available here. Uhm, but I'm sure
...a lot of people would tell us that is commercial and therefore crap
Again, it is an AK; it's all gonna be the same, I suspect
- However, in the US market, the Bulgarian Arsenal guns are considered
...on the high-end, and the Finnish Valmet... - Yeah - My God. And here's the more important thing
This reputation that the AK
...has managed to get as being this unstoppable
...behemoth of a gun, comes from
...all of the places where the AK is used in combat, and not many
...of those actually use Russian guns. If you look at
North Africa, if you look at Vietnam, if you look at the Middle East
If you look at everywhere that combatants have been using
...AKs, they're mostly, probably the most common ones
...are Chinese, Hungarian, Romanian
Some Russian
But usually those guns are coming from
...other Warsaw Pact states
...that were exporting guns for profit, not Russian
So, the idea that the Russian gun
...is the one that everything should be based on
...even if we accept that the Russian is somehow better than
...the others, which I don't accept, it still doesn't make
...sense because the Russian gun is not the one that built the reputation
- Fair enough. Now we do have some differences here
This is a '74, which is in 5.45 mm. And we have seen
...for example, with the G3 series of rifle that
...the .308 doesn't do quite well as the 5.56 mm, and we guessed
...that it might have something to do with bolt velocity
Now, bolt velocity in a delayed roller gun isn't really the same thing
...as the bolt velocity in an AK variant, but who knows, maybe
...the 5.45 gun or the 5.56 Valmet
- Yup, this is a 5.56, using good brass-cased
...ammo, it's not underpowered steel. - And I'm using, of course
...the appropriate crap steel 5.45 because that's what you use
...in a 5.45 gun. - Right.
- And I'll tell you, there's one lesson I did learn from our AK and AR15
...series of videos. And it's not whether one will work or not
I've learned that the general audience that watches this content has an
...irrational, emotional attachment to a mechanical device
...and that they quantify devices, and think that
...devices are more important than skill - Or anything else
- Or anything else. The point is, and I've done a lot
...of stuff, competition shooting with ARs, AKs, every variant of everything
...you can think of, and the reality is shooter skill trumps all
...to a point, an AK and an AR can both keep up
...and the reality is you need to stop having an emotional
...attachment to a gun, and have a more emotional attachment
...to your own skill set. - Yes - But that's neither
...here nor there, that's a different video, let's get going with the Mud Test - Yeah!
All right, we're gonna do them both! Karl, you're up first with the '74
- Let's do it!
- Ready - All right, so we're gonna
...go ahead and fire a couple of rounds clean
...to make sure that the gun works. Now we know this works because I rolled in Red October in it
...but let's see what happens.
As expected, five rounds, not a surprise
Let's go ahead and do our thing
Arsenal Bulgrian gun, guys!
Oh, Russian plum magazines, too. Not crap
...mags. Russian plum.
That's bad
It shouldn't matter, but we get both sides
[mud noises]
- Nothing says "fun" like digging mud out of a Russian scope mount
- Oh, God! I didn't even think of that. All right, here we go!
Safety's off!
Pretty good! Pretty good, now - Pretty good
- A lot of mud in there - There is, and that was surprisingly good
...result. Now, this is one of the things that's interesting
We can remud it with the dust cover closed
Or we could do what we did with the AR-15 which was we tested it first
...with the cover closed, then with the cover open
Let's go ahead and do one more time with the cover closed to be very thorough
...and then we go to what is got to be an inevitable
...failure, but let's find out.
[more mud noises]
Let's just go - I don't think there's any need to do it on the other side
- Okay. One failure
Failure to go into battery. I'm gonna run the action
Ejected a round
Not in battery
Run a round - No, I cannot - Can you push it forward?
Failure to eject
Now we're in battery
Except we did not feed a round
We're not feeding
All right, I'm gonna take that first round out
Clean some of that off. You see that? - Yup
- Okay, I'm gonna put it back in
- Whoa - Failure to feed!
Failure to eject!
Stuck chamber
All right, I'm gonna mortar this
Got it out
I'm gonna try to run the action without a mag in it
...trying to clear some of this out with my finger
That looks better
Grab the mag
Insert
Not in battery!
And we're stuck!
- Switch to your other mag? - I'm gonna switch to the other mag after I mortar this
All right, I do have a clean mag in my kit here
Just for these contingencies, guys
Russian always comes prepared, right?
Not in battery
It's not the mag
All right, I'm gonna try to clean some of this out
I'm just doing it with my hands
We're going into battery without a round
See that? - Okay - Yup
Clean mag, clean ammunition
No, something must be in the chamber
Let's open this up
Yeah, all right
I'm gonna keep trying - You got one more try and then, definitely
...something is in the chamber
Yeah, something's preventing the rounds from fully seating
- We are done!
This did better than the 7.62x39 mm Romanian
...AK. However, this is an SLR104
...in 5.45, one of the top of the line AKs in the United States
Bulgarian gun, and while we did get through
...the very first iteration of the mud test, when we remudded it again with
...the dust cover closed, not open, failure!
Very similar
...actually, a little worse than the 7.62x39
I can't even beat it into battery. Something's in here, we're done!
What happens is, just like with the 7.62x39 Romanian gun
...once mud gets into
...these locking lug recesses, or on the bolt
Or in this action here, you're done. The gun's done.
And this open action of the AK has a proclivity to allowing that stuff
...to get into the action.
Let's go ahead and go on to the fabled, and what should be
...best quality possible Finnish Valmet
- What kind of man would willingly dump his awesome
...Valmet in the mud? Well, I would apparently
Run a few rounds just to show that it, in fact, functions
The Valmet, of course it functions. Safety on!
And--here we go
I'm sorry, Finland!
This side shouldn't matter, but
...we'll do it, anyway
Okay, I don't need to rock test it!
All right!
So far, so good! - Let's do a second run - Pretty good!
Safety still engaged!
[gun meets wheelbarrow]
The safety on the Valmet is definitely stiffer
...than most AK's I've shot. I suspect it is
...a little bit of a tighter seal.
Now I'm having the same problem. It took a little longer to get there
What are we at, eight rounds now, I think? - I believe so
- All right, so I can see
...that there's mud on the face of the chamber there
- Not in battery. - Wow, that's identical! - No
- Huh, it's almost like they're the same gun
- The same design, even almost the same cartridge
Because 5.45, you know, 7.62x39, well that's different
But 5.45, 5.56 both small bore catridges
- All right, so what's going on here, and I don't know there's
...any way to see it, for you guys - Turn it this way
The other way. There we go - Well, it is, this locking lug
...recess down here has mud in it
- Okay, can you clean it out? - So, I'm gonna try. The one up here
...is fine. It's the one down in the bottom that
...isn't.
I'm trying not to smash more in there
- Let it go into battery without a round - Oh, that's, yeah
- Yes
Okay - All right
The magazine's actually pretty good
- That is identical to the Bulgarian
...SLR104 - It is
- It will not chamber a round
It'll close without a round
- Try it again? - Yeah
Nope?
- I'm trying to wipe off everything that I can access here
You know, the fact that it will
...close...
...without a cartridge, makes me think that what
...we've done is get something up inside the chamber
- That is identical!
-Yeah
All right, so it went through
...the first set, and then either three or four rounds, I kind of
...lost count on the second before it's toast. And that's with
...the dust cover closed both times
- All right, so here's the thing, it did better than that
...Romanian 7.62x39 gun
But I don't think it's because it was Romanian
I think it's because it's a 7.62x39 gun and we saw a little bit of difference here
I think both this gun and obviously the Valmet
...the dust cover seals up a little tighter than it did on that Romanian gun
- Yeah - I think the fit and finish
...if there is such a thing on an AK, of the dust cover
...safety and the way it relates to the receiver
...and the bolt carrier makes a difference. And this is
...a little tighter than it was on the Romanian gun and the Valmet is extremely
...tight compared to this gun. So once again, we learned the same lesson
...we've learned over and over and over again
It's not about if mud gets into the gun, will it work?
It's if can you prevent the mud from getting into the gun -Right, once
...it gets in, it will fail. - One way or another - Yes
And we did see a little bit of a different failure mode on these
...with mud getting into the locking lugs in the chamber - Uh huh
-...killing it, which that will kill it on any gun
Where on the Romanian, much faster
...we got enough mud to
...induce enough friction on the bolt carrier to prevent it from cycling
- Exactly, and that's probably because of that fit and finish
...for the clearances between the safety
...the dust cover, and the bolt carrier group
I think on the Romanian gun we got some dirt in this action here
And that's what retarding the bolt
...in it's cycling path. People thought it was a weak spring, I don't think it's a weak spring
I think it was just getting retarded by dirt, since less of it
...got in, actually, now that we say that
Yeah, see, look at that! - Almost none got in the back
- Nothing got in the rear, very little inside
...the actual dust cover, you look here
That's what that was. It wasn't the spring on the Romanian gun
It allowed more of it to get into the rear
...of the action beneath the bolt carrier group. So we got
...a couple extra rounds out of this before the Romanian gun died
...but once the dirt get in here with wet mud
...once it got in this action here, we were done
And both guns, the 5.45 and 5.56
...failed identically! - Yeah, that was really interesting
- It was interesting. Neither one would go into complete battery
...and in a couple of situations, even though I pulled the mag and ran the action
...I couldn't get the round, the round was stuck in the chamber. So I think
...some of the mud got on the round or into the chamber itself. - Yup, I agree
- But, interesting, that two "small bore" AK variants, both
...failed the same way
- I suspect if the Romanian had been able to survive
...as long, it would have that same issue. - Probably, but
...we didn't get there. Now with the Romanian we were able to consistently shove it into
...battery by hitting it with my palm - True
- I couldn't do that with this. Hitting this was no go
Yeah, hitting it was like hitting a rock wall: it wasn't moving into battery
So, I'm not gonna call this a failure, I think this did
...fairly well - Yeah, I'm actually a little surprised
I thought it would basically have the exact same
...performance as the Romanian gun - So it was better
...than the Romanian, but it still wasn't stellar
We've had guns that have done better. The ARs did better. The ARs
...frankly, just succeed. The Luger
...did really well. The CETME-L did really well. Although the AKs did
...this, the AK-74
...the AK-74 and the Valmet, I would say, did admirably
- Yeah, anything that survives more than one or two rounds
...with that is pretty darn good. - And honestly even the AKM from Romania
...wasn't a complete failure. The gun continued to work in an almost manual
...fashion. But we did something different we didn't do with the Romanian which was let it dry
And I think that puts us in an interesting situation in which
...wet mud and dry dirt is a different problem
- Very much. - What about sand? - Which means
- I wonder what about sand? You know
...maybe it's time to move into sand test.
- Yeah, that'd be interesting - Well, maybe, let's think about it
I don't know, bring it home. All right, uh
- If you enjoyed this content and own a Valmet
...don't butt stroke it to
...clear malfunctions - Yeah, before we take that home, that's an intersting point
You know this triangle, I love these triangle folders
These things are fantastic. They really are.
This is the Russian hammer type of a gun
This thing is built to survive a blast, an IED
Still beat a wall open, beat a door open with it
Beat a person with it, right?
The Valmet, you hit the ground a couple of times, and it literally shatter like glass - It certainly looks like it, yeah
- In our last Q&A, someone asked the question do you think that wood still has
...an application in the modern world. - Yes! Wood is awesome!
- And my answer was, "No, except for aesthetics." And you said
..."Maybe"
Does this change your mind? - It does, doesn't it? - Yeah
Anyways... - If you happen to have
...a spare Valmet stock,
...hook me up, send me an email
If you enjoy this, do check out our Patreon page. Obviously, not everyone
...is in a position to do that, we totally get it. If you can't
...just share the videos with friends, subscribe on YouTube and Full30
...and we appreciate you watching. - Thanks for watching!
Help me, Varusteleka!
You're my only hope!