[ Does the Suomi Compensator Work? ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten Weapons.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here with one of my fine Finnish friends
and a pair of Suomis, because we are curious if there's actually a detectable difference
in controllability of the Suomi with the original bare muzzle,
versus the later add-on compensator.
So we're both going to try some bursts, swap guns, try a few more bursts,
and see if we can detect anything.
- Yep. - Ready? - Yep.
When you are.
- OK.
Kiitos
- Alright, I think I can tell a difference. - Yeah, yeah, there are significant differences.
- When I was first shooting that one with the bare muzzle,
my thought was there can't be a difference, this is so controllable.
It's so easy to hold it on target. - Yeah.
- And then with this one you don't have to even try to hold it on target really.
- Yeah. - It just stays there. - Yes.
- So, that's ... impressive if we both have the same reaction.
Do you have a preference? - No.
- Both good? - Yeah. - The Finns are very talkative people.
So, you know the problem with these?
So Lahti didn't think that the compensator was necessary. - Yeah.
- And I can understand why, it's a very controllable gun without it.
And you can pack that full of snow, and then it freezes, and then that's a problem.
- Yes. - But there's not really anything to pack full of snow there.
Well, these drums need to be emptied one way or another.
- Yeah, I'm out already.
- Alright, well I'm going to finish off this one then. - Go ahead.
- Even then I went to try and push into it to control it as I started,
and I just pushed the gun down.
Alright, there you go guys. The official conclusion.
The Suomi compensator does in fact make it more controllable, it does push the muzzle down.
And if you're not concerned about other things
like the little bit of extra weight, or packing it full of snow, it's a good addition to have.
Thanks for watching.
Alright, a quick postscript. I was talking to a guy
who had a bunch of experience in the Finnish Army shooting Suomis, KP/31s.
And he said he had a Winter War vet suggest to bring his nose
all the way up in contact with the end cap of the receiver.
And basically look over the top of the gun with both eyes open to control it.
And this guy I was talking to said he was a little unsure about that at first,
"Like, that's going to be a lot of recoil on my nose",
and tentatively tried it, and said it was actually quite remarkably effective.
So I'm going to give that a try.
... Hopefully he wasn't just feeding me a joke and I'm going to bust my nose open on this thing, but.
That works really well, that's pretty slick!
There's no uncomfortable pressure at all because I still have the stock in my shoulder.
And sure enough, even with no practice at all right now,
looking over the top of the gun actually works pretty well.
I can hit whatever spot on the backstop I'm trying to, and that's 50 metres.
If you were actually doing this in real close-range combat in a trench or something,
it's a step up from shooting from the hip.
But much faster than trying to actually use the irons.