By the end of 1939, when the Soviet-Finnish war began, the Finnish army was armed mainly with small arms of its own production. For example, the Finnish Suomi submachine gun, which looks very much like the famous Shpagin submachine gun, became one of the symbols of that war. People know much less about Finnish pistols from that period. One of them was the L-35 semi-automatic (self-loading) pistol designed by Aimo Lahti. This pistol was the personal weapon of the officers of the Finnish army, and Aimo Lahti himself is rightfully recognized by his contemporaries as the father of Finnish small arms of the 1920s and 1930s.
Aimo Lahti began work on an eight-shot pistol chambered for the German 9 × 19 mm Parabellum cartridge back in 1929. The weapon was adopted by the Finnish army in 1935. At the same time, the pace of its production was rather low. By the beginning of the Winter War, only 500 L-35 pistols had been manufactured in Finland. It should be noted that this is the only "polar pistol" in the world. The weapon was specially designed in Lahti for use in low temperatures and possible icing.
Quite often, at the first glance at the Finnish L-35 pistol, all firearms lovers immediately associate with the more famous German Luger P.08. Indeed, these two pistols are very similar in appearance, but this is where their similarity practically ends. When creating his L-35 pistol, Aimo Lahti paid a lot of attention to ensuring the reliability of the weapon in the harsh northern conditions: the pistol mechanics are reliably protected from water and dirt, which at low temperatures could lead to failures and the inability to use the pistol. Also, to increase its reliability, a shutter recoil accelerator was used in the design of the L-35. Experts attributed the main advantages of this model to an easy descent and a small recoil when fired.
At home, the L-35 pistol was produced in relatively small batches, the total release was only about 9 thousand copies, production was completely stopped after the end of the Second World War. At the same time, this rather successful pistol was in demand in neighboring Sweden, where in 1940-1946 about 90 thousand pistols were produced under the name Lahti Husqvarna m / 40. The changes compared to the Finnish pistol were minor. Thrifty Swedes exploited this weapon for a very long time, the pistol remained in service until the 1980s.
It should be noted that by the end of the 1920s, the Finnish army was armed with pistols and revolvers of various calibers and systems. There were also inherited from the Russian tsarist army "Nagans" and Belgian pistols "Bergman-Bayard", as well as German pistols "Parabellum". Realizing that the military needed a single pistol adapted for operation in rather harsh conditions, Lahti began to create a pistol that would meet the requirements of the Finnish army: simplicity of design, high reliability, ease of assembly and disassembly, the ability to pierce a steel German helmet at a distance of 50 meters … Even then, the pistol was compared with the Luger P.08, which was in service with the Finnish army. Externally, the pistols were similar due to the large inclination of the handle and the open barrel, however, the device of the two pistols was different.
The main feature of the Finnish Lahti L-35 pistol was a completely bare (open) barrel. This form of weapon originates from Borchardt's model, which he introduced back in 1893. And although already in the 20th century, Browning pistols with a barrel that was covered with a bolt (shutter-casing) began to gain widespread acceptance, the shape of a pistol with a protruding barrel continued to attract the attention of designers around the world. For example, in 1925, a pistol created by Kiyiro Nambu entered service with the Japanese army. This was facilitated by the very great popularity of Georg Luger's pistol, the features of which he inherited.
The L-35 pistol was also known among the Finnish military as Suomi-pistooli and Lahti-pistooli. At the same time, the weapon did not turn out quite the same as the military represented it. The pistol was quite heavy and large, but it turned out to be very comfortable when holding and firing from it, it could be easily controlled, and the firing accuracy was very high. Also, the weapon was distinguished by high reliability of operation, including at extremely low ambient temperatures. But despite all this, the L-35 pistol was also quite difficult to maintain. In order to disassemble, clean and assemble a pistol, its owner had to have some training and certain skills, and only a highly qualified master could make repairs in the event of a pistol breakdown. However, in fairness, it is worth admitting that the pistol broke very rarely, and it was made from very good high quality weapon steel. The Lahti L-35 was produced at a very slow pace, partly due to manual refinement and assembly of weapons.
The Lahti L-35 pistol was an example of a self-loading weapon built on the basis of a short-travel automation. The barrel of the pistol was rigidly connected to the receiver of a rectangular cross-section, inside it a bolt (also of a rectangular cross-section) moved. The bolt and receiver were locked using a "P" -shaped latch, which was movable in the vertical plane. In the first moments of the shot, the barrel of the pistol, together with the receiver and the bolt, rolled back a few millimeters, after which the latch, interacting with the frame, lifted up and released the bolt. The barrel stopped, transferring kinetic energy to the bolt through a special part in the L-35 design - the bolt retreat accelerator. For manual reloading of the pistol, two grooved finger grips were located at the rear of the bolt, which protruded behind the receiver. On the upper surface of the L-35 receiver in a special tide there was an indicator of the presence of a cartridge in the chamber. The window for ejection of casings was on the right side of the receiver, in the normal position it was closed from the inside by the body of the bolt. The ejector was spring-loaded and located in the left wall of the receiver.
The trigger mechanism of the pistol is with a hidden trigger, which was located inside the frame, because of which the hammer does not pass parallel to the axis of the barrel, but at an angle upward to the shutter mirror. The Lahti L-35 pistol was equipped with a safety catch blocking the trigger, the safety catch was located on the left side of the frame. The weapon turned out to be quite massive and even surpassed the famous Mauser K-96 in weight without cartridges. The grip cheeks on the L-35 pistols of the first series were made of beech, later they were replaced with plastic elements.
The L-35 pistol was produced in Finland in four main series. Zero was produced back in 1938 and was intended primarily for army trials. The first series, in which about 2,600 pistols were produced, was produced from March 1940 to July 1941 and was distinguished by the presence of a figured protrusion on the upper rear of the receiver. From August 1941 to March 1942, the second series of pistols was produced - about 1000 copies, these pistols did not have a figured protrusion on the receiver, and the geometry of the locking wedge was also modified. The third series, which consisted of more than 2,000 copies, was produced from April to September 1944. The pistols of this series lacked a recoil accelerator, and the receiver received a slightly different shape. The last batch of about 1000 pistols was made already in 1945 from the stock of the remaining parts.
Swedish pistols Lahti Husqvarna m / 40 differed from Finnish pistols in a number of parameters. Firstly, purely visually, they had an enlarged trigger guard, a slightly longer barrel, and a groove on the handle for attaching the butt holster. Secondly, Swedish pistols did not have an indicator of the presence of a cartridge in the chamber. Thirdly, they did not use a bolt accelerator (for reasons of reducing the cost of manufacturing a pistol), which, in turn, somewhat reduced the reliability of its automation.
The performance characteristics of the L-35:
Caliber - 9 mm.
Cartridge - 9x19 mm Parabellum.
Length - 245 mm.
Barrel length - 107 mm.
Weight - 1, 2 kg.
Magazine capacity - 8 rounds.
