Original Finnish WWII KP m/44 Display 9mm Submachine Gun with Magazine and Sling Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. Offered in fine condition built on a newly made non-firing BATF approved non-gun display receiver, this Finnish KP m/44 SMG comes with an original stick magazine and sling. Magazine release tab, safety, barrel jacket lock, and sight are all intact and movable. The cocking handle is welded in a fixed position per ATF requirements. Overall a great condition piece and very attractive.

The rear of the receiver is original, and is marked with the Tikkakoski factory logo. It also bears the SA mark of the Finnish Army (Suomen Armeija) below this, as well as on the magazine, which is also rivet-deactivated.

The KP m/44 (Finnish: Konepistooli malli 1944, lit. ‘Submachine gun, model 1944’), nicknamed “Peltiheikki” or “Pelti-kp”, which could be translated as “sheet-metal Heikki” and “sheet-metal machine pistol”/”sheet-metal submachine gun” respectively, was a Finnish 9mm copy and modification of the Soviet mass-produced 7.62 mm submachine gun PPS-43.

Starting in 1942, and becoming more common as the Finnish-Soviet Continuation War progressed, both PPS-42 and PPS-43 began showing up among Soviet units, and many were captured by the Finnish Army. The simple construction of these weapons immediately caught the interest of the Finnish arms industry. It was decided that they would try to copy the sheet-steel stamped construction process, but redesigned to use the 9×19mm Parabellum round instead of the original Soviet 7.62×25mm Tokarev and to use the magazine of the Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun, the standard SMG in Finnish service at that time. The new submachine gun was a much cheaper design than the Suomi submachine gun and could be manufactured much faster. All parts were made out of stamped steel (excluding the barrel, bolt and some wooden plates on the handle). The weight of the gun was almost halved compared to the Suomi (2.95 kg vs. 5 kg).

The Finnish Defence Forces ordered 20 000 m/44 submachine guns from Tikkakoski in August 1944. The end of the war saw the order reduced to 10 000 units and the guns were produced during 1945.