M40 Lahti

[rice 123]

I saw a Swedish M40 lathi in a gun shop the other day I had never seen one for sale before and it was reasonable so I laid it away. It is a very heavy duty looking pistol however I did some reading on them and they say they are subject to catistrophic failer ' The Swedish army kept them in service from 1942 until 1990. So are there any experts out there that can tell me if these guns are like low serial number 1903s and should not be fired.

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[Eaglelord17]

The issue was that the Swedish ended up using the pistol with higher power ammo than it was originally designed for from what I understand. I have never heard of one blowing up, the issue arising from the higher pressure ammo being cracks in the frame (if anyone has some providence to them blowing up I would be very interested in hearing about it).

As a side note as the issues with the cracks in the frame caused by the higher pressure ammo appeared it caused the Swedish to reissue the M1907 Husqvarna (a 1903 Browning) until a suitable replacement pistol was found. This also makes the 1907 one of the few pistols to be reissued to a military after being declared obsolete and not at war.

[browningautorifle]

Only experience I have had with them was seeing them in use with the Swede's in Cyprus in 1975/76. They seemed wholly satisfied with them at that time though...mind you the Danish were carrying the M1s we now post about...and I own one of.

[Robert303]

A friend of mine shot a Finnish made Lhati for years with no problems prior to pistol ban in the U.K. at the time of the hand in he did not realise it was so rare and handed it in. He now wishes he'd kept it under the Sec 7.3 scheme. I would suggest that if you use MODERATE 9mm loads you will have no problems.

[Brian Dick]

Yep, I imported the majority of the Finnish pistols in the USA and had a few Swedish ones too in years past. I've never had a problem with good quality 9mm ball ammo.

[rice 123]

I picked it up today it does not look like it has been shot much I will shoot light loafs in it thanks

[browningautorifle]

Got pics?

[villiers]

Like the Po8 (Luger), it´s one of the few semi-auto pistols that works without the ubiquitous Browning flop-down barrel. This makes it extremely accurate and much more fun to fire. Both were designed for a standard 9mm para round, and anything hotter can cause serious damage.

[Johnny Peppers]

Oh yeah, you see a lot of those accurate Lahtis at the pistol matches. While it sort of looks like a Luger, that is where all comparison ends, being of an entirely different design which is closer to the Bergmann. They are also a joy to field strip.

[villiers]

Seen quite often over here. They have their own aficionados. But maybe not on your side of the Atlantic. Disassembly takes only a minimum of intelligence. And, like the Luger (P 08) the action and barrel only move in the direction of fire.