Valmet M82

   The Valmet M82 assault rifle has been designed for for the Finnish airborne troops. It was also intended to replace weapons with the folding stock. It was introduced in 1978. The Finnish Army rejected this weapon because of failures in the design. Nevertheless Valmet produced a small batch of these assault rifles, mostly in semi-automatic versions, chambered for a standard NATO 5.56 x 45 (.223 Remington) round. These rifles were ex mostly to the USA. Production ceased in 1986.

   Designers intended to create a compact weapon. An attempt was made to convert a well-proven Valmet M76 assault rifle into a bullpup layout. It allowed to save on overall length of the weapon. Internal design of this assault rifle is similar to that of the Valmet Rk.76, which in turn is based on the Soviet AKM. The M82 is a gas operated, selective fire weapon. Finnish designers decided to keep receiver and barrel of it's predecessor. Also this rifle had a lightened bolt carrier and thinner barrel, to reduce weight.

   The pistol grip with the trigger was moved to the front of the magazine port. The safety / fire mode selector switch is far behind the pistol grim and trigger. It can be set to "safe", "single" or "automatic" fire modes. A charging handle is located on the right side of the receiver.

   Early prototypes of this assault rifle featured wooden stocks. Later models had a polymer housing. It is worth mentioning that the Valmet M82 was poorly balanced, as most of the weight is in the rear.

   The Valmet M82 has no provision for left-hand ejection. It can only be fired from the right shoulder. This rifle also lacks a bayonet lug.

   Some of the reasons why the M82 was not accepted to service were it's too hard noise close to soldier's ear. Also the foresight used to hit the soldier's teeth during a hard landing with a parachute.

   This assault rifle has fixed dioptric sights, set to the left from the weapon axis. In such sight the shooter's right eye is focused on the front sight and the left eye on the rear sight. The two sights overlap at certain ranges, providing excellent accuracy at fixed range. However due to the fixed nature the weapons accuracy suffered at variable ranges. As a result it made shots over 300 meters difficult.