The people of Finland have a tradition of taking Russian small arms and tweaking them to better meet their needs. The RK 62 rifle and its variants is a prime example of this: The Finns took the AKM and altered things like the rear sight, stock, safety, and so on until the final product was a much improved gun.
In this episode of TFBTV we go shooting with a pre-ban Valmet M76.

Transcript …

– [Voiceover] Hey, guys, it’s Alex C with TFBTV, and for today’s video, we’re going to be shooting a Finnish Rk. 62 76.

In the United States, these are colloquially known as Valmet rifles.

We kinda got the full smorgasbord of valmets here.

We got the milled receiver guns, the stamped guns, the 762 guns, the 308 guns, and the 223 guns, this one being a semiautomatic 223 valmet M76.

Basically, it’s based on the Finnish Rk. 62 76 which was a stamped gun, the 62 being a milled receiver.

Theses are famous for being actually just fantastic AK variants.

They’re light, the sights are wonderful, the piston has some fingers on it that reduce slop.

I guess less talk, more shooting.

Let’s see how it performs.

(gunshots) (gunshots) Because of the valmet’s excellent sights, the first thing you notice pretty much is how easy it is to make offhand shots at 100 meters.

They are so much better than trunnion mounted sights on a traditional AK, it’s ridiculous.

The galil also borrowed this sight setup, and it’s very apparent that the Israelis borrowed features they wanted from this rifle to add to the galil, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Both are fantastic, and I would put both side by side, but if I was gonna do some marching with one, I’d much prefer the valmet because it is substantially lighter than the milled receiver galils.

I don’t have experience with the milled receiver valmets, but I’m sure they’d be heavy as well.

That’s something to think about.

(gunshots) So back at 300 meters, I noticed it was pretty damn easy to make shots on a 12-inch plate.

I did have maybe one or two misses, which it to be expected at my skill level.

I’m not a match rifle shooter or anything like that, but realistically, the sights on this gun are absolutely wonderful.

I can’t say more to praise these sights.

A lot of people ask how rigid are the sights.

I know they’re mounted on the dust cover, but the Finns and the Israelis really made sure that that dust cover is on there.

It’s very firm, it doesn’t have any play or slop to it, and it does return to zero when you put it back on there.

I’ve actually never had to re-zero a valmet or a galil rifle before, so that is pretty cool when you think about it.

(gunshots) Anyways everybody, I hope you enjoyed this little overview of the valmet 76.

I certainly enjoy shooting this gun.

I just wish they were a little more plentiful and magazines weren’t so rare.

So big thank you to Ventura Munitions for providing the ammunition for this video.

We hope to see you all next time.

(choral music)