Finland's standard light machine gun going into the Winter War was the LS-26, a gun which did not succeed in field use. It was complex and cumbersome, and Finnish troops quickly replaced it with captured Russian DP-27 LMGs. Part of the problem of the LS-26 was it's recoil-operated design. Finnish...

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 wa...

Yesterday we took a look at the Stemple-Suomi on the bench - today it's time to find how similar it is in handling to the real thing! I have a Danish M41 Suomi, a Stemple-Suomi, and a couple of 71-round drums all ready to go...

The result? The Stemple pattern is virtually indistinguishable fro...

The Finnish military depended heavily on Maxim machine guns until the 1960s, first using ones captured from the Russians and later starting production at Tikkakoski in the 1930s. One of the difficulties of the Maxim, however, was its mount. Based on DWM commercial mounts, the Finnish Maxim tripod...

When the Finnish Army adopted the m/27 improved pattern of the Mosin Nagant rifle, there was one group of soldiers who were not really satisfied with it. Finland had a cavalry brigade - one of the elite elements of the force - who wanted something more like the German Kar98AZ carbines they had be...

Finland used a variety of FN pistols prior to WW2, and had already evaluated the High Power when Russian invaded and the Winter War began. With an urgent need for more arms, Finland ordered a batch of High Power pistols, which FN was happy to include with the other arms orders already being deliv...

One of the significant foreign rifles in Finnish service during the Winter War and Continuation War was the Swedish M96 Mauser. These rifles began arriving in Finland even before Finland's independence, and in 1919 the Civil Guard was given ownership of 1,390 of them. The numbers increased slowly...

During the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese government helped smuggle arms to potential revolutionaries in Russia, in hopes of provoking a domestic crisis that would divert Russia military force form the war. This included a plot to buy many thousands of surplus Vetterli rifles (as well as C96 Ma...

You might recognise this wonky weapon from films and games. In reality only around 6000 were ever made and it was never adopted into service by any armed forces. This rare gun gives us a fascinating insight into one design that tried to solve the issue of recoil reducing accuracy.

How well do the Jatimatic's recoil-controlling features work? Will the front grip snap off while firing? Can I actually get the progressive trigger to work? Let's find out!

In February of 1943, new production Suomi submachine guns began to include a 10-point compensator built into the barrel shroud. This pattern, really the only substantial variation in Finnish military m/31 production, was identified as the m/31 SJR, an abbreviation for muzzle brake ("suujarru"). S...

The basic equipment of the Finnish Army came from what was left in Finland by departing Russian soldiers when Finland declared independence. As the Russians had no scoped rifles at that time, Finland didn't have any either. The Finnish Army began experimenting slowly with the concept of a scoped ...

Before the Winter War, the standard light machine gun adopted by the Finnish military was the Lahti-Saloranta LS-26. This was a complex and finely built weapon, using a short recoil action and tilting bolt, chambered for the same 7.62x54mm rimmed cartridge as used by Finland's Mosin-Nagant infant...

A montage of a bunch of shooting from our trip to Finland in June 2017! Including:

m/31 Suomi
KP-44
KvKK-62
LS-26
DP-28 (Emma)
M91/24, M27, and M28/30 Mosins
M32/33 Maxim
Rk-95
Sako TRG in 7.62mm NATO

Thanks to Varusteleka.com for arranging this shooting trip!

Aimo Lahti was the premier firearms designer, and the m/26 was his first significant design. Lahti was a Civil Guard armorer, and upon seeing the Lindelof copy of the Bergmann SMG in 1921 he thought he could make something better and cheaper. He took on three partners and formed Konepistooli Osak...

I have been doing a bunch of filming with this Finnish collector, who has been very generous with his time and giving me access. He thought it would be fun to show folks a full tour of the collection he has assembled, and I though that would be a fine idea! So enjoy - this is the sort of fantasti...

Prior to the Winter War, Finland had just a few armored vehicles; mostly armored cars. These needed some armament, and one idea put forth was to fit an m/31 Suomi to a ball mount inside a vehicle. This required simply designing a specific shroud for the barrel to fit the mount (as well as the pis...

The "Korsu" is a special version of the Suomi made for use in the bunkers of the Mannerheim Line. When construction on the Line really kicked into high gear in the summer of 1939, is was discovered that the vision slits in the bunkers were too small to fit the muzzle of a standard m/31 Suomi. In ...

After the Winter War and Continuation War, Finland settled a peace treaty with the Soviet Union, and started looking to modernize its infantry rifles - something semiautomatic was needed to replace the Mosin Nagants it was still using. A variety of rifles were tested, including the AR-10, Sig AM-...

The kp/31 Suomi submachine gun in Finnish service was an outstanding weapon, but it was slow and expensive to manufacture. When Finnish forces began capturing Soviet PPS-42 and PPS-43 submachine guns form the Soviets in the Continuation War, it was very quickly decided that Finland should copy th...

The kp/31, aka M31 "Suomi" submachine gun was adopted by the Finnish Army in 1931. It was produced by the Tikkakoski company (more commonly known today as Tikka), and in addition to Finnish military contracts they were eager for international sales, either commercial or military. To that end, the...

The Lahti L-35 pistol was adopted by the Finnish military with the intention of it replacing the Luger, although production was never great enough to accomplish that goal. Early in its production, a couple of special target models were made for field shooting use, and this is one of them (serial ...

I had a chance to shoot an LS26 once before, but without the benefit of a magazine loading tool – and so I could only get 4 or 5 rounds into the mag. This time, we have a proper loader, and we can give the gun a proper workout. And I’ll also show you how that loading tool works – it’s almost as n...

Finland’s first domestic light machine gun was the LS-26. The prime designer was Aimo Lahti, but because of his relative inexperience and lack of formal credentials, Lieutenant A.E. Saloranta was assigned to assist him. The two did not get along well, and Lahti effectively designed the weapon on ...