The Valmet company in Finland made excellent AK-type rifles for the Finnish Defense Forces, but also offered a variety of designs on the international commercial market. The Valmet was a very expensive rifle for a AK, however, and only a few significant commercial sales were made. One of these was a batch of rifles for Qatar, which included perhaps 50 (the exact number is unclear) made with fancy wooden furniture and nickel-plated for use by the Qatari Royal Guard. These were the m/71-76 pattern, with the 76 indicating Valmet’s stamped aKM-type receiver. The m/71 was a rifle pattern which reverted back to traditional AK-style open notch sights instead of the rear aperture adopted by Finland on its rk/62. The m/71 was not adopted by the Finnish military, but is was chosen by Qatar, and also imported into the United States in semiauto-only form.
Many thanks to Sako for providing me access to film this unique AK variant in their reference collection!
I had a Valmet back in the 1970’s with a pipe stock. It was very accurate and well made. The prong flash hider was unique to. Back then 762x39mm was very hard to find. I had some Lapua and sterile nice head stamp boxes primed Lake City made for the CIA to reload. Russian or chinese surplus was not for sale in the early 1979’s.
Strange to not have a bayonet lug on a gun that must be used for ceremonial duties.
Did he say “AK type”?
To be honest, I think fake pearl plastic furniture would have looked better than wood on this.
Not related to the featured subject but still worth of look – new Chinese small arm which was shown to public first time 2 years ago. You can clearly see influence of AR15. It is intended to replace QBZ95 (bullpup) and QBZ03 (conventional) rifles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fIkShbx3W4
It is chambered for 5.8×42 Chinese round with 2 types of bullets differentiated by weight. On balance pretty good review going into fair bit of detail.
Something, among all the photos that we managed to find, does not come across any one with Valmet.
Perhaps they were transferred to Libya, along with the rest of the Qatari Valmet?
I have a Valmet Hunter in .308 stashed away. Great gun.