Finland adopted the AK in 1962, as the m/62 – a milled receiver pattern. By the late 1960s the Valmet factory was experimenting with stamped receiver design to reduce costs. The first stamped Valmet rifle was the m/71, which used forward-mounted open sights like a regular AK instead of rear-mounted aperture sights. The m/71 was rejected by the military, and so Valmet put the stamped receiver into its m/62 instead. This was approved for military used a the m/62-76 in 1976 and production began in 1977.
Valmet had also begun exploring options for export sales of rights in the 1960s, to balance out demand with potentially unpredictable military sales. They received permission to ell an export model of the m/62 in 1967, and from that point on they offered all their designs on the export market (including one like the m/71 that were not adopted by the Finnish military). The m/62-76 was no different, offered as the M76 commercially.
There were a bunch of options on the export M76, including both semiauto and full auto models (this one being a semiauto example) and at least four different buttstocks (wood, plastic, fixed tube, and folding tube). They were made in both 5.56mm and 7.62x39mm, with the majority of US sales being in 5.56 because 7.62mm ammunition was simply not available in the US at the time.
Production for the military ended in 1982, with the determination that the stamped receivers were less durable than milled, very difficult to repair when damaged, and they did not actually cost less for the military. Valmet scaled back its export production at the same time, choosing to focus on other rifle models instead.
Stamping seems cheaper, but only if you want high production with very short service life. A country that expects to keep service weapons around for decades of frontline rigors would probably not want to use stampings. I could be wrong.
I have to respectfully disagree. The G3 in its many iterations and short service life don’t really go together not to mention the Swedes still have the AK4 in service albeit in limited roles. Quality stamping are actually quite durable.
I have two M76s one in each flavor great rifles but the lack of magazines the were ever imported are their Achilles heel. You think HK 93 mags are expensive?
In 5.56mm, any of the Galil magazines fit. I’m also told that Bulgarian AK magazines in 5.56mm will fit and function, with a bit of minor fitting.
Yeah, AKs are known to have very short life… :-)))
I don’t know that we have evidence that stamping leads to short service life?? In addition to a strategic production advantage, it yields a lighter weight rifle; which isn’t a bad thing, if you have to carry it.
I have a Valmet Hunter in .308. A beautiful weapon.
The Valmet hunter is a reasonable hunting rifle but it is not capable of sustained fire once about twenty to thirty rounds are fired fairly rapidly in succession for competition or on a wild pig hunt, especially in warm to hot weather conditions. The problem is the heat produced during the firing cycle process expands the metal in the receiver and cartridge chamber too much. This results in a stuck cartridge case where the cartridge rim is ripped off leaving the fired cartridge case jammed in the chamber. I owned a Valmet Hunter in the early 1990s as well as a H&K 630 (.223) and H&K 770 (.308). The H&K’s never failed to extract, even when the chamber was hot. The M14 was also more reliable than the Valmet from my experience.
The Valmet M76 I owned was the most accurate semi-auto rifle I’ve ever fired. How the hell the Finns did that, I do not know. Good friend of mine, when I owned it, was a much better marksman than I’ll ever be, and he had the same opinion after a day on the range with it.
No idea at all how or why, but that thing was a tack-driver that put all of our issued M16s to shame, and managed a better performance than anything else in the arms room, to include the M21 the Infantry guys had.
Valmet going out of production on these things was a tragedy.
Also, Ian really shouldn’t say that this is the same rifle as the AK; the gas tube is totally different, as is the op rod. The AK has a round piston with a fluted gas tube for carbon relief, while using a latch mechanism to retain the gas tube to the front trunnion block. The Valmet rifles have a slide-in gas tube that’s round, and a set of scrapers on the gas piston to deal with the carbon, a reverse of the AK’s setup.
No idea if that contributes to the superior accuracy, or if it’s just down to more precise manufacture and a better sense of what makes an accurate rifle. Whatever it is, the Valmet rifles I’ve fired all demonstrate that same trait.
IMO the other than sheet metal stamped received for AK rifle has little sense. It is enough to look at relative amount of material left to get the idea. In contrast, imagine the amount of material which has to be removed, if machined out of bar. This is what M.K. intended at the first place. His favored saying when explaining his design was: “ehto samoye prostoye”/ “it is simplest ever”. In that sense he exceeded even the Stg44.
Here is sheet metal receiver fabrication course on YT; it can be made by an enthusiast with a minimum of tooling/ setup. Heck, the metal is only mm/ 0.040″ thick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H5EGr0gzdk
In my own observation the U-channel can be split at the bottom to make it even easier to form; but it would requite welding to join both halves.
“IMO the other than sheet metal stamped received for AK rifle has little sense.”
should read:
IMO, any other than sheet metal stamped receiver for AK rifle has little sense.
I personally do not trust much what MTK says, as he ended as rifles poster boy/grandpa. We will/may probably never learn his exact role in development, and who else was involved.
Welding the middle splitted receiver would be a nightmare, esp. with 1mm.
Also, these diy receivers are subpar if not heat treated – which is way more tricky then just bending. They would probably work in semi auto, though.
These “Drones” are a probably a bit… Of a pain for traditional notions of air superiority, I mean I like this rifles wire cutter. But in future, instead of bomb/shells you could have “swarms” of flying exploding wee mines.
Bit annoying, can’t even Mg42 them into a mortar killzone in fact, or you’d be swarmed; you can only see robots with ten of these guns as arms cutting wire. Surrounded by swarms of mini lighter sized exploding drones… “Kamikaze” cricket bat assaults by humans… Wack, six “Bang!!!” Ow!! Wack!! Wack, wack!! By others, ow!! Ow!! “Dead folks represented by ow’s” sort of a even more ludicrous ww1. Sooo… Has anyone started buying large amounts of cricket bats… Baseball bats; well reduced surface area, be harder to hit.
Anyway nice gun for the time, for sure.
Cough…
Homing in on hot guns… Blowing off your fingers etc, etc… x 50 targeting a guy.
SCHERMULY type rockets firing 10ft or so high, you litter everywere around your position with a 1000 of the fuckers 100m circle each one fires at once pumps out alu powder etc with ten in every hundred pumping out igniters delayed by 3 secs or so; fuel air lark, giant cricket bat. Duck.
Actually saw a .22 rimfire gatling gun… Vulcan cannon it, might work; hope. All this tech is not to save the planet you know, they even want the moon; not new, but now they can almost. They want it for weapons. Everyone does. To zap our sorry arses from space.
It is totally retarded. And that is what we as tax payers fund. Ten armed M76 wire cutters, etc, etc. Kissing our arse goodbye.