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Forum Name: Gun of the Week
Topic ID: 74
#0, GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by Gryphon on Jun-10-17 at 04:40 PM
Meanwhile, in Finland...

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#1, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by eriktown on Jun-10-17 at 04:59 PM
In response to message #0
Well Lahti dah!

#2, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by Peter Eng on Jun-10-17 at 07:36 PM
In response to message #0
LAST EDITED ON Jun-10-17 AT 07:36 PM (EDT)
 
I am mildly amused by the fact that I have apparently seen enough GotWs to guess the age of the L-35 from its looks. I suppose the "35" should have given it away, but I didn't think about that.

The problem of magazine failure is something I'd never thought about. I'm not likely to own a firearm, but it's always interesting to learn new things.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.


#3, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by MuninsFire on Jun-11-17 at 00:50 AM
In response to message #0
> After some fumbling around with another company that went bust just as the deal
> was made, the Swedes came up with one, a company which rejoiced in the name
> Husqvarna Vapenfabriks AB ("Husqvarna Weapon Factory, Inc.," more or less).²

This is the point at which I did a double-take. I'm familiar enough with their line of lawnmowers and such, but had no idea they'd been in the weapons manufacturing line.


#4, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by Gryphon on Jun-11-17 at 01:08 AM
In response to message #3
LAST EDITED ON Jun-11-17 AT 01:09 AM (EDT)
 
>> After some fumbling around with another company that went bust just as the deal
>> was made, the Swedes came up with one, a company which rejoiced in the name
>> Husqvarna Vapenfabriks AB ("Husqvarna Weapon Factory, Inc.," more or less).²
>
>This is the point at which I did a double-take. I'm familiar enough
>with their line of lawnmowers and such, but had no idea they'd been in
>the weapons manufacturing line.

Yep, that's how manufacturing in Huskvarna (as the town's name is now spelled) got started, with a rifle factory. It's one of those brand names that started out as one thing, branched into a bunch of others, then the divisions got spun off or sold to other companies and took the name with them into different industries. Sort of the same way that the Rolls-Royce that makes jet engines doesn't have anything to do with the Rolls-Royce that makes cars (actually part of BMW nowadays).

Today it looks like there are at least four separate companies using the Husqvarna brand in different industries: one that makes sewing machines, the original lawnmowers-and-chainsaws outfit, an Austrian company that makes motorcycles, and Electrolux, which used to own the whole shebang and still uses the brand name for some of its home appliances. Oddly enough, about the only small machines that aren't made under the Husqvarna name any longer are firearms.

My dad used to know a guy who had a Husqvarna dirt bike when I was a kid. (Dad was a Honda Enduro man himself in those days.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#6, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by MoonEyes on Jun-13-17 at 04:25 AM
In response to message #4
You just KNEW I'd stick my nose into this, didn't you?

Yeah, Husqvarna started as a rifling works in the late 1600s, 'stealing' the job from Jönköping who had gotten a royal warrant for the manufacture of rifles. See, Husqvarna had easy access to a swift-moving river and accompanying falls, so water-power was abundant. In the 1800s, it got turned into a 'weapons manufactory', making, among other things, a Swedish version of the Remington Rolling Block, the m/1867, at the same time turning from a privately owned concern to a public stock company.

Around about 5 years later, diversification began, starting with ovens of various kinds, at the beginning wood-fired, then quickly followed by probably the biggest thing they ever made alongside guns, that being sewing machines. Just before the turn of that century, they started an iron casting factory which, in the 1940s, was the biggest in Europe. Beyond the ovens, they made all SORTS of things both for the home and industrial use, from pots to manhole covers and anything in between. Around this time, they also got into bicycles, and a couple years later, bikes. The first lawnmowers came around 1918. There was even consideration about the car market towards the end of WW2. That didn't go anywhere, though.

Around about 1960, they started to 'restructure', the bane of companies in my opinion. They sold off bicycle- and bike-making as well as outboard motors manufacture to Monark, another Swedish company. They also started to pull out of gun-making, if not as quickly. Instead, there was R&D done in various other fields, one of them microwaves, and they were some of the pioneers of microwave ovens. By 1970, there was no more weapon manufacture going on, having sold all those interests to a government holding company, except for a very small number of hunting rifles sold. And in 1979, Electrolux bought it all. End of an era, as it were. Of course, things in the business world isn't that easy, and in 2006, it was made into a company of its own, again, now registered in its own name on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, and with various international divisions, in among other places Nashville in the US and Ulm in Germany.

Having served in the Swedish military, I've used many things with the Husqvarna markings. SMGs, AR(battle rifle)s, off-road bike, cooking utensils, you name it, and machine tools galore.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


#8, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by Gryphon on Jun-16-17 at 09:04 PM
In response to message #6
>Of course, things in the
>business world isn't that easy, and in 2006, it was made into a
>company of its own, again, now registered in its own name on the
>Stockholm Stock Exchange, and with various international divisions, in
>among other places Nashville in the US and Ulm in Germany.

That version also seems to have bought up the IP for pretty much every other brand of chain saw I've ever heard of, including Poulan, McCulloch, and (my family's chain saw of choice when I was a kid) Jonsered, leading to one of those odd industries where there seems to be a lot of competition until you realize that they're pretty much all the same company. It's like if Boeing still made airplanes under all the other names. Kind of weird.

>Having served in the Swedish military, I've used many things with the
>Husqvarna markings. SMGs, AR(battle rifle)s, off-road bike, cooking
>utensils, you name it, and machine tools galore.

I assume the m/40 was a bit before your time?

(One thing I forgot to mention in the original post is that I've seen a couple of mentions of a nickname the Swedish forces had for the m/40, which was a bit bulkier and heavier than the L-35 because of the different grade of steel they used. If these accounts are to be believed, they called it "the iron stove". I could find no solid indication of whether that was affectionate. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#10, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by MoonEyes on Sep-26-18 at 04:45 PM
In response to message #8
LAST EDITED ON Sep-28-18 AT 07:58 AM (EDT)
 
>>Having served in the Swedish military, I've used many things with the
>>Husqvarna markings. SMGs, AR(battle rifle)s, off-road bike, cooking
>>utensils, you name it, and machine tools galore.
>
>I assume the m/40 was a bit before your time?


Having only just now SEEN this, I decided to answer it, even though the post is rather not recent by now. And the answer is....that depends.

m/40, much like M1 in the US military, is a designation that has been attached to quite a few things, among them:

A 105mm Field Howitzer
A 152mm Naval Defense Gun
A 20mm Autocannon(the kid sibling of the famous 40mm Bofors)
A .45 Submachinegun, the equally famous Thompson
Armored Car m/40, known abroad as the Lynx
The Kar98K, rechambered for the Swedish 8x63mm
The m/40 handgrenade
The personal "one-man kitchen", alcohol burner, utensil-set, etc.
and the Strv m/40 tank.

Anyway, no, the m/40 had been replaced by the time I got into service, if only by a few years. The New Hotness was the Pistol 88, in civilian terms better known as the GLOCK 17. GLOCK ended up getting the contract because it was the gun best able to handle the notably...harsh, shall we say, treatment the m/39 9mm round inflicts on gun-barrels. That same harshness was also one of, if not the primary, reasons for the replacement...the m/40s were starting to develop cracks in the frames, which is generally seen as "bad". This also led to a brief return of the Pistol m/07, the gun that preceeded the m/40. Which, incidentally, wasn't actually chambered for .32 ACP. That would be the Colt Model 1903 Hammerless. We rocked the FN Model 1903, in 9x20 Browning. This also led to all sorts of fun shenanigans with the SMG-procurement for Sweden, something I've been thinking about writing something about.


But, the 152mm was still in official service when I did my time, though in another branch. The 20mm autocannon was in use as a secondary back-up for anti-air units. And I had my own little cooking unit.

See there, more information than you ever wanted.


>(One thing I forgot to mention in the original post is that I've seen
>a couple of mentions of a nickname the Swedish forces had for the
>m/40, which was a bit bulkier and heavier than the L-35 because of the
>different grade of steel they used. If these accounts are to be
>believed, they called it "the iron stove". I could find no solid
>indication of whether that was affectionate. :)

No. :) There was nothing at all affectionate about it. It was generally accepted to be a miserable pain.


...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


#9, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by Gryphon on Jun-16-17 at 09:08 PM
In response to message #4
>Today it looks like there are at least four separate companies using
>the Husqvarna brand in different industries: one that makes sewing
>machines, the original lawnmowers-and-chainsaws outfit, an Austrian
>company that makes motorcycles, and Electrolux, which used to own the
>whole shebang and still uses the brand name for some of its home
>appliances. Oddly enough, about the only small machines that
>aren't made under the Husqvarna name any longer are firearms.

Oh yeah, and one of them makes these. :)

--G.
you guys had me at "remote-controlled demolition robot"
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#5, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by JFerio on Jun-11-17 at 10:50 AM
In response to message #0
And here we have the exception that proves the rule that on-paper compatibility doesn't necessarily translate into real-world compatibility.

Are there any signs that the barrel assembly/frame had to be machined in any way to achieve the match?


#7, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by Gryphon on Jun-16-17 at 08:55 PM
In response to message #5
>Are there any signs that the barrel assembly/frame had to be machined
>in any way to achieve the match?

None that I've noticed. The upper receiver's serial number does look a bit like it might've been ground and restamped, though I'm not sure why they would've done that—not to make it match the frame's, because it doesn't. Apart from that, there are no obvious signs of metalwork.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#11, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by MoonEyes on Sep-03-23 at 06:53 PM
In response to message #0
Sorry for the resurrection, but I went and read this for various reasons, and actually looked closer, and realized.
The holster is most likely not Finnish, but Swedish. The text of the stamp is what makes me say that. The text is "Kontrollerat o Godkänt", or "Controlled and Approved", o short for "och", a common contraction back in the day. Another interesting thing, at the top is KKV, for Kungliga Krigsmaterielverket, the "Royal Warmateriel Authority", the procurement agency of the Swedish military up until 1954. Interestingly, it also did not exist until 1943, so if it is part and parcel with some part of the hybrid pieces, that gives some timeline parameters. This would suggest either not actually civilian, or at least surplused out.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"


#12, RE: GotW 47: Lahti L-35
Posted by Gryphon on Sep-03-23 at 08:02 PM
In response to message #11
Huh, neat. Maybe it came with the Swedish part of the gun...

Interestingly, Scott over at S&S, the shop-slash-range I talked about earlier, has an all-Finnish one that he pulled out of his safe when I mentioned that I have one a while back, and it has a holster of the same style--right down to that distinctive strap arrangement--but in black. I guess it would make sense for the Swedish forces to commission duplicates of those at the same time they were having Husquvarna build their version of the pistol.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.