Finland’s finest (VIDEO) :: Guns.com
Have you ever argued with a Finn? Well, if you’ve never let me tell you now, save your time and your sanity. From zero to sixty Finnish rage goes into battle, and in 1939 the mighty Soviet Red Army saw this firsthand. A popular weapon for finicky Finnish soldiers? Finland.
A historical perspective
The Finns were deliberately at a loss against Russia after the First World War.
Finland fought for its independence from the body of Imperial Russia at the end of World War I in 1918. Russians (even today) have always cherished the notion that a part of their country, like it or not, is in a way like being part of the country, like it or not. crowd – once you’re in, you can never get out. With this in mind, Finnish military planners knew it was only a matter of time before the Russians actually came back with an offer they couldn’t refuse, so in the early 1920s the Finnish arsenal in Tika began working on a small machine gun prototype. giving the Finns significantly less infantry a leg up in a possible attack.
Finnish planning
Drawing from Finland.
Aimo Lahti, a respected 25-year-old who started working on firearms Suomi submachine gun (Finn for or “Finnish submachine gun”) in 1921. Although a few pistol-caliber submachine guns had emerged from World War I, few had seen combat. Lahti and his team looked at Hugo Schmeisser’s German Bergmann M18 for reference and learned from the weapon’s flaws. In the same year, the prototype Suomis was sent to the field for testing. The background of the decade’s R&D work has been extensive field tests at the Arctic Circle (a large part of the country is above it), and the final design was put into use as Suomi KP31.
Original Finland with a shorter barrel.
Drum case for Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun.
The gun was a simple blockback design that used a spring-loaded bolt to shorten the action. A 12.4-inch rifled barrel combined with a one-piece wooden stock gave the gun an overall length of 34 inches. Thick milled steel parts instead of stampings and wood instead of plastic, the gun was heavy, just over ten kilos empty. This bulk helped dampen the felt recoil of the gun’s 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge, especially when they were ripped off at 750 rounds per minute from an open bolt. The slotted heat shield and quick-change barrel option, almost unheard of in anything other than a heavy machine gun, constantly overheated.
Suomi KP/-31 with longer barrel and drum magazine. Current semi-automatic version.
With a high cyclic rate of fire, Finland wanted a 9 mil brass magazine and the Lahti team designed at least three different magazines for it. The standard was a 36 round double stick magazine. Optional super high caps included a 50-round four-stack chest or a 71-round drum.
Suomi M31 drum magazine.
Use
Finns covering Russian tanks with Molotov cocktails.
In 1939, Stalin demanded unrealistic territorial concessions from Finland as a prelude to the war. When the country refused, nearly a million Soviet soldiers gathered at the border and attacked their tiny neighbor. With the Finns vastly outnumbered, the outcome in the so-called Winter War should have been a passing decision, but no one told that to the Finns, who sent small, well-trained cavalry teams on skis armed with Suomis, Mosin rifles and Molotov cocktails. .
A popular expression in Finland at the time went somewhat like “There are so many Russians and our country is so small. Where are we going to bury them all?” This saying would not turn out to be too far from the truth, as the Finns inflicted a total of around 323,000 casualties on the invaders in the 103-day battle before hostilities were forced to stop. In the end, Finland accepted the peace treaty and lost part of the territory occupied by the Soviet Union, but remained independent.
Suomi submachine gun, seeing service in Finnish forests.
At the same time, Finland became a legend of its time. It is quite possible that the Finns would have been less successful and probably lost the winter war without this weapon. Its design was like that
Finnish submachine guns.
forward thinking that it helped serve as a surrogate parent for legions of subgun models after that. The 71-shot drum of the Soviet PPSH-41 is directly translated from Finland. It is believed that the Finnish spring-loaded bolt was an evolutionary bridge between World War II auxiliary weapons such as the Schmeisser and the telescopic bolts of the Cz23 and UZI models.
Sweden produced thousands of its own Finns when the M37 was first chambered in 9x20mm Browning Long, then in 9×19. It was also built under license in Denmark and Switzerland. Finland’s allies in World War II (known in Finland as the Continuation War), including Germany, Bulgaria and others, bought everything that the Finns saved.
By the way, Lahti designed more than fifty other weapons, from the highly successful pistol bearing his name to anti-tank artillery. He died in 1970, a retired major general.
Pick-up today
With its wooden frame, durable construction and heavy (15.5 kg with a loaded 71 round) profile, the Suomi was a weapon built to withstand the lack of time. Both the Finns and the Swedes kept them for about 50-odd years, retiring them for good in 1998. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing great disarmament of Europe, thousands of Finns were dumped on the surplus market, and these come to the United States in two forms: parts kits and semi-automatic rebuilds.
Finland part series.
Parts kits are very easy to get right now at prices of $79. When built as a doll receiver, they become a beautiful and historic piece. When making a semi-auto for a new working receiver, be sure to follow NFA rules. Magazines used to be very cheap (like under $20), but supplies of 36-round stick magazines are running out as SW76/760 owners discovered they could be used in their guns as well.
Semi-auto Suomi with a longer barrel.
Semi-automatic conversion models made from burned Swedish and Finnish guns are also common in the United States. Using a new receiver that fires from a closed bolt and a longer barrel to make sure it’s not an SBR, these run around $450. It seems that the only complaint new owners have about these (besides being heavy) is that they have to keep making trips to the store to buy more ammo.
Grab a few if you have a bunch of 9mm you don’t know what to do with. Or if the Russians start gathering at your border.