Terry A de C Foley

Hey Thor- good to see that old Aimo gets a look in, even if he goes down as a copycat. Of course, all he copied was the general outline of the Luger, in service with Finland as the Pistooli m/23. Let's be frank, it doesn't work too well at minus 30, so the Lahti [called Pistooli L/35] was fitted with a device called an accelerator, to ensure positive functioning and extraction under the awful winter conditions. As you say, the Swedes adopted it as the M1940, and made it under licence in the Husqvarna plant along with motorbikes, rifles and sewing machines. Same as the one in the piccie, if the stamp 'MADE IN SWEDEN' is anything to go by.....just checkin, hey! The Finns will tell you that the quality was not the same, but I had one of each, and they both shot very well indeed, especially our British Army 2Z designator 9mm Para, intended to drive our submachine gun as well as the Browning pistol. When we lived in Cyprus in the 70's we used to compete with the local Swedecon and Finncon UN contingents, and get universally thrashed by them, until we changed guns and got to shoot theirs instead! Made like a tank they may have been, but the Finnish UN armourer still had his father's issue pistol, a Lahti, of course. It had been shot at least twice a week for the previous 39 years, at least. The bore had a beautiful bright polish, and still had all its original bits. Wish I had 'em now.....


Terry F