Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at
Sako in Riihimäkii in Finland.
This is the 100th anniversary of the factory's existence,
and they have been generous enough to let me in
to take a look at some of the really cool
historical guns in their factory reference collection.
And what we have here is perhaps one of the rarest,
and to me one of the most interesting,
Finnish light machine guns kind of ever developed.
This is an L-34, which was sort of nicknamed "Sampo",
developed by Aimo Lahti in, as the name implies, the 1930s.
So originally Lahti had produced the LS-26 light machine gun,
which was Finland's standard issue light machine gun going into the Winter War.
And it's a complex gun that was not particularly well received in the field.
And one of the reasons behind that is that it is a recoil-operated light machine gun.
Now most of the powers in World War Two had adopted gas-operated light machine guns.
When the Finns developed the LS-26 there was sort of a directive
from the military brass that it should be recoil operated.
And the reason ... was that they had the Maxim gun
which was a recoil-operated heavy machine gun and it worked very well.
"Let's stick with what works and what we know is good.
Therefore we should have a recoil-operated light machine gun."
Now the LS-26 is a complex design, it's not necessarily
... a bad gun, but it didn't work out well in the field.
But turn the clock up from the 1920s to the 1930s,
Sweden has adopted the BAR which is a gas-operated light machine gun.
And it's actually working out really well for them.
They adopted it first in the early '20s,
they would go back in 1937 and update it and continue to use it.
And the Finns see the Swedes having very good success with the BAR and decide,
"Maybe there is something to this gas-operated light machine gun idea.
Hey, Aimo Lahti, why don't you go design one?"
And so in 1934 at VKT, which was the state rifle factory, he put together this design.
... Unfortunately this one is missing its magazine and its bipod.
But it is one of I think only two that still survive, so
I'm very happy to get a chance to take a look at it.
So ... the configuration is very similar to, say, the Bren, the Japanese Nambus.
This was a common setup for light machine guns in the 1930s.
It's ... box magazine fed with a top-mounted magazine.
This allows you to have an assistant gunner very easily change magazines
while the gunner himself can focus on sights and shooting.
It allows the gun to be relatively low to the ground
because you don't have a magazine sticking out the bottom.
This is the reason the BAR was limited to 20 round magazines.
Anything longer than that would get in the way of shooting prone.
Not an issue with a top mounted ... magazine.
Anyway, let's go ahead and take a closer look at this because
while it is obviously influenced ... heavily by the ZB 26 and the Bren,
it's got some very substantial differences.
Alright, we have a couple of markings on the receiver here.
Serial number is 3 on this particular gun.
Its actual designation is L-34 and it was manufactured by VKT,
which is the Finnish state rifle factory.
And then its sort of nickname "Sampo" is interesting
in that ... there's a lot to unpack in that name.
... It's a difficult thing to translate.
... It comes from the Finnish national epic,
and it is a machine that simply gives without requiring input.
Think of it as perhaps a Cornucopia maybe, in English language tradition.
... Like I said, it's a hard thing to translate, but it implies that this is
a ... very successful, very efficient, efficient isn't really quite the word,
but a perpetual motion machine is kind of similar. ...
Basically it's a really darn good gun.
We have a selector lever here on the left side with positions for semi-auto, full-auto, and safe.
I'm not going to try and translate the Finnish words behind those abbreviations,
but that's what they are. There's a stop at this end.
And then this is held in place simply by a spring detent.
So it's stiff, I'm going to lift it up a little bit to move it.
But it locks quite solidly into these detents in the receiver.
This example is in 7.92 Mauser (or 8mm Mauser) calibre.
Like I said, this was developed potentially both for Finnish service in 7.62x54,
as well as export service, and for export 7.92 Mauser was kind of the best single choice to make.
And then we also have a disassembly lever here on the side, which we'll get to in a moment.
Now, a couple of neat features of the design.
We have a receiver that's very Bren-like.
Notice that the magazine well is a separate component,
and there's one pin here that holds the magazine well and the magazine catch in place.
So in order to produce this in different calibres, say for commercial production,
it would be very simple, as long as they all fit in the same overall receiver length,
to simply make an interchangeable magazine well.
The rear sight has not been marked with range graduations
because this is one of the ... only run of basically prototype guns.
But you can see that we have a notch sight here offset to the left,
because of course the magazine is in the centre.
Since the magazine's already in the centre you can lock your carry handle in position.
That also acts as a barrel handle for changing hot barrels, which we'll get to in just a moment.
And then we have a front sight that is also, of course, offset to the left.
A small conical flash hider. And the gas block is actually built into the barrel itself.
The gas port is way out at the end of the barrel, very much like a ZB 26.
Had this been developed further I think there's probably a decent chance
it would have moved backwards, as the Bren did.
The bipod would have been mounted right here, unfortunately it's missing on this example.
And then unlike the Bren but similar to, for example, the Châtellerault 24/29
this ejects out the side of the receiver. So the bottom is solid.
And we've got a nice big solid charging handle here that allows you to retract the bolt.
Notice when this goes into battery the bolt doesn't lift.
This is not a tilting bolt, but it's close.
So for disassembly I'm going to start by locking the bolt back.
The charging handle is non-reciprocating, so.
And it's also not spring-loaded, so we'll pull it back into position there.
Then I just have this one big spring detent, or spring lever, on the top.
Push that in and I can rotate the barrel.
This has interrupted ... threads on it.
And it just pulls right off like that.
Now you can see the gas block assembly out here on the end.
Complete with a bit of old gunk in it.
The gas port itself can be adjusted here.
It's not quick adjust, and this is very likely something for
developmental work getting the sizing of the gas port just right.
So ... you pull this cotter pin,
and you can thread this in or out to change the gas pressure in the gun.
Now to field strip the rest, we're first going to let the bolt forward gently.
And then we have a disassembly lever back here.
This has the same sort of spring detent.
So all I have to do is lift that up 90 degrees and it unlocks.
I can just pull it out of the gun, and then the buttstock comes off.
This is just held in place by that one locking pin.
It's got a locking flange right there.
This has the recoil spring, and it also has a spring-loaded buffer, right here,
just to cushion the final impact of the bolt carrier.
Neat to point out that this has a very Finnish Mosin-Nagant style sling slot in it.
This is also a buttstock that is somewhat reminiscent of the 08/15 Maxim.
Which would make sense, Finland had 08/15 Maxims that it acquired after World War One.
Next up, with the buttstock removed we can pull out
the very long gas piston/operating rod and the bolt.
And that, cool, touch on that in just a moment.
And then lastly the trigger assembly comes off the bottom of the gun.
Pop that back.
This runs on two rails right here, again similar to the Bren.
And we have a fairly long trough that just covers up the bottom of the receiver.
And then our fire control group here.
This is a simple sear system.
So this locks into a catch on the bottom of ... the bolt carrier, right there.
In full-auto this stays down, in semi-auto this is high enough
that when it pushes back it will reset the sear.
And then in safe I can't move the trigger at all.
The bolt and carrier here are both really quite nicely marked.
3/A I assume indicates that there were multiple sets of parts,
and this is calibre 7.92.
Now this just lifts straight off the carrier.
So what we have here is a hook in the carrier
that is going to hold onto the firing pin, right there,
so that when this bolt closes here,
it pushes the firing pin forward automatically and fires the gun.
That is to say, this fires from an open bolt.
The locking system uses this lug to control a pivoting block.
So this locks in a similar way to guns like the Bren with a tilting bolt.
However, the bolt itself does not move,
you don't have to worry about a change in angle of the bolt face.
Instead you just have a locking block at the back that runs in this track.
So when the system is locked, that lifts up, locks into a recess in the top of the receiver.
And by the way, that right there (so this sits actually right like that),
this is your locking shoulder. It's a separate piece so that
it can be independently hardened, and it can be changed if necessary.
And then when the bolt carrier starts to recoil after firing,
it's going to push this lug back, which pivots the locking lug down.
You can see there's just a simple round ... recess there and a round lug here,
and they interact to do that.
Overall, by the way, the L-34 here has 58 parts and weighs in at 8 kilos,
compared to the LS-26 which weighs 9.3 kilos, so close to 3 pounds heavier, and has 118 parts.
So more than twice as many parts as this, this was a much nicer design.
I also want to point out,
when this is fully in battery, if you fire the bolt carrier is going to start moving backwards.
There is a significant amount of travel,
right until there, before the locking lug actually unlocks.
So there's a centimetre, something between 3/8ths and 1/2 an inch of travel.
And that gives the system a lot of time.
... The bullet has just about left the barrel by the time this starts moving
because of how far forward the gas block is.
This gives a lot of time for pressure to drop and ease extraction
before the system has to actually open up.
And last but not least, we have a significant cut on this side of the bolt.
This is upside down, so the bolt would be like this in the gun.
This is for the ejector.
... So looking at this as if you're at the front of the gun.
This ... lug is going to feed a cartridge out of the magazine.
This is your extractor, and then the ejector pin
is fixed in the gun right there.
You can see it from the top, and it's installed right here on the left side of the receiver.
So that is going to slide in this groove. And when the bolt comes all the way back
it's going to kick the cartridge out that ejection port on the right.
So there is the L-34 Sampo all field stripped.
I should point out the Finnish military actually did
fairly significant field trials on this design,
but not until the 1950s, well after World War Two.
And it actually performed very well in those trials.
However, by the time that was being done,
sort of the Finnish tactical requirements, the mission for the light machine gun had changed.
And they were looking more at something that was going to be belt fed.
And the L-34 just didn't fit the role, regardless of its quality, as it was put together.
So it's a gun that had a tremendous amount of potential that just was never quite realised.
Only a handful of these were manufactured, probably about 10 of them.
They didn't actually see service, they were just kind of at exactly the wrong time.
By the time this would have been ready for commercial production,
which VKT was certainly interested in doing,
most of the other major military nations in the world had already adopted a new gun.
The British already had the Bren gun, the US of course was sticking with the BAR,
the Russians had the Degtyarev.
The ZB 26 ... was an excellent gun that was already out in the market, and had found a lot of customers.
Customers that potentially would have been people that Finland could sell the L-34 to,
except, well, they already had ZB 26s or ZB 30s.
At the same time ... it fell victim in ... Finnish service
to basically bureaucracy and politics, and wasn't put into production.
Lahti would continue to develop this design.
He had a follow-up design in the early 1940s that we'll touch on in a later video,
if I'm able to find an example of one of those.
But in total only like 10 of these were manufactured.
Most of them in ... 7.62x54, or x53 as it was called in Finnish service.
This one, and the other surviving one that I'm aware of, are both in 8mm as you saw.
And that was development for a potential commercial market.
But this certainly had the potential to be a far better gun than the LS-26.
And it's a really interesting historical "what if" to think about,
what if the Finns had been manufacturing these early on?
If they'd started production in '34 or '35, they could have had
substantial numbers of these instead of the LS-26.
And it would have been a significantly superior gun.
Would they have ... adopted basically the Russian Degtyarev, the DP-27,
in as substantial numbers if they had been equipped with this to begin with?
Probably not, probably would have been a good second line gun, but.
Anyway, an interesting historical question.
I hope you guys enjoyed the video, this is a fantastic gun to get a chance to take a look at.
And I'd like to give again a big thanks to Sako at their 100th Anniversary
for giving us a chance to take a look at it.
Thanks for watching.