Hello.
New to this forum and wanted to post my LS-26. It's deactivated due to Norwegian gun laws forbidding citizens from owning automatic firearms.
I inherited it from my dad who bought it at an auction in the 90's. According to him, he got it for 200 dollars.
How rare is it nowadays? I remember reading that most of them got wrecked by the finnish military, how many remain? How much do you think I would get for it if I planned on selling it?
Note: I had to make some images smaller due to them being too big. If you would like to see the bigger versions, let me know.
Lahti-Saloranta M/26
Lahti-Saloranta M/26
- Attachments
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- View of the entire gun.
Re: Lahti-Saloranta M/26
Something to note is that I could not find the date it was manufactured anywhere on the gun. All I found was the factory and the serial number (1096).
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- View of the stock. Looks pretty beaten up, perhaps it was used in combat?
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- "VALTION KIVÄÄRITEHDAS Jyväskyld"
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- View of the top of the gun. Notice that this one does not have the tube-like cocking handle like some units have.
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Re: Lahti-Saloranta M/26
Hi 44cckw,
Nice gun - too bad it is deactivated. It is very difficult to say how common these are nowadays. Here in Finland they do not seem to be that rare among licensed collectors (of full-auto firearms), but deactivated guns on the other hand are extremely rare. Grand majority were scrapped in 1990's with fair number being sold to licensed collectors and small number transferred to museums. There is also a handful of guns converted to semi-auto-only configuration in the market.
Serial number (fitting to that early cocking handle design) suggest that this is very early gun indeed. Mass-production for Finnish military started in year 1930 with serial number range starting from 1001 and 347 guns being manufactured that year. So that would make this one of the guns manufactured during the first production year.
Basically whole production of 7.62 mm x 53R Lahti-Saloranta went to Finnish military and saw combat use during World War 2. There were 40 guns bought by Civil Guard, but those should have Civil Guard GHQ ("SY" or "Sk.Y") marking in them. Practically all guns made for export were made in other calibers - mainly 7.92 mm x 57 IS.
More info on my website: http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/LMG1.htm
Sources:
- Sotilaskäsiaseet Suomessa 1918 - 1988 / Military Small Arms in Finland 1918 - 1988 by Markku Palokangas, page 371.
- Arma Fennica 2, Sotilasaseet by Timo Hyytinen, page 409.