"The TP, in finnish, stands for..." [Ian briefly considers actually trying to pronounce Finnish] "... Folding stock."

I'm very disappointed that Ian still hasn't gotten the courage to try and say "rynnäkkökivääri" (for the "RK").

Nice, this was my service rifle during my year in the Finnish Defence Forces (CV9030 commander). Most had RK62s, but the panssarijääkäri (panzerjäger) units I was in had RK95's due to the folding stock to help with fitting into the AFV's. Can't wait to watch this later today!

I had girlfriend like this once. Rockiest relationship I ever had but we were very close and she never failed me. She enjoyed long walks in forests, so we went camping quite often. I still remember with warm heart those cold winter nights when I had to snuggle her close so her bolt would not freeze over. She was quite low maintenance, but I always took good care of her. Her thick frame made her bit of a heavy side, but it never bothered me, but when she begun accessorising, she became unbearable. Normally she was a wild girl who would never complain about little snow, mud or rough play but when ever she got an idea to wear optics it was like she became a little princess who had to be pampered and coddled. Ahhh good memories, she probably has already moved on, but I still sometimes dream I could meet her one more time, I nicknamed her Emma, but I still remember her production number.

The Galil-style safety was rejected due to seizing in freezing conditions, where as the traditional safety lever has a mechanical advantage of a long lever, to break free any ice preventing the safty from rotating.

RK62M is the newest most upgraded RK at the moment. Had the pleasure of using it when I was in the FDF.

Forgotten Weapons: "From butt plate to... muzzle device" Garand Thumb: "Tip to butt hurr hurr"

it's a bummer they didn't provide Ian with the sight adjustment multi-tool, that you'd actually use for all the sights and other screws you need to turn on the gun.. or a spork at the least..

How fitting, just got to handle and shoot one of these in a refreshing exercise about a month ago (served with a 62). The sights are definitely improved (both the sight picture and the way you adjust them), not sure how I like the other stuff. The straight stock is good, but do you need it to fold if you are basic infantry? Not really, I would assume the collapsing magpul stocks on the modernized 62 is better. It is heavier than the 62 (especially front heavy), the upwards charging handle is a bit meh, prefer a straight AK-style. The screw to secure the top cover seems neat, but the 62 one holds zero just fine. Seems like it was made more in order to cut production costs and tolerances, rather than improve the durability of zero. You also have the gas cut-off, and Finland never ended up adopting those rifle grenades anyway so... All in all, there's probably a reason why most of the frontline troops who were equipped with these have switched "back" to the RK-62M1 and M2.

I can add a few extra info about the history : - Safety was rejected because when it became clear that these rifles were not going to be produced in large enough quantities, issue of individual soldiers being issued the RK95 and the RK62 at different time of their national service and screwing up was considered too high - Sako developed a chrome plating process for the barrel that kept the accuracy of the rifle per the military's spec but it was too expensive and was dropped - The pistol grip was designed to have a trap door and a wire spring to lock it, copied from the Minimi but this was also dropped due to cost constraints (if you check the pistol grip carefully in the video you can see the holes for the axle Basically the RK95 was conceived as "the RK62 and the FNC had a child together" The serial number always starts with the 2 digits of the year it was manufactured, so the rifle in the video is the 6581th rifle manufactured in 1997. Only the receiver and top cover are serialized and this is done so that the gun remains sighted with the correct cover The cover rear lock is not for retaining the zero but because it was found in trials that when shooting rifle grenades, the cover would often fly off The safety selector was redesigned so that it could be also operated with the stock folded. RK62TP also have a different fire selector compared to the regular 62s There has not been an "early" and a "late" luminous front night sight on the RK95. All use the same sight as the gun in the video. The civilian version of the gun (SakoM92/S) was first fitted with a "simplified" front night sight and then the RK95 one There was 2 batches of SakoM92/S made. The first batch has optic mount holes in M6 coarse but the second batch was made with 7mm fine pitch holes, just like the RK95

About the screws at 11:30 "m6" and "m7" just defines the diameter of the screw (6mm vs 7mm) the screw pitch is a separate number. Ya usually see m6x1.0 screws, the second number is the distance between the threads also in mm. If they wanted to they could have gotten a lower pitch on both sizes of bolts.

This guns aesthetically really knocks it out of the park. I know, not the overall intention with gun design, but man that thing looks awesome.

I have used this RK in service as a MP. I have shot with the original AK47, Chinese AK, East German AK, RK62 and RK95 which was IMO best of this bunch.

Looks like Ian is on eurotrip. At first France, and now - Finland. Hope he has great time! And more great videos are coming!

FINALLY! It's a shame how few they made those... In NCO school I had the folding stock version of RK62, but I only got to fire the RK95 once. It was cool, but I could've used some more...

That beautiful gun was my service rifle for over few years back 2003 - 2005. Loved it, could strip it to parts, clean it and put back together blindfolded in just littlebit over 20 seconds and just strip it to parts and put back together, when I could see everything, in 9 seconds. On one occasition I acctually had to strip it, clean it and put back together during night in pitch blackness when my gun malfunctioned for getting sand in it. I used my rain jacket as base where I placed all the parts so they don't get more sandy, cleaned all parts and the gun, I also oiled the gun lightly, put all parts back without seeing a damn thing, placed magazine, reloaded and continued firing.

Ooooh. waited for this. I served using that and love that thing to bits ^^

I was in Finnish army (Navy) in early 2000's and the 1st time i got original Rk-62 in my hands,i rly liked that weapon!It was accuraty af and it didnt never got stuck,no matter -25'c coldness,snow or dust or lil rocks etc 👍

0:10 Okay, I'll actually give that to Ian, the way he pronounces it is pretty impressive XD

Used this in 2018 during my national service and this year during additional training. Might be the only gun I'll ever use, and it was a great piece to use, soft-shooting and comfortable to use, the guys with RK-62s looked at that folding stock jealously for sure!

Having disassembled this beauty for what feels like a million times during my service, this video surely brings back good memories.

Ah... 7.62 RK 95 TP. Got this as my service rifle as did all the other communications APC crew members. The only "bad" experience I had with it was that it didn't fit the slots designed to hold the RK 62 in the driver's compartment. Everywhere else, including the comms compartment it fit fine, with the sole exception being where I was supposed to keep my gun in said driver's compartment. Ultimately we had it just.. kinda laying around the general vicinity of the slot. Nobody could give shit about it because NCOs couldn't see the gun because they were stuck in the comms compartment and you could only see it when you were inside the driver's compartment. Good times.

oooh I've been waiting for this. I miss my service rifle. It was newer/modernized RK-62 model. Shot straight every time.

M7 isn't a thread pitch, it's the nominal OD. The pitch would be x1.5, x1.0, x1.25, etc.

"You expect us to finish this project?" "It's already Finnish, we expect you to get it ready for military adoption."

We trained to take it apart, clean it, put it back together with our eyes folded. Its simple and functional. Not fun to handle while its -30c at the range. I remember my triggerfinger going numb from the cold, you just cant shoot the same with gloves :D

even that RK62TP had different folding mechanism than what i've used. also the earlier civvie version could fire the rifle grenades, but they later made the muzzle device thicker.

On that decision to leave old safety lever as it is, it's probably because of northern climate conditions, when you might get you rifle wet and then frozen. Thumb safety might not have enough leverage to be switched by gloved hand easily.

I remember me and the other Yeger boys flicking out TP at the others "peasants" who had the gammy old 62 xD, i kid but we did really do that.

Note: TP is short for "TaittoPerä", folding stock.

Such a great looking rifle, and wedime that you’re doing the video from the Sako reference collection!

This is literally my favorite gun, I am so glad you got to do a video on it

I did my conscription service with both 62s and 95s and recently in a refresher exercise got issued an rk62m, the modernized 62. Gotta say... I much prefer the 95. This might be just preference, but I really like the 95. Glad you got to take a look at one!

RK95 was awesome rifle. Worked like a charm and was accurate. My own service rifle had cracked breech (i saw it myself in inspection but did not think anything of it and it was said to me when i retured it) and i still hit 9/10 in the ten ring. And after 11 years i still remember my rifles serial number as i believe many other finnish guys do as well.

Wonderfully informative video on this firearm Ian keep up the great work!

I like the removable optics rail. The thought of East German AK's being cheap and plentiful after reunification is kind of heartbreaking since they have never been either over here.

*The most important thing Ian forgot to mention* is that they added 3rd sling mounting point to the back of the reciever. So one in front, one in stock and one at the back of the reciever. This meant you could operate the gun easily whilst it would be on its leather sling (there are tactical ones these days in some quantity). You could have: Front and stock= drills, parades etc for shouldering the weapon Front and reciever= standard when carrying the weapon in possible contact are, but not yet in immediate danger. As you wouldn't keep the gun hanging from leather sling in combat And the third was: Reciever AND reciever( as in both ends of the leather sling in one point)= this was rudimentary "tactical" which was good in urban enviroments. If you werent too big you could use the gun without the leather sling resticting any movement or handling(unlike front and reciever) and you could just "drop" it when pulling side arm for example.

4:19 If you shout in Finland that you need TP for your bunghole, you’ll be provided a folding stock to do the wiping.

Excellent stuff Ian

This was my service rifle in 2007. I got brand new one back then. It was still full of grease from factory/storage. Opening that cover was huge pain for the first 10-20 times. Enough cleaning oil got rid of that grease and it was a pleasure to dissamble after that. Awesome gun. And more accurate to shoot compared to 62.

Another outstanding video, my friend! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 The RK95, in my humble opinion, is the pinnacle of development for the AK platform. I have always preferred the milled versions of the AK across the board. It seems Valmet definitely took the time to research this particular unit while likely drawing from other successful firearms for this application. Thanks again and have a great week, my friend. 🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸

The famous Taistelukenttä 1998 clip demonstrates the rifle grenade kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fLCmpbxhmdicmaM.html so it was long in the pipeline until abandoned.

Absolutely loved this episode. Thank you!

Been waiting for this one for a long time

The newest would be RK62/95 M(modernized). There are MLOKs etc on it.

"So that you didn't freeze your face to the stock in the winter." I'm guessing there was an incident of that happening (at least once) that made the Finns use hard rubber stocks for the RK95. Also, I do like how the RK95 looks compared to the other Kalashnikov pattern rifles.

Great Video, big fan of these rifles and the Galils…. Thanks for another informative video! More power!

Fascinating content from Ian as usual! Reminds me quite a bit of my Swiss Stgw 90 - folding skeleton stock and the positioning of the eyes to receive sling clips. Surprised the trigger guard can't be swung out of the way for use with thick gloves like the Stgw 90. Hollow pistol grip of Stgw 90 *can* be used. Delightfully simple rear sight and night sight solutions by Sako - makes my Stgw 90 feel grossly over engineered! All the best, Rob from Switzerland.

Really obscure reference, but I remember loving this gun in the F2p FPS game A.V.A (Alliance of Valiant Arms). Anyone else remember?

The Finnish people should be proud, this is a beautiful and deadly rifle.

Incredibly accurat gun. Had the RK -62 when doing my service in the mortar troups 1974/75. Loved it!

I learned to shoot with this gun. My service rifle at PorPr (Säkylä) mortar company (Korohoro) in 2001. At that time it was quite rare and only few of the finnish brigades were equipped with this. But because FRDF was located and trained in Säkylä we had an access to newest toys. Nice review and thanks for bringing up the memories.

Just received my "Chassepot to FAMAS" I'd rather describe it as a work of art and not just a book. Great work and very pleased to see you ship to the EU.

I hope some day Ian gets his hands on a modernized RK 62M...

Pretty cool rifle you covered today man

I had this preceded by an ad that began with "That's right..." over a picture of someone in snow. I have a lovely glitch going where most ads cut off after a second, so that just seemed an ideal intro to this video!

Always a good video when it’s a Finn gun

With the RK95 I have no experience but I have shot with the semi-auto M92S many times. It can have one really annoying malfunction that the earlier RK62 (or the semi-auto M76) will not get. There is a thin 2cm, square-ish nut around the barrel, in front of the handguard. That nut locks the metal part just in front of the hand guard in place. Can be seen around 8:39 on video. So... If that small nut gets loosened, the whole handguard gets wobbly and the gas tube (which is not fixed) is affected as well. This leads to so much gas escaping that the rifle wont cycle properly. I have once experienced this and at that time there was no 2cm wrench around so rifle was almost useless. It was able to fire one round at a time but the case just jammed badly. Also the charging handle can loosen and then fall off at the wrong moment as it's only connected by threads. At least the mechanism is still operable if that happens. Plus, to disassemble this rifle, the dust cover tension screw has to be loosened but fortunately it should not be able to fall out. Overall, I prefer the older rifle. I don't think that this new rifle is the ultimate Finnish AK when it comes to reliability.

They’d go on to Finish it! Nice Ian!

I got one of these when I became an NCO. Wonderful rifle, and a pleasure to use in the field.

I used both during my service, switching from a 62 into a 95 after the first two months. For some reason I could never reach the same level of accuracy with the 95 that i'd had with my 62.

What a brilliant incarnation of a classic.

Nice details for sure! I was trained on the 62 only. I heard stories about a new version and some of it's features but never got to handle or fire one.

"Sako and Valmet merged [...] and they were going to finish it." I see what you did there 😂

I had one of those during my time in the army. Most likely the best one FDF had to offer. I took good care for it. Cleaned it every friday. It never failed me. I even named it. I can still remember its serial number. I really miss my baby. :-(

Great video, Ian! Always glad to see the Finnish weapons! Thank you, Ian!

That extra lock in dust cover comes real handy after gun starts to get old. I had a 62 which had a loose dust cover which is a common problem for older guns. My rear sight would move almost 1mm, which made it pretty hard to shoot accurately. Now I have a 95 which is much nicer to shoot but it could be a bit lighter.

Thank you for making this. I think personally the rk62m3 might be superior but that is not properly out yet so this is after that the best we have. I was in helsinki and saw guards in front of what we call ”presidentinlinna” (the presidents castle) that is known as the place where the finnish president lives. Saw some guards with these and i thought ”hmm does Ian have a video on this?”. Well now we do

have you ever considered making a video on the CEAM Modele 1950? It is the perfect example of a forgotten weapon even when it has great historical significance and immensely impacted the future of weapons design, since after its production was cancelled, Ludwig Vorgrimler went to leave France and CEAM for CETME in Spain and furthered the development of the modele 1950 into the CETME Model 58, and then when CETME went on to collaborate with Heckler and Koch the Model 58 was used as a basis to design the G3 which in turn went on to be the backbone of of all the G3 family of weapons - the MP5, HK33, PSG-1, HK21/23, G41, etc. ALL of which are still in service today. Who agrees the CEAM 1950 deserves some attention?

As always excellent story and talk. Thank you!

That little deflector is genius. I once made the mistake of putting too much oil on my Mauser and when I fired it the oil flew back through the firing pin hole/sear notch thingimabob at the rear and hit me right in the Mark 1 Mod 0 eyeball. It burned like hell and I wear contact lenses so it messed that up as well. Had to flush my right eye with saline. Even when it doesn't have excess oil on it, it still spits out a tiny puff of air that hits you right in the eye. Its like getting that air puff test thing done at the eye doc.

fun fact aboit the RK-62: most of those handed to the conscripts, could be charged by grabbing the muzzle and playing imaginary golf, just swing and voilá, rifle is charged and ready te go (wouldn't do it with an actually loaded rifle, i mean you're grabbing the muzzle so....)

This was a joy to use and it looks so much cooler than the 62 (I had both during my service)

What a very sexy rifle! The best of both worlds..arguably one of the world's best designed and executed rifles!

A sweet looking piece.

I’m always surprised how many guns want the ability to launch grenades. It seems like they aren’t actually used that much in combat, and would be heavy and unwieldy to carry vs just carrying more ammo. Any chance we could get a comparison between rifle grenades and dedicated or under barrel launchers like the 203?

I really appreciate that you don't assume a high level of firearms knowledge in your viewers. I mostly just watch you and C&Rsenal as I'm a history buff first and a firearms fan seventh. Maybe sixth. But, for example, I've never held an AK as virtually all of my shooting experience has been pistol and shooting trap, so the fact that you took a moment to show the dust cover/safety made this a lot more understandable for me.

This brings back memories from my conscript time during 2012-2013. I used a RK-95 TP during my whole service. In my brigade only the jaeger and reconnaissance units used these while all the others had RK-62. It was a really good and accurate rifle. I still remember my serial number! Thanks for the video!

This was my rifle when I went into CV9030 gunner training (started my service with the RK62) and apart from the slight weight increase I really liked it.

I love that Ian laughed when he said “buttplate to muzzle device” I’m sure “tip to butt” ran through his mind 😂 someone has watched a couple Garand Thumb videos!

If you're gonna take the time to reinforce the dust cover enough for a sight, why not put the rail up there too? I feel like they reinvented the wheel when they made a side mounted optic rail.

Oh good memories come to my mind carrying that fine gun during my time in army. My version had acog mounted on it.

This is a very impressive piece of work, thank you to Sako for letting Ian in. I was well impressed by Valmet (M62, M76, and that 7.62×51 RPK), and appreciate the quantities of every Sako I have handled.

“This is the ideal AK body, you may not like it but this is what peak performance looks like”

tääl ennen ku porukka alkaa vittuilee. tulkaa keravan prisman etee

If there ever can be a "Cadillac" of AK-rifles, this and the RK62M1/2/3 are it. In a similar way as the M39 was the Cadillac of mosin nagant pattern rifles. The RK62 is just a good solid service rifle, and while it might not be the best thing floating around, it's absolutely bulletproof design. It will never do you wrong.

From a former RK-62 user's point of view, that reinforcing plate on the top plate looks great. Most of the RK-62's we had during my service in the late 90s had wobbly top plates that would almost come off without even pressing down on the unlocking mechanism.

Who knew that so many viewers served with this rifle?! What a surprise! /sarcasm I served with the RK-62 back in -08, and I suspect a lot of conscripts who served in non-frontline roles (like coastal artillery as I did) got to use the older 62's while the newer 95's were reserved for roles that were far more likely to need in a combat role. My guess is that this is one aspect why the safety was not changed - there is a significant proportion of the reserve who were trained with the AK-style safety (and _a lot_ of 62's used in training were retained for reserve use in long term storage), and it would be too much of a hassle to have two different styles of safety about and around.

"Sako and Valmet merged and went on to Finnish the project".

I've always wanted to try this one on a range. Back in my times in the force RK62 was used in most places.

The Valmet rifles are some of the finest piece of kit. Laso nice to see you in finland again :D

I used a 62, but the grip storage probably didn't happen, because the cleaning kit is in a pocket on your vest. Or backpack, it depends on where you're trained.

Yea, going from dust cover up means safe to dust cover flips out of the way when you pull the trigger is bound to lead to an ND.

You cant believe how long i was waiting for this video

Informative and knowledgeable as always Ian! Best general issue infantry rifle in the world, all things considered - IMHO.

Not only did the finns refine the AK... They finnished it.

Apart from the stock, I've always preferred 62 over 95. Newer one is heavier and more cumbersome to operate.

What i like the most with the RK95 is the finnish finish.

Jippii and wow. Awesome video again. Greetings from Finland.

I see nothing but Galil when I look at this rifle. Though it is important to note that the Galil was based of the RK 62, not the 95