Qatari Royal Guard m/71-76 Valmet
Select-Fire Rifles
•
5m 46s
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!
Up Next in Select-Fire Rifles
-
French Trials VHS-F2 Croatian Bullpup
HS Produkt of Croatia makes an interesting modern bullpup rifle, the VHS. The rifle has gone through several major design iterations in the past two decades or so, and the most recent version (the VHS-2) was part of the competition to replace the FAMAS in French military service. It ultimately pl...
-
Ian Finally Takes a Full Auto FAMAS F...
Huzzah! I finally have a chance to take a proper full-auto FAMAS F1 out to the range. My conclusions? It's very nice, just like the semiauto civilian model. It has a limited 3-round-burst option for those who need it, but also unrestricted automatic for those with enough practice to use it. The g...
-
wz.96 Beryl: Poland's 5.56mm Military AK
With Poland's entry into NATO in the 1990s, a new service rifles was needed, chambered for the 5.56mm NATO cartridge. Initial development work had been done in 1990/91 to adapt the wz.88 Tantal to 5.56mm, and this project was dusted off in 1995 to create the Beryl. Essentially a Tantal in 5.56mm,...
