[ Qatari Royal Guard m/71-76 Valmet ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at
the Sako factory in Riihimäki, Finland,
where they are celebrating their 100th year in business.
And they have generously opened up
their reference collection to let me
film some cool guns for you guys.
And what we have here today is a Qatari contract Valmet 71/76.
So there were very few foreign contracts for Valmet rifles, for the Finnish AKs.
In large part because frankly they were pretty expensive rifles,
especially compared to what you would pay to get an AK from any other county
that was manufacturing them at that time, we are talking 1960s, 1970s, 1980s.
Even those that came into the United States as semi-automatic sporting versions
didn't sell all that well because they were just really quite expensive.
Now, they were also arguably the best quality AKs being manufactured anywhere.
But for a lot of people, price is more important than quality.
However, there were a few contracts, and one of them went to Qatar.
Now ... the majority of that order were standard production rifles.
However, there was a small batch, I've seen 50 (I don't know if that number is actually legitimate),
of the Qatari rifles were specifically intended for the Qatari Royal Guard.
And those were nickel plated with fancy wooden furniture.
So let me show you exactly what they did here, because there are also a couple of variations to this
beside what you would see on a standard Valmet 71.
So in addition to the gun being nickel plated, the magazines were also, naturally, nickel plated.
Some of the internal parts however,
were phosphated a dark black, which give kind of a cool contrast.
So the bolt carrier is phosphated black, as is the trigger.
In fact, all of the internal fire control parts are phosphated black.
The magazine follower was also phosphated black.
The handguard, pistol grip, and stock are made of hardwood.
The stock ... basically duplicates the shape of the m/71 plastic stock.
However, they have added a Qatari emblem into the side of the stock.
On the left side of the receiver we have our standard manufacturing marks here.
These were made by the Valmet factory, specifically in 1977.
It's nice that they dated it, that gives us some information on this
rather usual and very small contract.
The serial number is in its normal place. 500,000 is a series number.
So this is actually the 9,781st rifle made.
And I believe ... the 500,000 series was the m/71 pattern.
Which was basically an experiment going back to ... standard AK-type open notch sights.
While aperture sight are undoubtedly better for marksmanship,
there ... is some valid complaint up here in Finland that a ... small aperture sight
is inevitably packed with snow on any sort of practical exercise in the winter.
And becomes a pain in the butt to deal with,
where open notch sights are easier to keep clean.
So Valmet developed the m/71 with this style of sight
with an interest in military contracts in the 1970s, hence "71".
They didn't end up getting any, but these rifles were sold commercially for export.
So some of them came into the United States as semi-autos, the M71/S.
There was this group also sold to Qatar.
I mentioned at the beginning it's a 71/76.
The 76 indicates that this is a stamped receiver instead of a milled receiver.
And you can easily distinguish those
by the rivets that are present holding the front and rear trunnions in.
There are no rivets on a milled receiver.
Now, the sharp eyed will have already noticed
that there is something a bit odd about the front end of this rifle.
And this is unique to the Qatari contract.
These rifles have no muzzle device, no bayonet lug, no flash hider.
So they have a front sight block here to, of course, hold the front sight.
And they still have night sights installed, so there is your luminous night sight.
However, the flash hider assembly
was replaced by this somewhat snub-nosed front sight block.
So, no attachment for a bayonet either.
Really a rather unique look, once you recognise that it's there.
I should point out that these are not the only shiny Valmets ever made.
There's also a small batch, I think 5, gold plated ones that were sold to Abu Dhabi.
And there are periodically chrome-plated Valmets that have been released as
commemorative anniversary-type editions by the Valmet factory.
So these Qatari guns are specifically nickel plated, not chrome.
And they make up really the ... largest formal contract of
decorative, I suppose, AK rifles sold by Valmet.
Again, a big thanks to Sako.
By the way, they merged with Valmet, the two became one company back in the 1980s.
So all of Valmet's reference collection is now here at Sako,
who generously gave me access to it for filming.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.