[ Bipod Suomi ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we have a chance to take
a look at an extremely unusual, and very cool,
version of the ... Finnish m/31 Suomi submachine gun.
This is a commercial export pattern with
a forward pistol grip, and a bipod mounted on it.
And only a very small number of these were manufactured.
So the origin of the m/31 Suomi dates to October of, predictably, 1931
when the first batch of guns was ordered by the Finnish military.
Now the Finnish military version did not have this pistol grip, and did not have the bipod.
However, the manufacturer, Tikkakoski, was interested in producing these guns both for
the Finnish military, and also for any ...
commercial export contracts that they could manage to find.
So in the early 1930s especially, they were taking the submachine gun around
demonstrating it throughout the Baltic states, in Germany,
there was potential interest as far as South America for a gun like this.
... There weren't a ton of submachine guns floating around in the 1930s,
not like we think about them after World War Two, and the Suomi, the m/31,
had certainly a reasonable potential for international sales.
... Well, we'll talk about how many were actually sold in a minute,
but first let's take a closer look at this, because you almost never see this pattern around.
So despite there being a standard military pattern of the submachine gun,
Tikkakoski as a factory was perfectly happy to offer different variations for commercial sale.
And that's what we see here.
So I should point out that there are versions out there that were purchased with
vertical front grips, but no bipods.
And there are also versions with bipods, but not vertical front grips.
These parts are largely interchangeable and modular,
and it was really easy for the factory to deal with different small-scale orders for these.
So both types with either one of these extra parts were actually ordered by the Finnish police.
And there were throughout the 1930s small, even down to the level of a single gun, commercial sales.
The way the bipod works is quite simple.
... The band that holds the front sight on also has an attachment point for the two bipod legs.
They are held in place by a little spring clip that is screwed to the barrel jacket here.
And then actually it's rather neat, the two bipod legs ... fold together
into basically a round bar profile with flat insides.
So they just split in half into semi-circular elements.
Little feet on the end of the bipod.
There is a little bit of pivot you can get from the bipod,
but it comes from rotating one of the feet in.
So if the legs are firmly planted, there's not really any adjustability in the bipod.
Now one of the neat elements about the m/31, the Suomi in general,
is that the barrel shroud is easily removed.
You simply open the locking lever, rotate this about 45 degrees, and you can pull it right off.
So for the factory to add a bipod shroud to a gun was very simple.
They just manufacture a slightly different version of the shroud,
and that can fit on any standard gun.
The vertical front grip is a little different, a little more integrated into the frame.
But again you can see that it's a standard frame in here
that this front grip strap has been added to.
So the theory of course is just that some people think that this will provide
better handling to the gun rather than holding onto the front of the barrel shroud.
The magazine that we have in here is one of the early pattern of m/31 magazines.
There were actually two versions of these, two slightly different lengths.
The textbook explanation is that this is a 20 round magazine.
This one looks a little bit longer, it might be extended out to 25,
but I don't know for sure.
Like the magazines that would follow, these are double-stack single-feed designs.
And originally the m/31 was made with a 20 round box magazine like this, and a 40 round drum.
In 1936 they adopted a 71 round drum, ... that would really be the standard magazine going forward.
The other magazine that we're familiar with today is the 50 round quad-stack box magazine.
That was introduced in the early 1940s, after the Winter War.
The rest of the gun is really completely standard.
We have a sling swivel in the left side of the stock,
and a matching sling swivel out on the left side of the shroud.
The serial number on this particular example is 2408.
There were 4,000 of these delivered to the Finnish Army by the time the Winter War started.
And all the way up to that point commercial sales were being made,
so this probably dates from mid to maybe late 1930s.
We don't know who originally ordered these.
However, you can see that this one actually has an Israeli property mark on it
because ... a batch of these ended up in Israel.
We don't know who the original purchasers were,
but it was obviously enough of a quantity purchase
that they were able to be sold as a group of guns later on to Israel.
So 50, maybe 100 tops, of this particular pattern were ever made for all the customers combined.
Interestingly on this particular example,
almost certainly because of the fact that it ended up in Israel,
the markings on the rear sight have been milled off.
You can see the panel cut there, this would have originally said "Patent 1932".
And on the opposite side with the serial number
it would have been marked "Suomi Tikkakoski", but not any more.
Ultimately Tikkakoski was unable to find any significant
... foreign contracts for m/31 submachine guns.
And of course once the Winter War began, all production went to the Finnish Army.
And after World War Two there wasn't really demand for a complex,
milled, expensive submachine gun like this one.
So what's particularly interesting here is that we know a small batch of these were manufactured,
there are a handful of them floating around.
And they actually ended up in Israel of all places.
And that's where this one, and a couple of others with it, actually came out of.
The Southern Arms Depot in Israel, when they started surplusing guns in I think the 1970s,
they sold off some of these.
Where they had actually been used, somewhat notably,
by Israeli forces during the War of Israeli Independence.
So just a fascinating bit of world travel for
a very unusual and interesting pattern of Finnish submachine gun.
There aren't in fact, all that many submachine guns out there at all with bipods,
and this is one of the few. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.