Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm here today at
the Sako factory in Riihimäki, Finland.
This year, 2021, is the 100th anniversary
of Sako's founding, and they have generously
opened their reference collection to let me
do some filming of some of the cool
historical Finnish guns that they have here.
So today we are taking a look at a Finnish m/44 submachine gun.
This is, as you may have already surmised, a copy of the Russian Sudayev submachine gun.
And what happened was in 1943 during the Continuation War,
the Finnish military started capturing PPS-42 and PPS-43 submachine guns from Russian forces.
And as these filtered back to the high command,
they pretty much took one look at this design and said, "That's what we need."
They recognised that it was an extremely efficient, cost-effective,
(shall we say cheap and crude), but very reliable, very functional, practical submachine gun.
The Finnish m/31 Suomis were fantastic submachine guns,
but time consuming and expensive to manufacture.
And the idea of being able to have a simple,
stamped sheet-metal submachine gun was very appealing.
So the Finnish military decided, ... "We're going to make some of these."
They set out looking for who could make them.
The Sako factory was heavily engaged in making rifles and machine guns.
Valmet was not interested, although I don't know exactly the reason.
But there were two companies that were both capable
and interested in picking up production of this.
And those were Tikkakoski, whose name will be familiar
to anyone who's familiar with Finnish firearms.
And also a company called Ammus Oy.
Now Ammus would have a lot of problems
trying to procure raw materials to make submachine guns.
The Continuation War was of course a very difficult time
for Finland economically and strategically.
And it wasn't just a simple matter of, "Oh, we'll get some sheet metal."
Well, they have to find sheet metal, and Ammus was unable to do that.
Which ultimately left Tikkakoski as the sole manufacturer of what became the m/44.
So first production would take place in August of 1944
after, again, a bunch of delays related to actually procuring raw materials.
Their production tooling they planned to get from Sweden
in exchange for captured PPS-42 machine guns.
The Swedish government was very interested in this style of weapon as well.
As was the Romanian government interestingly.
The Swedes of course would go on to make their own Carl Gustav ... m/45 submachine guns,
that are not as close of a copy of the Sudayev as this, but a very similar concept.
So let's take a closer look at just how close of a copy this is.
Before we dig into this, I do want to point out that this gun
is currently set up with a Carl Gustav magazine.
This was developed in Sweden, and then adopted by the Finns in 1955.
So as originally adopted the m/44 would have used either the 72 round drums,
or the 50 round quad-stack magazines of the m/31 Suomi.
Now these [guns] were ... introduced too late to see any combat service in the Continuation War,
in fact, they didn't really see full-scale combat service ever.
But if they had, they would have taken all of the standard Suomi magazines.
Now, mechanically speaking, this is a simple blowback submachine gun.
A really, really, simple simple-blowback submachine gun.
The only markings on here are the Tikkakoski logo here on the back,
along with an "SA", that's a Finnish army property ... mark, and a serial number.
The folding stock is directly copied from the PPS-43.
Locks in place like that. The release button is here on the top,
which just pushes down that lug ... like so and allows that to fold.
And then the butt plate folds around and down, like so.
The one place that has the most differentiation
from the original Russian guns is the magazine well.
Instead of having a magazine well for the PPS-43 magazines,
this is set up to use standard Finnish magazines.
So when it was originally adopted, it would have used both the
50 round quad-stack magazines, and also the 71 or 72 round drums.
They'll all fit and function in here.
Of course, this was introduced too late to actually see combat use during the Continuation War.
And once the Finns adopted the 36 round double-stack Carl Gustav magazine,
that would also be used.
So this is actually probably the most common magazine,
the most appropriate magazine to see in the gun,
even though it wasn't around when the gun was actually introduced.
And so that's why we're showing it in this video with that one.
The wooden hand grips are a little bit different from the Soviet pattern,
but that's not really significant in any way.
Disassembly is done by means of a spring-loaded plunger back here.
Push that in, all the way in ...
and the lower assembly can be pivoted down ...
away from the upper.
The upper here is one continuous stamped piece of steel.
It has a few little supports and various elements riveted into it.
But our fire control group is a very simple sear.
Pull the trigger, sear goes down, bolt goes forward, there is no semi-auto operation.
We do have a safety here on the underside.
And if I engage that, it blocks the sear from dropping.
And this lip that lifts up locks into the bolt, and prevents the bolt from moving backwards.
That prevents the sort of stereotypical
unintentional firing if you drop the gun on the back end, and the bolt goes back.
Well, with the safety on here, that can't happen.
I can pull the bolt and its recoil spring out.
The recoil spring is captive with this round lug that sits in the bolt.
It has just a little bit of a leather buffer pad on the back.
And that's all there is to the spring.
The bolt is also very, very simple.
The handle is machined directly into the bolt.
We have a fixed firing pin at the front.
That's really all there is to it, simple blowback.
These are serialised on the bolt handle there to match the rest of the gun.
But those are the only two serial numbers, because really nothing else comes apart
except the recoil spring, which doesn't need to be serialised.
The front trunnion is riveted in place here.
And then the barrel is locked in by this cross pin.
We have a windage adjustable front sight, so you can tap this side to side.
Not the sort of level of precision you'd see in traditional Finnish small arms.
But this is supposed to be a cheap and ready-made, basic submachine gun.
Initially the Finns wanted to get 50,000 of these,
or Marshal Mannerheim wanted 50,000 of these,
to replace the m/31 as a standard submachine gun.
That was cut for production and economical reasons to 20,000.
Tikkakoski was able to initially procure the material to make 10,000.
And so they were able to get started on those,
but really just when the Continuation War was ending.
So the full ... batch of 10,000 were made that they had material for,
but the rest of the order was cancelled.
All of the production took place by the end of 1945,
and Finland was left with a relatively small number of stamped submachine guns.
This was enough that they didn't want to just throw them away,
but it wasn't enough to actually replace all ... the m/31s that were still in service.
So these would be used for training purposes
because, hey, they're cheap and kind of disposable.
Better thing to give the conscripts than the more expensive guns.
And they're also given to Finnish UN peacekeeping forces
on their various deployments around the world.
And the idea was by the 1950s to restart production, and make another I think it was 11,000
to provide enough to actually replace the m/31.
To make them a kind of a standard issue weapon.
Well, through what I think is a rather humorous and interesting story,
that ended up never happening.
In 1957 the Finnish government signed an agreement with Interarms out of the United States
exchanging 74,000 Carcanos in 7.35mm
that Finland had got as military aid from Italy during World War Two
and about 2,300 obsolete light machine guns,
which would include things like LS-26s, Chauchats.
All sorts of leftover stuff from the past 20 years
that the Finnish military still had in its reserve, but really didn't need.
Interarms traded those Carcanos and old machine guns for about 74,000 Sten guns.
And the Finnish military looked at the Sten guns and thought,
"Well hey, you know, these m/44s are cheap and economical, but the Sten guns are essentially free.
Because we're just trading them for Carcanos that we have absolutely no use for."
And so once they started receiving Sten sub guns
they just cancelled the production plans for the m/44.
Thus leaving them at a total of 10,400.
The initial 10,000 production,
plus about 400 that were assembled in the '50s from remaining parts.
The one other place where this design would see some further life is in Spain.
After the war, one of Tikkakoski's main shareholders emigrated to Spain,
and took the technical package for the m/44 with him.
Where it was put into production as the DUX 53, and later the DUX 59, made for West Germany.
So kind of a weird side tangent of a submachine gun here.
But that is the story of the Finnish copy of the Soviet Sudayev submachine gun.
It's ... a very reliable gun, it is not nearly as nice of a gun to shoot as the Suomi,
but it's a heck of a lot nicer of a gun to carry.
I have shot both, and given the opportunity I would take the m/31 over this.
But this is absolutely a fantastically functional gun.
Anyway, a big thanks to Sako for opening up their reference collection
for me to do some filming in. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.