Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at Morphy's
where we are taking a look at a Finnish Valmet M76.
This is one of the semi-auto civilian export versions
of Finland's ... stamped receiver AK.
So of course Finland adopted a milled receiver AK as their first repeating service rifle in 1962,
it's the Model 62, or the RK 62 in Finnish.
And it had a number of elements to it that weren't seen
on the Communist Bloc AKs of that period.
So this really was Finland's interpretation of the AK platform.
They had rear-mounted aperture sights.
They had this rather distinctive metal tube stock.
That was put on there as a way to avoid having any wood products on the gun at all.
So no wood in the handguard, the pistol grip or the buttstock on the Finnish AKs
as a way to simplify production, and to make the guns more rugged and durable.
And that's really one of the overarching concerns
with Finland's rifles is they have to be rugged, they have to be durable.
These are guns that are going to be passed from reservist to reservist to reservist.
And of course are also expected to be used in wartime.
And they need to be able to survive that process.
So the RK 62 was a fantastic gun, it remains Finland's service rifle today.
Although we'll see how much longer that lasts, especially with their pending NATO membership.
But by the 1970s the Finns were starting to look at stamped receiver guns.
Specifically the Valmet factory, the state metal factory, was investigating stamped receivers.
This would come first with their Model M71 rifle.
Which actually reverted from the aperture sights
that we Americans tend to think of as vastly superior.
Well, the M71 actually went back to barrel-mounted open sights,
like a traditional Russian or other Communist Bloc AK.
There was actually a lot of debate in the Finnish military over whether
the aperture sights were superior or the traditional open sights were superior.
There are pros and cons both ways.
Ultimately however the M71 with its
traditional front-mounted sights was rejected by the military.
And at that point Valmet took the stamped receiver it had developed for the M71,
and basically just plugged it into the original M62 rifles.
And the result was essentially this, the M62/76.
This was approved for military ... usage in 1976, hence the name.
And the Valmet factory started cranking these out in 1977.
The idea was a stamped receiver would be just as durable,
but a lot cheaper and faster to manufacture.
That's basically why the Russians ... had developed the stamped receivers for their AKM.
And the stamped receiver here on the Valmet is not identical to an AKM,
but it's really quite close, clearly ... Valmet had access to AKMs
and used that as part of their development process.
Now at the same time that this development is going on,
Valmet is also investigating the potential of civilian sales and export sales of rifles.
They have had kind of a rocky relationship with the Finnish military
in terms of procurement and purchasing and money issues.
And they thought it might be a valuable option to sell export and commercial rifles
as a way to sort of balance out their order sheet against
potential problems with military procurement.
So in 1967 the Finnish Army formally granted them permission
to sell an export version of the M62 rifle.
Now ... the rights to that rifle essentially belonged to the Finnish government.
And so Valmet actually had to pay a royalty to the government
for their civilian sale and export sale guns.
Interestingly, that royalty was ... a 5% royalty
in the form of one free rifle provided to the government
for every 20 rifles that were sold as export.
Interesting way to run that sort of thing.
So they began making at first because this is 1967,
before this rifle exists, well before this rifle exists,
they basically start duplicating their production line, and everything that they make
for the Finnish military they are also going to make for export sale.
Both full-automatic military export sale, and also semi-automatic only civilian export sale.
The United States would be the largest market for these rifles by far.
But Valmet would continue to make a semi-auto line as it developed new products.
So the M71 rifles that were ultimately rejected by the military
were offered for civilian sale, and a bunch of them were made and exported to countries like the US.
I actually have a previous video on the M71.
And then when the ... M62/76 comes into production,
well, they make that for civilian sale too.
And that's what we have here, so let's go ahead and take a little bit of a closer look at it.
One factor that we see very much on Valmets that
... is typical to the industry and this is a particularly good example of it,
is that while there is generally like one standard military pattern of a rifle like this,
for the civilian market the factory offers all sorts of different options, because why not?
Some people like different styles or different features.
So first off, this is in 5.56 (or .223).
It's actually marked both on the receiver, I'll show you that in a moment.
They were offered in both 5.56 and 7.62x39.
Now today the 7.62x39 guns are substantially scarcer than the 5.56 ones,
because these were being imported in the 1980s,
before there was really any good source for 7.62x39 ammunition in the US.
Most of the people who were buying these rifles opted to buy them
in 5.56 which was readily available.
So these are proprietary magazines, they are specific to the Valmet series.
However, all of the 5.56 Valmets use the same magazines,
so they are interchangeable between Valmets.
And there are a couple of different patterns that you'll see of Valmet mag.
Along those same lines, they offered a whole bunch of different options for stocks.
You could get these with a solid wood stock, you could get them with a solid plastic stock.
You could get them with a fixed tubular stock like this,
which is the same pattern that the Finnish military used.
And then they also came up with a folding stock mechanism for the tube.
I believe they ... used this folding mechanism on
wood stocks as well, at least in a couple of instances.
Now the hinge that Valmet came up with uses a push button to open,
and this one's pretty tight. There we go.
And the way it works is you actually have three sets of interlocking fingers,
and there is a spring-loaded bar here
that locks all three of those fingers in place at the same time.
So you push that button up, you can fold the stock ... around to the left side of the gun.
And then if you clamp it down tight you've got a little spring latch here
that hooks into the butt plate of the rifle.
Now when Valmet was developing this, the Finnish Army was actually looking for
a folding stock mechanism for their rifles. They wanted a folding stocked version
for tank crews, something that would be a little more compact to fit in a vehicle.
They took a look at this mechanism, tested it,
and they ultimately decided not to adopt it because they determined that it ... wasn't durable enough.
It was possible to get dirt or debris into these rather tight-fitting spaces.
These things could be damaged, this spring button could be damaged.
Eventually they would adopt a folding-stocked version of the RK 62,
but it would use a folding stock design, basically a copy of the Galil
folding stock with one really big lug.
Valmet however, ... they'd developed this,
they'd figured it out, they'd made it work, they had all the tooling built for it,
and so they would continue to offer this style of folding stock on their ... export guns.
These were all made as both semi-auto and select fire guns.
On the semi-auto versions like this one, of course the up position is safe with the dust cover closed.
And then there's one little dimple stamped into the [receiver] down here that indicates semi-auto.
Now on the military export versions, there is of course a full-auto selector setting in the middle.
And there are 3 dimples stamped into the receiver there to indicate full-auto.
Markings on this are pretty hard to see, we've got a serial number here on the front of the trunnion.
And then we've got a Valmet.
These blend right into that matt Parkerised finish, but there's a Valmet logo back here.
And a designation: M76, 5.56mm and in parentheses .223 Remington.
Worth pointing out that some of these were actually exported
to countries like Italy and France that had calibre restrictions at the time.
They did make this in .222 Remington as well.
And so ... you don't generally find those in the US, but they were made and they were sold.
The serial number is also repeated up here on the top cover.
Now in addition to its rear aperture sight there,
the Valmet also got night sights.
But the ... addition of these night sights
actually tamped down a lot of the debate over this rifle in Finnish Army
administrative circles, the people who had really preferred the open notch sights.
Well, with the addition of this as a night sight, you now have a notch sight option.
So if a soldier is in ... very thick brush at very close range,
or in low light, places where the aperture sights aren't ideal,
they can just flip this forward and use the night sight.
It doesn't have to be actually at night.
Same goes if the rear aperture gets plugged up with mud or snow.
It's a lot easier to clear out this notch to use.
And so if they need to, you can just flip that sight forward and use the night sight there.
To go along with that there is the front night sight,
which is this larger flip-up front post.
Note that this does have a tritium insert, although the tritium is dead in it.
It's long past ... not just its first half-life, but several half-lives and it's not luminous any more.
But you have a much bigger [post] that's much more visible,
with a big white circle around it that you use with the open rear sight.
Now the civilian production line at Valmet was essentially
just running side by side with the military one.
And so as changes were made to the military rifles,
the same changes were immediately put into place on the civilian rifles.
So one of the things that changed was the handguard,
they went to a larger handguard that fully encloses the gas tube.
That change went directly onto the civilian rifles as well.
And the early M76s have a metal tubular pistol grip with a rubber jacket around it.
That was replaced by a solid plastic pistol grip.
That change also happened on the civilian rifles at the same time.
When the ... tritium was added to the night sights, instead of just luminous paint,
those changes were all integrated into the civilian rifles at the same time.
And that was just so that the factory didn't have to try and run
different sets of parts for civilian and military rifles.
With the obvious exception of the fire control parts.
I'm not going to go ahead and take this apart, it's the same inside as any other AK.
And I've got some other videos on Valmets that will show you the interior if you're interested in it.
It is worth pointing out that where some factories, some countries,
will remove some features from civilian versions of military rifles,
the civilian Valmets don't generally [do] any of those things.
You see the night sights on here, you see the bayonet lug still attached.
That's identical to the military pattern.
The civilian rifles will in fact take a standard RK 62 bayonet.
If I remember correctly the .222 calibre ones have the rear sights only marked out to 300 metres.
And that was to comply with some foreign laws regarding,
again, military versions of civilian rifles.
But for those countries who didn't care, like the United States and domestic sales within Finland,
the rear sight here is exactly the same as the military type.
Ultimately M76 production for the Finnish military would only last about 5 years.
By 1982 the military decided to stop purchasing stamped-receiver guns.
They had expected that the cost would be lower than milled-receiver guns,
and that other than that, the two would perform basically the same.
What they found however was the stamped receivers just weren't as durable.
They had some issues with rivets that would come loose over time.
They found that if a receiver was damaged they couldn't repair it.
With a big chunky solid milled receiver,
if something happens to it you can weld it up, you can fix it.
The stamped receivers just weren't conducive to repairs.
... Oh, and at the same time it turned out that the stamped guns
didn't actually cost the Finnish government any less than the milled guns.
So they took a look at that ... balance of factors and decided,
"Screw it, we're going to go back to the milled-receiver guns."
Valmet would continue to make them on and off for civilian sale,
but they really tapered down production of the stamped receivers in 1982.
When they stopped doing it for the military, they started to shift
their production focus on the civilian side to various other models.
They would have the M78 that would come out,
they had the M82 bullpups that would come out later.
And all of those things would tend to replace the M76.
However, this remains one of the more common rifles
of the civilian semi-auto Valmets that are available in the US.
Because a bunch of them were sold here during ...
that period when they were in production by Valmet.
And of course the Valmets, even if the Finnish military
found these not ... as durable as the milled-receiver guns,
they are still really considered one of the Cadillacs of the Kalashnikov family
by those in the know, they are fantastic guns.
So a big thanks to Morphy for giving me access
to this one to take a look at, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.