AKs from Finland. Part 2: Valmet RK 62, Advanced AK Designed 62 Years Ago
In Part 1 of this article, I wrote about the early development history of Finnish AKs and the m/58 prototype. In this article, I will delve into the history of the first mass-produced AK from Finland – Valmet RK 62. In recent years, I had a chance to visit Finland several times, train some reservists there, and meet a lot of amazing people in this country. Finns know and love their weapons, and RK 62, developed exactly 62 years ago remains to be the main weapon of the Finnish Defense Forces.
AK History @ TFB:
The RK 60
On October 13, 1958, the Infantry Light Weapons Committee requested to order the first batch of guns for large-scale trials. On November 17, there was a presentation for defense-related decision-makers, and on November 28 new rifle was presented to the commander of defense forces, who signed off on the purchase of 200 new Finnish-made AKs
After a mandatory tender, the Valmet factory received the order to produce the first batch of rifles. The contract was signed in May of 1959. The factory had 14 months to make 200 guns, 1200 magazines, 100 folding bayonets, 100 fixed-blade bayonets, and various accessories.
First rifles were designated RK 60 and did not have a trigger guard, allowing soldiers wearing winter mittens to pull the trigger. It also lacked the night sights present in all later models.
At this stage, Finnish AK already had all of its signature traits: front sight/gas block combination, rear sight on the receiver cover, ghost ring iron sights – all those design elements turned out to be quite effective.
Production of the final variant, RK 62 (RynnäkköKivääri 1962) began in 1962 at the Valmet factory. Around 350,000 RK 62s were produced over the years.
Unlike most military rifles, the barrels of RK 62 were not chrome-lined. When I asked why, my Finnish friend told me: “We really care about the environment and nature of our beautiful country, and chrome-lining requires so many toxic chemicals that our engineers decided it is not worth it”.
RK 62 we don’t have at home
And while the civilian version of RK 62 called M62S was exported to the US, Finnish gun owners didn’t have a chance to own a civilian version of a rifle they often served with. Another friend of mine told me a story explaining how in the late 80s just two people managed to change the situation.
Two reservist soldiers contacted the Valmet factory in an attempt to buy a semi-auto version of RK 62. The factory responded that they needed to purchase at least 100 units.
Reservists are a close-knit community, and without the internet, within a few weeks they collected 100 requests from friends, and the Valmet factory had to fulfill their promise.
But there was another obstacle. At the time, to own such a rifle in Finland, an applicant had to have a “purpose of use”. The two reservists who ordered the guns were told by police that the sporting purpose was the best way to get such a gun, but unfortunately, no sport required the use of RK 62.
But the reservists were unstoppable. Over the weekend they drafted the rules for a new sport, called “Reservist shooting” and registered it with the authorities. Now they and their friend had a perfectly lawful “purpose of use” and could finally purchase Finnish AKs.
Modernisation of RK 62
Over the years, there were small improvements made to the RK 62. The “Cheesegrater” handguard was replaced with a polymer one. The pistol grip became more comfortable.
However, a lot of innovation came from the civilian sector and shooters who tried to improve their rifles in order to attach modern scopes, IR lasers, and other accessories.
When I had a chance to train some reservists there, I came across a modernization project that the designer called AK 2.0, which included an adapter for M4 collapsible stock, a side rail for the receiver, a handguard with M-LOK slots, and new muzzle devices.
In 2015, the Finnish Defense Forces initiated a program for the modernization of RK 62. In 2019, three versions of the upgrade kit were officially accepted into service.
- M1:
Telescopic adjusting stock (shoulder rest)Renewed fire selectorOptical sight mountAdapter for mounting accessoriesNew tactical sling
- M2:
Optimized version for combat in built-up areasTelescopic adjusting stock (shoulder rest)Renewed fire selectorOptical sight mountHand guard for mounting accessoriesFlash suppressor that allows for mounting a breach muzzle brake and a silencerNew tactical slingAccessories include, among others, a fore-end pistol grip
- M3:
As above in version M2Testing coating in greenEquipped with a silencer and a breach muzzle brake
In part 3, I will talk about the Finnish AK in the US and other countries that imported those rifles.
Vladimir Onokoy is a small arms subject matter expert and firearms instructor. Over the years he worked in 20 different countries as a security contractor, armorer, firearms industry sales representative, product manager, and consultant. His articles were published in the Recoil magazine, Small Arms Review, Small Arms Defence Journal, and Silah Report. He also contributed chapters to books from the "Vickers Guide: Kalashnikov" series. Email: machaksilver at gmail dot com. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Vladimir-Onokoy-articles-and-videos-about-guns-and-other-unpopular-stuff-107273143980300/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vladonokoy/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/machaksilver
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I have several Valmets and they all have single hook triggers with the hook on the right. Most other AK variants that are single hook have the hook on the left. Is there any logical reason to using left vs right ?
I've never seen a good picture for the RK62 side rail mount. It appears to be a dovetail rail welded to the receiver, which is a new addition to these old receivers that were originally slick-sided.
It's probably a proprietary footprint, with the position being unique to the RK62. It's about as high up the receiver side as a Yugo rail, but positioned much more forward on the receiver.
The RK95 has an entirely different side mount, with 3x M7 threaded holes and two large pill-shaped recoil lugs (negative space) machined into the side of the receiver. Civilian variants of RK95 has M6 threads.
Only 20,000 RK95 were ever made, to equip the small cadre of full time professional soldiers back when Finland was still coming out of the Post-90s economic shock. New reserves are trained on RK62, and full on wartime mobilization stocks are earmarked to receive formerly East German AKMs procured back when United Germany was selling DDR kit for pennies on the Euro (or was it still DM?). Anyways, with the Finnish Army surging in numbers but before they joined NATO, the plan was now to give any operationally deployed troops modernized RK62s instead, as there's simply much more of those rifles to go around, and thus Finland foresaw the need that they would soon need more than 20,000 modern rifles capable of accepting modern mission enablers.
SAKO is probably going to be manufacturing piston ARs to fulfill Finnish 5.56mm NATO rifle requirements now, which is logically sound, if albeit unsatisfying news to hear for us gun nerds. The hard industrial fact is simply that SAKO would need to tool up completely from scratch to make new automatic rifles, and a (piston) AR is easier to tool up for, and shares more parts (and magazines) with other European rifles.
I mean, let's do a thought exercise in rechambering Valmets into 5.56mm. Barrels, no problem, SAKO makes barrels like nobody's business. New bolts are small forgings, not that hard to get right. Magazines, though? Good luck. Galil mags kinda fit, but the cartridge doesn't come high enough to get picked up by the bolt face for reliable feeding. It can be done, but you'd have to hand fit hundreds of thousands of magazines. That's the problem. I have no idea where the original tooling for 5.56mm Valmet mags have disappeared to either.
This dude here talks about using Galil mags in late 20th century 5.56mm Valmets (M76), and how it needs certain hand fitting.
https://youtu.be/mJvfyIkyW0...