The reason for the chunky pistol grip was explained to me being twofold. (Mind you, i can not confirm this, but the guy that told me was an old quartermaster so i have no reason to doubt him.) First, it was a weapon for conscripts. Being notoriously harsh on equipment, they wanted something even your average conscript couldn't bend or crack easily. Second, it was to be easy to grip with gloves or shooters-mittens during the fecking cold and snowy winters we have here.
Wouldn't a bigger pistol grip make it even more difficult to shoot with gloves or mittens? I only ask because I've always heard that the stock AK pistol grips are slightly *undersized* for that exact reason.
Yeah, I carried the K-pist for a while when I was in the service. The absolutely best part of it is how simple it is which makes it extremely reliable and also very easy to keep clean.
Bit of swedish "myth" about that weapon: The endcap is meant to come off for cleaning and one of the alledged ways to increase the firing rate is to place a battery (wich fit perfectly in the tube) between the buttplate and the spring thus tensioning the spring. Never tried it myself but it´s one of those stories passed down from conscript to conscript as "absolutely true".
Well at least it is a better story than the ones that claimed that the ammunition was so weak that it would not penetrate a rain coat at 100/200/300 meters. (The exact distance depends on the storyteller but 300 was more common than 100.) Which is a fascinating claim given that the m/39b round used is actually semi-armour piercing.
I did that during my service. Works perfectly if you want an uncontrollable rate of fire... You can also instead double the recoil spring for even faster rate, but then you run the risk of it not being able to hook to the trigger, i.e you have a runaway sub that you need to point to something while it empties the mag. Not good! Ask me how I know...
If you are curious, look up Administrative Results: he did a video on the original model Swedish K with Garand Thumb and they tested the battery trick and it worked.
Bit of context: Over time, Sweden came to oppose US involvement in the Vietnam War (and the US' atrocities in neighboring countries) and cut off military sales to the US. Sweden even built networks of hospitals in North Vietnam and sent significant humanitarian aid. The US already had M/45s in small numbers, like the one in the video, so it wasn't hard for the US to copy the design and continue using them with special forces. It was primarily used for practical reasons, but it also had the political significance of sowing distrust between North Vietnam and Sweden, since it implied that Sweden was still secretly selling military products to the US.
Well, the US version (S&W M76) wasn't all that similar after all and, some say, not all that well-made either, so it could be counted as a failure on both terms.
I think sweden have/had a very strict rule of NOT exporting weapons to countries in war and that came to halt the further deliverly from sweden to the US (they wanted more of them and sweden said Nope - you are at war and we ont export weapons to people in war) - and that makes the delivery to Ukraine now even more intrssting as we (sweden) deliver weapons to a nation in war AND has said do with them as you please either stay in ukraine or go over into russia with them.. Swedish politicians did nbot like the vietnam war (that famous picture of the girl burned by napalm didnt do the US any favors) and sweden was also against the Korean war and sent only hospital units and they treated ALL that came to them equaly as far as i know and it was not liked by the US.
Fun fact, this weapon was still in use in 03-04 when I was doing my service in the navy because of how small it was when folded up for use/storage on ship. During training we had to disassemble and reassamble the gun with a bag over our heads, also it had to be done in a certain amount of time. Remember one session I ended up on a slight slope so the spring rolled away..hard to get it working then =)
When timed, with that smelly bag over my head, I had the misfortune of placing a part against another so that it rolled away. The officer timing us noticed though and told me about it afterwards as he had stopped it from rolling away. I liked my M45 and never had any problems hitting targets hundreds of meters away. Many if my comrades did but I know that most was quite bad at handling and setting the weapon up properly. That being said, I always smirk when someone chuckles about the old M45 not being able to hit a target from ten or thirty meters. It’s just operating, or operator, error.
Love this weapon. As a swedish officer with a long servicerecord i have used this weapon alot. Fantastic peice of kit and very usefull. Not for long range, but up to 200m its brilliant.
During the 1960s there was a large anti-war movement active in Sweden. Eventually the Swedish government banned weapon sales to the US including the "Swedish K". In 1967 the American Gun maker Smith & Wesson produced a near copy of the the Swedish K, the Smith & Wesson Model 76. I doubt that the Swedes would have been developing sub-guns with mufflers for the CIA in 1970, that's probably a much earlier design. BTW, the Swedish K and its clone the M76 were standard issue for 1970s Hollywood movie bad guys. Two excellent films from that era that feature the M76 are the The Laughing Policeman from 1973 and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three from 1974. ETA: Another reason I doubt that the gun in question was produced for the CIA is the fact that the markings have been ground off. There used to be a gun maker in New Jersey called Plainfield Machine Company. During the 1960s and 70s Plainfield Machine produced a near exact copy of the WWII era M1 Carbine. Most of those guns were sold on the civilian market. It's been long rumored that M1 Carbines have shown up around the world with no markings...not removed, they were never marked in any way. It's been posited that those unmarked (sterile) carbines were produced by Plainfield Machine for the CIA.
The Laughing Policeman is based on the Swedish novel of the same name, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. In the Swedish book it's the same weapon, so it's nice that the US movie chose to keep that as a nod to the original. It's a REALLY good movie packed with fantastic actors, back in the 1970s Hollywood remakes could actually be a good thing! One of those "couldn't be made today" kind of movies, one piece of evidence is that a suspect is a "fruiter".
Excellent, I’ve heard ans read somewhere.. that this type of suppressor is original Carl Gustav. The holes up front were designed to allow water to drain out more quickley. Which led me to think that they were originally made for Swedish combatdivers. I’m planning to access the archives the winter and see if I can dig something up.
Has the Royal Armouries ever considered getting objects that cannot be disassembled (like the suppressor on this Carl Gustav) X-rayed or CT scanned in order to get high quality pictures/3D models of the insides? Could be a cool thing to have on your website for example. The piece remains undamaged while everyone can still get to see what the insides are like
"There isn't much time for the Swedish". Remember, this gun was designed and made, originally, in a year. Now, admittedly, there was a lot of things to take information and inspiration from, but still....
One interesting user of the K. Daniel Ellsberg, when employed by the State Dept, touring all the zones of Vietnam and looking at what was going on, carried a K. He said in his book that it gave him a certain cachet, as people rhought he was with the CIA.
This one resonates with me rather a lot; my father was Chief Engineer of Special Projects at HEL for a long time. He wasn't involved in this weapon, but he did refer to it on some of his work, including the integrally-suppressed M-4 Carbine.
It looks to be the same colour as std M/45B, and aim looks similar as the original M/45B aim. I would bet it’s a Swedish version likely from the original CG factory in Eskilstuna Sweden. M/45B was my gun during my military service 1980-1981 in the Swedish Army as a 2nd Lt. My soldiers had AK4 instead. Very reliable and easy to clean. I miss it. We trainied close combat with it, the punch you can give with it was great. We also used bajonett when standing guard.
The B version without the suppressor was my first gun in the Swedish Air Force. This gun was one of very few that could take the overloaded 9-39B ammunition. I think Glock has a handgun that can take the same ammo. I’m still very fond of the gun and wouldn’t mind owning one if I had the chance.
I would observe that, as this appears to be a far superior suppressor, that the CIA and/or Carl Gustav were not super impressed with the original HEL version, that someone in Sweden has gone back and designed an OEM version, with more emphasis on quality and less pressure to get the gun ready ‘on time’.
Back in 1976 I moved from Sweden to work on ballistic protection with a US firm in LA. One task was to develop protection for the 9-19 jacketed NORMA ammo fired through the M45. It was not easy at all to get one of those into the US...there is no non-auto mode here. Later, in my military service you did learn how to exactly time the trigger use to fire off 3 bullet bursts. Great fun gun, totally reliable but useless at range...
These always remind me of spec ops in Vietnam. Before I could type, Johnathan mentions its current role. I've seen at least three being shown, reminding me of the eyewitness book series from the early 1990s ❤
I learn more in 16 minutes with Jonathan than just about any other videos short of Forgotten Weapons. Thank you for the detail history lesson on this arm.
I’ll vouch for Forgotten Weapons and C&R Arsenal Brandon Herrera also dose some great takedown stuff too Plus Paul Harrell had a great channel focused more on tactics and performance but once in a while he would tear down what he he was shooting. He is a loss
I had a registered tube gun (USA NFA legal). Mine was about 50/50 Swedish K and Port Said parts. It ran sticks, coffins, and drums with alacrity. I so wish I had made a suppressed barrel rig for it. MG's are fun, but it lost its luster in about six years for me. I like SBS/SBR and Suppressor stuff a lot.
Back in the days you could pretty easily own this gun legally in Sweden as well. There are probably a few dozens still legally owned, but it's impossible to get a license for it today.
I've heard stories about that suppressor version, but actually never seen one. Very cool. As for the basic m/45b, one of the best designs of its era...
Larry Thorne's / Lauri Törni's weapon of choice in Vietnam ops. His philosophy: the one who first opens the fire usually wins. Reliable and easy to operate and maintain. What else do you need in the bushes.
Imagine having one of the coolest collections of firearms in the whole world and letting them corrode like this piece. The view through the cooling holes in the suppressor shroud was shocking.
I know they used the M45, but one of the main reasons was the small folder size and the fact that the normal way you secured the gun left the barrel open in both ends meaning you just had to get it out of the water to clear the barrel for shooting. Trying to shoot with the barrel full of water could cause some "issues" ;) A silencer could be useful but I think it would retain more water and require more time to empty.
I did my military service as a conscripted soldier in Sweden in the late 80th. M45 is the only weapon I ever fired. No one can call my an expert on fire-arms. I training was two fold, firstly I had to do a basic training as a soldier. I did that with other conscripts called local infantry. This means that they have to very quickly mobilized to protect/guard local important things like powerplants and such. After the basic training I was moved to the signaling troops as a communications repairman. We are talking about serving the generals with communications. In both these cases I guess M45 could be useful. But generally, you can't hit a barn from inside. It is really a close battle weapon. The real soldiers they got AK-4, a Swedish version of Heckler & Koch G3. The Swedish police "Swat-teams" also used it. The best thing with the gun was that it never failed. The most fun was playing war with it, I don't know the English word, not dangerous ammunition. The bullet was made of wood. The barrel to small for the bullet so it shattered. In front of the barrel there was a ball to spread the shattered bullet in to a cloud. It was fun especially if you were on the red team sneaking up on you team mates.
The talk about it not being able to hit a barn from inside and so on is pure bs. It’s handling very well up to a couple of hundred meters, in my personal experience. I think many who only used it for a short time, and not very much during that time, never got the hang of it. And, not everyone is naturally good at target shooting. As many things said about time served in the mandatory Swedish military services this is just a fun myth. Fun fact: Swedish boomers and gen x usually love sharing stories from their time in the military. I’m on of them. 😇
Did my service in 88' and there were many in my platoon that sucked using the Carl Gustaf (M45), i shot abunch of +40 series with it on a 100m range during basic training which even my instructors being surprised (most of the conscripts generally sucked). Also never had issues when we fired at moving targets 100-300m (never shot on the 300m targets, but easily scored hits on the 100-200m, about 95% hit rate single shot and burst). So just admit it that you couldnt handle a simple & reliable weapon as the M45, nothing to be ashamed of as many conscripts couldnt, but with more time and basic firearms training would have helped more for you i think :D Again, most conscripts were young and had no experience, using sights, breating technique and trigger pull. My M45 was the 'B' version with the hooked endcap.
It is always a delightful experience to see Jonathan Ferguson The Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armories Museum in the UK, home to thousands of iconic weapons throughout history explain things
When I did my military service in 1988 I had a black one without the extra catch on the end piece but with a fixed magazine well for a 36 round magazine.
Had the M/45 as service gun in military service in Sweden (which was mandatory at that time) but I wasn't very keen on it at all so have rather mixed feelings on that period in life. However, years passed and now I look back on it with nostalgic eyes and remember this gun very well and still looks rather iconic.
Another superb video. Love the series. Can't remember if you said if the gun was test fired and its report captured? Sub sonic rounds with high suppression of exhaust gasses, not much more than the mechanicals to be heard! Keep up the great work :)
It's called the "Swedish K" because _nobody_ outside Sweden can pronounce "Kulsprutepistol". The word means "machine gun pistol", i.e. a parallell to the german "maschinenpistole".
Fun fact - You could put a oldschool (big) battery into the back of the gun to make the recoilspring be tighter. That would get the rate of fire to be faster but sometimes also meant it would shoot until the magazine was empty.
I think you missed one of the most interesting things about K-pist M/45, that it actually had a second recoil spring, the "over travel" spring that is much smaller and harder, housed in the end cap that you started to talk about as a difference between model A and B. I think you also should take up the receaver weight as it is an unregulated recoil operated (sub) machinegun. We, who watch this channel are super gun interested and really want to know the details as you know :P (We even want to know that the Swedish army suggested the pressure of the locking nutt that keeps the barrel shroud in place to hold the barrel should be tightened by 3 klicks, and what that means)
There were two of these in my Ranger unit in Vietnam. One was suppressed. One of the team leaders carried the unsuppressed version. I fired the suppressed one but remember it feeling awkward.
I really want Jonathan to become a knight just so we can say Sir Jonathan Ferguson Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, Which Houses a Collection of Thousands of Iconic Weapons from Throughout History.
When I used the standard version of this back in my service as a Swedish conscript, we talked about using two springs at once, with a much higher rate of fire. No-one actually did it, tough.
This was my main gun in the Swedish army back in the days at Gotland Island -83 during cold war. That is not the standard barrell it was a little longer and didnt have that bottom piece aswell. I think about the markings grinded of it was problably that swedish arms sales were very limited, the policy was then that Sweden prohibited sales of arms to countrys in war and at the brink of war
That short sound of whirring when you started to unscrew it would have landed me in weekend detention in the barracks. It actually made me angry to hear it.
"...Gucci sten gun..." I love that! Also, I love that gun! It was my favourite one during my time in the Swedish military. The grip was big, but I have big hands so we were made for each other. And if you had a good barrel it could be surprisingly accurate at range. I got nostalgia feelings when you pulled up the unmodified one. 😍 Like seeing an old crush from school many years later and realise the butterflies were just dormant... You could literary pull that gun out of the mud, shake it clean, pull the block a couple of times to be sure and start firing. That's a sturdy suppressor! Could be a weapon in itself... Makes me think they aimed at making it as tough as the gun. Perhaps more Nokia 3210 than Gucci?
Or a doubled recoil spring, both works, but trying to combine them makes it into a pistol caliber magasine fed unlocked open manual bolt action long barrel heavy pistol
it's perfect for trench warfare aswell. we trained cleaning trench lines and bunkers by first trowing a few grenades then storm it firing the whole mag. mag contains 36 bullets and fire 6 per second so you can spray for like 5 or six seconds or so. gets very smooky tho with the training ammunition.
The later 36 round mag is apparantly exelent. Not only double feed but also trapezoidal in cross section wich means the front of the cartridges stagger slightly more than natural to straighten out the stack, resulting in as good a feed as in curved 9mm para mags. Aparantly the uzi mags and many other later subgubs copied this The early coffin mags designed in sweden for the suomi was apparantly ok but a bitch to load and had stoppages on the last two rounds if loaded wrong
I loved the standard version as my personal side arm. There's a reason why special forces use and have used it. You hardly get anything more reliable - it just works despite it being cold, hot, dry or wet. It works even being soaked in mud. The simplicity and clever design is a proven concept. A silencer is the icing on the cake. You can be doing a lot of other fun stuff with it using the weapon as a launcher for things best described as psychological warfare... I guarantee the receiving end didn't like it... getting nervous and demoralised... as intended...
The reason for the different levels of patina is probably the metal quality. The metal on the outside is probably less expensive, lower quality, sheet metal. The bolt is certainly made of a higher quality, heat treated, hardened steel.
Very interesting that they reduced the spring. I'm not sure how it would change the balance as he talked about but it would likely reduce the cyclic rate slightly I would imagine.
It’s a shame there aren’t modern semi auto reproductions of this being sold in the US. If you want a retro SMG for historical collecting, you’re basically limited to just the Thompson, maybe the Sten and M3 if Valkyrie Arms is still active.
In Sweden mentioned as the "K pist" When shooting blanks we sometimes put a standard 1.5 volt D battery just behind the spring..making the fire rate go bazurk 😉
Yes, "HAL" is a very unfortunate acronym for a military organisation. Because if you ask them anything to do the answer is always "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave." 😁😁😁
I love that the CIA gifted this wonderful gun to the UK's Royal Armour with zero back story. Historians: Wow what a wonderful piece! Can you tell us about it? CIA: Nope! Historians: You must be able to tell us something. Can you confirm it was used by the CIA? CIA: We can neither confirm nor deny our agencies relationship with this piece.
The standard barrel appears to be shorter than how I remember it to be. Admittedly, it's been 40+ years since I had the pleasure of handling one of those.
I remember from my days in the Swedish military that one could mod the "K-pist" with a type C battery that was a perfect fit between the endcap and the spring to get faster firing rate :)
I wonder if the other two known ones also have their serial numbers ground off? If just one had a serial number or dated proof it would probably confirm one way or another whether these were before or after the US ones.
It struck me that, for a gun made in Sweden and used in warfare by US troops in south east Asia, it's a little surprising that the three known survivors are all in British collections!
Jonathan, if you shorten the length of a coil spring, you increase the spring rate and the force required to compress it. Which would make sense with a suppressor given the increased gas pressure within the barrel/supressor, so increasing the force required to compress the spring would compensate. When my Grandfather was in Palestine before WW2 to quell the Arab uprising, he was seconded into the Mandate Police Force and worked with the night squads, they all used captured weapons on the night operations to neutralise the Arab terrorists, to give deniability
some were sanitized and some weren't Jonathon it depended on a couple factors one what it was who and what it used for and where and two how it was acquired!! if was used by special forces units and came from acknowledged contracts like the seals got and was used in Nam proper it kept it's markings if it went to a group like Phoenix, if it used over the border in Laos/Cambodia or came from a round about indirect purchase (shall we call it!!) after the swedes decided they wouldn't supply anymore it got sanitized from what i was told by a couple SOG/phoenix vets i grew up around!
2 місяці тому
Using KG in Sniper Elite 5 at the moment. Cool weapon.
Also Irony: Okof Palme going to lengths denying US forces swedish weapons and the only thing swedish men who's done military service talk about is how cool it was that SEALs used the M45 in Vietnam. 😂
Did my military service in Sweden in 92-93 and that was my service weapon (not the CIA suppressor tho....), Really cool gun and was not surprised to learn US Navy SEAL´s also used this.
I served in the swedish military as a marksman in the coastal jaegers frkm 02 to 05, and i was as imtimate with the carl gustav, ssni was with my 7.62 arctic precision and the glock 17.
The reason for the chunky pistol grip was explained to me being twofold. (Mind you, i can not confirm this, but the guy that told me was an old quartermaster so i have no reason to doubt him.)
First, it was a weapon for conscripts. Being notoriously harsh on equipment, they wanted something even your average conscript couldn't bend or crack easily.
Second, it was to be easy to grip with gloves or shooters-mittens during the fecking cold and snowy winters we have here.
Good bit of insight!
Good answer!
Likely, a lot of military equipment is built with that in mind.
Wouldn't a bigger pistol grip make it even more difficult to shoot with gloves or mittens? I only ask because I've always heard that the stock AK pistol grips are slightly *undersized* for that exact reason.
@@KrikZ32 I can't speak for the AK, but the size was never a problem for me, wether with or without gloves.
That camera view down through the suppresor was really cool.
Yeah, I carried the K-pist for a while when I was in the service. The absolutely best part of it is how simple it is which makes it extremely reliable and also very easy to keep clean.
Carl Gustav is just such a simple yet cool gun.
Bit of swedish "myth" about that weapon: The endcap is meant to come off for cleaning and one of the alledged ways to increase the firing rate is to place a battery (wich fit perfectly in the tube) between the buttplate and the spring thus tensioning the spring. Never tried it myself but it´s one of those stories passed down from conscript to conscript as "absolutely true".
Well at least it is a better story than the ones that claimed that the ammunition was so weak that it would not penetrate a rain coat at 100/200/300 meters. (The exact distance depends on the storyteller but 300 was more common than 100.) Which is a fascinating claim given that the m/39b round used is actually semi-armour piercing.
I did that during my service. Works perfectly if you want an uncontrollable rate of fire... You can also instead double the recoil spring for even faster rate, but then you run the risk of it not being able to hook to the trigger, i.e you have a runaway sub that you need to point to something while it empties the mag. Not good! Ask me how I know...
There's several videos on this matter.
If you are curious, look up Administrative Results: he did a video on the original model Swedish K with Garand Thumb and they tested the battery trick and it worked.
@@Vonstabthey used to say that about the British SMG.
Bit of context: Over time, Sweden came to oppose US involvement in the Vietnam War (and the US' atrocities in neighboring countries) and cut off military sales to the US. Sweden even built networks of hospitals in North Vietnam and sent significant humanitarian aid. The US already had M/45s in small numbers, like the one in the video, so it wasn't hard for the US to copy the design and continue using them with special forces. It was primarily used for practical reasons, but it also had the political significance of sowing distrust between North Vietnam and Sweden, since it implied that Sweden was still secretly selling military products to the US.
Wait but the media told me that we “America” are the good guys. Why would the good guys do bad things. The media would never ever lie to me.
Well, the US version (S&W M76) wasn't all that similar after all and, some say, not all that well-made either, so it could be counted as a failure on both terms.
I think sweden have/had a very strict rule of NOT exporting weapons to countries in war and that came to halt the further deliverly from sweden to the US (they wanted more of them and sweden said Nope - you are at war and we ont export weapons to people in war) - and that makes the delivery to Ukraine now even more intrssting as we (sweden) deliver weapons to a nation in war AND has said do with them as you please either stay in ukraine or go over into russia with them..
Swedish politicians did nbot like the vietnam war (that famous picture of the girl burned by napalm didnt do the US any favors) and sweden was also against the Korean war and sent only hospital units and they treated ALL that came to them equaly as far as i know and it was not liked by the US.
@@F1ghteR41 and it did clearly sate made in the US i belive so not realy deniable...
@ronnyhansson8713 they did help the Finns, during ww2.
Fun fact, this weapon was still in use in 03-04 when I was doing my service in the navy because of how small it was when folded up for use/storage on ship. During training we had to disassemble and reassamble the gun with a bag over our heads, also it had to be done in a certain amount of time. Remember one session I ended up on a slight slope so the spring rolled away..hard to get it working then =)
I did that too about 10 years before you. I believe the time was less than 45 seconds.
Same here @ Berga in 1998. I liked it very much; the light weight was welcome during all those nights standing guard at the Pier.
When timed, with that smelly bag over my head, I had the misfortune of placing a part against another so that it rolled away. The officer timing us noticed though and told me about it afterwards as he had stopped it from rolling away.
I liked my M45 and never had any problems hitting targets hundreds of meters away. Many if my comrades did but I know that most was quite bad at handling and setting the weapon up properly.
That being said, I always smirk when someone chuckles about the old M45 not being able to hit a target from ten or thirty meters. It’s just operating, or operator, error.
Love this weapon. As a swedish officer with a long servicerecord i have used this weapon alot. Fantastic peice of kit and very usefull. Not for long range, but up to 200m its brilliant.
As always, my favorite weekly Firearms History Class presented by Mr. Jonathan Ferguson, what a bliss 😊
During the 1960s there was a large anti-war movement active in Sweden. Eventually the Swedish government banned weapon sales to the US including the "Swedish K". In 1967 the American Gun maker Smith & Wesson produced a near copy of the the Swedish K, the Smith & Wesson Model 76. I doubt that the Swedes would have been developing sub-guns with mufflers for the CIA in 1970, that's probably a much earlier design. BTW, the Swedish K and its clone the M76 were standard issue for 1970s Hollywood movie bad guys. Two excellent films from that era that feature the M76 are the The Laughing Policeman from 1973 and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three from 1974. ETA: Another reason I doubt that the gun in question was produced for the CIA is the fact that the markings have been ground off. There used to be a gun maker in New Jersey called Plainfield Machine Company. During the 1960s and 70s Plainfield Machine produced a near exact copy of the WWII era M1 Carbine. Most of those guns were sold on the civilian market. It's been long rumored that M1 Carbines have shown up around the world with no markings...not removed, they were never marked in any way. It's been posited that those unmarked (sterile) carbines were produced by Plainfield Machine for the CIA.
SAP/Palme❤
A couple of Swedish criminals used this gun IRL, most notoriously Leif Peters, who killed two cops and a night guard in a suburb of Stockholm in 1967.
The Laughing Policeman is based on the Swedish novel of the same name, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. In the Swedish book it's the same weapon, so it's nice that the US movie chose to keep that as a nod to the original. It's a REALLY good movie packed with fantastic actors, back in the 1970s Hollywood remakes could actually be a good thing! One of those "couldn't be made today" kind of movies, one piece of evidence is that a suspect is a "fruiter".
I think the supressor was added by the americans
@@FroddyPlay 100%. I don't think there even were any silencers in the Swedish army inventory, I've never seen them in the army manuals.
Thank you for your mention of MACV-SOG. =)
Excellent, I’ve heard ans read somewhere.. that this type of suppressor is original Carl Gustav. The holes up front were designed to allow water to drain out more quickley. Which led me to think that they were originally made for Swedish combatdivers. I’m planning to access the archives the winter and see if I can dig something up.
I was also thinking this more rugged silencer might be good for Sweden. We have a lot of bogs and archipelagos with loads of water to foul a gun.
Has the Royal Armouries ever considered getting objects that cannot be disassembled (like the suppressor on this Carl Gustav) X-rayed or CT scanned in order to get high quality pictures/3D models of the insides? Could be a cool thing to have on your website for example. The piece remains undamaged while everyone can still get to see what the insides are like
Tested’s Adam Savage had some of his gadgets CT scanned by Lumafield. Pretty fascinating to be able to see inside how stuff works!
Yup, and seeing how much detail he got out of his gadgets is what I had in mind when I asked/suggested here :P
Jonathan has mentioned wanting to do it in other videos
Digging the oldschool Casio as well 😯
One thing, the clicking when removing the barrel would have had the officer scolding you, max 3 clicks was allowed to avoid wearing down the lock :D
I really liked the endoscopic view as it showed that tightly packed mesh without the necessity to open the silencer.
I see the topic of suppressed arms still continues! Never heard of any of the suppressed versions of the m/45, thank you!
"There isn't much time for the Swedish".
Remember, this gun was designed and made, originally, in a year. Now, admittedly, there was a lot of things to take information and inspiration from, but still....
I would love to visit the Royal armouries. There are so many things I want to nerd out on.
Swedish gun, modified in the US, deployed to Vietnam, used in Cambodia and ending up in the UK.
One interesting user of the K. Daniel Ellsberg, when employed by the State Dept, touring all the zones of Vietnam and looking at what was going on, carried a K. He said in his book that it gave him a certain cachet, as people rhought he was with the CIA.
This one resonates with me rather a lot; my father was Chief Engineer of Special Projects at HEL for a long time. He wasn't involved in this weapon, but he did refer to it on some of his work, including the integrally-suppressed M-4 Carbine.
It looks to be the same colour as std M/45B, and aim looks similar as the original M/45B aim. I would bet it’s a Swedish version likely from the original CG factory in Eskilstuna Sweden.
M/45B was my gun during my military service 1980-1981 in the Swedish Army as a 2nd Lt. My soldiers had AK4 instead. Very reliable and easy to clean. I miss it. We trainied close combat with it, the punch you can give with it was great. We also used bajonett when standing guard.
The B version without the suppressor was my first gun in the Swedish Air Force. This gun was one of very few that could take the overloaded 9-39B ammunition. I think Glock has a handgun that can take the same ammo.
I’m still very fond of the gun and wouldn’t mind owning one if I had the chance.
I would observe that, as this appears to be a far superior suppressor, that the CIA and/or Carl Gustav were not super impressed with the original HEL version, that someone in Sweden has gone back and designed an OEM version, with more emphasis on quality and less pressure to get the gun ready ‘on time’.
Fascinating episode. I also prefer to believe that this was a pre Vietnam weapon that served as a model for the us improvised weapons.
Back in 1976 I moved from Sweden to work on ballistic protection with a US firm in LA. One task was to develop protection for the 9-19 jacketed NORMA ammo fired through the M45. It was not easy at all to get one of those into the US...there is no non-auto mode here. Later, in my military service you did learn how to exactly time the trigger use to fire off 3 bullet bursts. Great fun gun, totally reliable but useless at range...
These always remind me of spec ops in Vietnam. Before I could type, Johnathan mentions its current role. I've seen at least three being shown, reminding me of the eyewitness book series from the early 1990s ❤
I learn more in 16 minutes with Jonathan than just about any other videos short of Forgotten Weapons. Thank you for the detail history lesson on this arm.
They are the only two out here with this level of technical info along with C&Rsenal.................................Peace!
Forgotten Weapons has been trash for at least two years now.
@@SpaceGhost1701 how?
I’ll vouch for Forgotten Weapons and C&R Arsenal
Brandon Herrera also dose some great takedown stuff too
Plus Paul Harrell had a great channel focused more on tactics and performance but once in a while he would tear down what he he was shooting. He is a loss
@@shawnmiller4781 ...forgot about Brandon.....Peace!
As always a great episode, good work Jonathan :)
I fired a version of this in Arizona many years ago, great weapon with heavy bullet subsonic ammo.
I had a registered tube gun (USA NFA legal). Mine was about 50/50 Swedish K and Port Said parts. It ran sticks, coffins, and drums with alacrity. I so wish I had made a suppressed barrel rig for it. MG's are fun, but it lost its luster in about six years for me. I like SBS/SBR and Suppressor stuff a lot.
Back in the days you could pretty easily own this gun legally in Sweden as well. There are probably a few dozens still legally owned, but it's impossible to get a license for it today.
I've heard stories about that suppressor version, but actually never seen one. Very cool. As for the basic m/45b, one of the best designs of its era...
Thank you for your professionalism.
Larry Thorne's / Lauri Törni's weapon of choice in Vietnam ops. His philosophy: the one who first opens the fire usually wins. Reliable and easy to operate and maintain. What else do you need in the bushes.
Imagine having one of the coolest collections of firearms in the whole world and letting them corrode like this piece. The view through the cooling holes in the suppressor shroud was shocking.
Depends what state it arrived in.
Bless your heart.
Rumours in Sweden at the time were that the elite Swedish attack divers were issued an m/45 with a silencer.
I know they used the M45, but one of the main reasons was the small folder size and the fact that the normal way you secured the gun left the barrel open in both ends meaning you just had to get it out of the water to clear the barrel for shooting. Trying to shoot with the barrel full of water could cause some "issues" ;)
A silencer could be useful but I think it would retain more water and require more time to empty.
@@davidmartensson273 Of course. It wouldn’t be screwed on until after having exited the water.
I did my military service as a conscripted soldier in Sweden in the late 80th. M45 is the only weapon I ever fired. No one can call my an expert on fire-arms. I training was two fold, firstly I had to do a basic training as a soldier. I did that with other conscripts called local infantry. This means that they have to very quickly mobilized to protect/guard local important things like powerplants and such. After the basic training I was moved to the signaling troops as a communications repairman. We are talking about serving the generals with communications. In both these cases I guess M45 could be useful. But generally, you can't hit a barn from inside. It is really a close battle weapon. The real soldiers they got AK-4, a Swedish version of Heckler & Koch G3. The Swedish police "Swat-teams" also used it. The best thing with the gun was that it never failed. The most fun was playing war with it, I don't know the English word, not dangerous ammunition. The bullet was made of wood. The barrel to small for the bullet so it shattered. In front of the barrel there was a ball to spread the shattered bullet in to a cloud. It was fun especially if you were on the red team sneaking up on you team mates.
The talk about it not being able to hit a barn from inside and so on is pure bs.
It’s handling very well up to a couple of hundred meters, in my personal experience.
I think many who only used it for a short time, and not very much during that time, never got the hang of it. And, not everyone is naturally good at target shooting.
As many things said about time served in the mandatory Swedish military services this is just a fun myth.
Fun fact: Swedish boomers and gen x usually love sharing stories from their time in the military.
I’m on of them. 😇
Did my service in 88' and there were many in my platoon that sucked using the Carl Gustaf (M45), i shot abunch of +40 series with it on a 100m range during basic training which even my instructors being surprised (most of the conscripts generally sucked). Also never had issues when we fired at moving targets 100-300m (never shot on the 300m targets, but easily scored hits on the 100-200m, about 95% hit rate single shot and burst).
So just admit it that you couldnt handle a simple & reliable weapon as the M45, nothing to be ashamed of as many conscripts couldnt, but with more time and basic firearms training would have helped more for you i think :D
Again, most conscripts were young and had no experience, using sights, breating technique and trigger pull.
My M45 was the 'B' version with the hooked endcap.
It is always a delightful experience to see Jonathan Ferguson The Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armories Museum in the UK, home to thousands of iconic weapons throughout history explain things
When I did my military service in 1988 I had a black one without the extra catch on the end piece but with a fixed magazine well for a 36 round magazine.
Of course without suppressor
'Gucci sten-gun' made me laugh!
The CIA modified Swedish K and M1 Carbine are some of the coolest guns, with the designs and the history of their use.
Also my father shot Expressens Gold Medal in K-pist.
Good to have the thick handle when you use it to hammer the tent poles in the ground.
Had the M/45 as service gun in military service in Sweden (which was mandatory at that time) but I wasn't very keen on it at all so have rather mixed feelings on that period in life. However, years passed and now I look back on it with nostalgic eyes and remember this gun very well and still looks rather iconic.
Another superb video. Love the series. Can't remember if you said if the gun was test fired and its report captured? Sub sonic rounds with high suppression of exhaust gasses, not much more than the mechanicals to be heard! Keep up the great work :)
It's called the "Swedish K" because _nobody_ outside Sweden can pronounce "Kulsprutepistol".
The word means "machine gun pistol", i.e. a parallell to the german "maschinenpistole".
No, it means "bullet-hose pistol".
@@d10valentin Only because the swedish word for "machine gun" is "kulspruta" = "bullet sprayer".
Also called Swedish K because in Sweden it was normally called just "k-pist" instead of the full "kulsprutepistol".
@@perwestermark8920 Yep. Even swedish people think that "kulsprutepistol" is too much of a tongue twister for casual use :-D
@@d10valentin Bullet Sprayer Pistol. Ordagrann direktöversättning.
Fun fact - You could put a oldschool (big) battery into the back of the gun to make the recoilspring be tighter. That would get the rate of fire to be faster but sometimes also meant it would shoot until the magazine was empty.
I think you missed one of the most interesting things about K-pist M/45, that it actually had a second recoil spring, the "over travel" spring that is much smaller and harder, housed in the end cap that you started to talk about as a difference between model A and B.
I think you also should take up the receaver weight as it is an unregulated recoil operated (sub) machinegun.
We, who watch this channel are super gun interested and really want to know the details as you know :P
(We even want to know that the Swedish army suggested the pressure of the locking nutt that keeps the barrel shroud in place to hold the barrel should be tightened by 3 klicks, and what that means)
There were two of these in my Ranger unit in Vietnam. One was suppressed. One of the team leaders carried the unsuppressed version. I fired the suppressed one but remember it feeling awkward.
It's crazy to think about how many of these 'sterile' guns were used in secret missions.
I really want Jonathan to become a knight just so we can say Sir Jonathan Ferguson Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK, Which Houses a Collection of Thousands of Iconic Weapons from Throughout History.
This is great to learn about these interesting weapons
this is the one Ian V Hogg illustrated in military small arms of the 20th century and so is the only one ive ever known
When I used the standard version of this back in my service as a Swedish conscript, we talked about using two springs at once, with a much higher rate of fire. No-one actually did it, tough.
This was my main gun in the Swedish army back in the days at Gotland Island -83 during cold war. That is not the standard barrell it was a little longer and didnt have that bottom piece aswell. I think about the markings grinded of it was problably that swedish arms sales were very limited, the policy was then that Sweden prohibited sales of arms to countrys in war and at the brink of war
That short sound of whirring when you started to unscrew it would have landed me in weekend detention in the barracks. It actually made me angry to hear it.
Yeah, you are supposed to press the pin down not force the ratchet.
"...Gucci sten gun..." I love that!
Also, I love that gun! It was my favourite one during my time in the Swedish military. The grip was big, but I have big hands so we were made for each other. And if you had a good barrel it could be surprisingly accurate at range. I got nostalgia feelings when you pulled up the unmodified one. 😍 Like seeing an old crush from school many years later and realise the butterflies were just dormant...
You could literary pull that gun out of the mud, shake it clean, pull the block a couple of times to be sure and start firing.
That's a sturdy suppressor! Could be a weapon in itself...
Makes me think they aimed at making it as tough as the gun.
Perhaps more Nokia 3210 than Gucci?
It can have the rate of fire increased by a D size battery behind the recoil spring.
Or a doubled recoil spring, both works, but trying to combine them makes it into a pistol caliber magasine fed unlocked open manual bolt action long barrel heavy pistol
The Swedish kpist (kulsprutepistol) is an indoor weapon, to cleanse buildings. We called it pea shooter (ärtbössa). Lv2, Visby 1984.
it's perfect for trench warfare aswell. we trained cleaning trench lines and bunkers by first trowing a few grenades then storm it firing the whole mag. mag contains 36 bullets and fire 6 per second so you can spray for like 5 or six seconds or so. gets very smooky tho with the training ammunition.
Surely there is argument that M45's double feed magazine is superior to the, German designed, double column, single feed design used in the Sten?
Indubitably.
It's surely not an argument: I don't know anyone who would seriously argue otherwise
The later 36 round mag is apparantly exelent. Not only double feed but also trapezoidal in cross section wich means the front of the cartridges stagger slightly more than natural to straighten out the stack, resulting in as good a feed as in curved 9mm para mags. Aparantly the uzi mags and many other later subgubs copied this
The early coffin mags designed in sweden for the suomi was apparantly ok but a bitch to load and had stoppages on the last two rounds if loaded wrong
@@borjesvensson8661 By contrast so were the 36 round mag really easy to load with the speed loader.
the reason for the shorten recoil spring ! to compensate for the reduced barrel pressure due to the 4 relief holes and oal of barrel
Another stunner. 😎
I loved the standard version as my personal side arm. There's a reason why special forces use and have used it. You hardly get anything more reliable - it just works despite it being cold, hot, dry or wet. It works even being soaked in mud. The simplicity and clever design is a proven concept. A silencer is the icing on the cake. You can be doing a lot of other fun stuff with it using the weapon as a launcher for things best described as psychological warfare... I guarantee the receiving end didn't like it... getting nervous and demoralised... as intended...
State Department had one in inventory in the mid 80s
The reason for the different levels of patina is probably the metal quality. The metal on the outside is probably less expensive, lower quality, sheet metal. The bolt is certainly made of a higher quality, heat treated, hardened steel.
Very interesting that they reduced the spring. I'm not sure how it would change the balance as he talked about but it would likely reduce the cyclic rate slightly I would imagine.
It’s a shame there aren’t modern semi auto reproductions of this being sold in the US. If you want a retro SMG for historical collecting, you’re basically limited to just the Thompson, maybe the Sten and M3 if Valkyrie Arms is still active.
In Sweden mentioned as the "K pist"
When shooting blanks we sometimes put a standard 1.5 volt D battery just behind the spring..making the fire rate go bazurk 😉
Yes, "HAL" is a very unfortunate acronym for a military organisation. Because if you ask them anything to do the answer is always "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave." 😁😁😁
We have it in SOG Prairie Fire game. Even added the pistol grip field mod that Jerry Shriver had. Awesome.
awesome glad you talked about this cool smg
I love that the CIA gifted this wonderful gun to the UK's Royal Armour with zero back story.
Historians: Wow what a wonderful piece! Can you tell us about it?
CIA: Nope!
Historians: You must be able to tell us something. Can you confirm it was used by the CIA?
CIA: We can neither confirm nor deny our agencies relationship with this piece.
The standard barrel appears to be shorter than how I remember it to be. Admittedly, it's been 40+ years since I had the pleasure of handling one of those.
My father always had his eyes light up a little bit whenever one of these showed up on TV :)
(Well, not this exact model but in general of course).
I remember from my days in the Swedish military that one could mod the "K-pist" with a type C battery that was a perfect fit between the endcap and the spring to get faster firing rate :)
Oh bring back memorys had the M/45B when i did my basic military training.
I wonder if the other two known ones also have their serial numbers ground off? If just one had a serial number or dated proof it would probably confirm one way or another whether these were before or after the US ones.
It struck me that, for a gun made in Sweden and used in warfare by US troops in south east Asia, it's a little surprising that the three known survivors are all in British collections!
I'm Swedish and didn't know a suppressed version existed! Interesting.
Pin badge bought. That is friggin dope
Jonathan, if you shorten the length of a coil spring, you increase the spring rate and the force required to compress it. Which would make sense with a suppressor given the increased gas pressure within the barrel/supressor, so increasing the force required to compress the spring would compensate.
When my Grandfather was in Palestine before WW2 to quell the Arab uprising, he was seconded into the Mandate Police Force and worked with the night squads, they all used captured weapons on the night operations to neutralise the Arab terrorists, to give deniability
That weapon - silencer was my weapon during my time in the army in sweden somewhat 30 yrs ago
Great show!
some were sanitized and some weren't Jonathon it depended on a couple factors one what it was who and what it used for and where and two how it was acquired!! if was used by special forces units and came from acknowledged contracts like the seals got and was used in Nam proper it kept it's markings if it went to a group like Phoenix, if it used over the border in Laos/Cambodia or came from a round about indirect purchase (shall we call it!!) after the swedes decided they wouldn't supply anymore it got sanitized from what i was told by a couple SOG/phoenix vets i grew up around!
Using KG in Sniper Elite 5 at the moment. Cool weapon.
The side to side measure is call the width
something my grandfather used in the army
Perhaps a parallel development for Operation Gladio groups?
Nostalgia: making you happy seeing a smg that you hated so dearly during your basic training. 😂
Also Irony: Okof Palme going to lengths denying US forces swedish weapons and the only thing swedish men who's done military service talk about is how cool it was that SEALs used the M45 in Vietnam. 😂
Did my military service in Sweden in 92-93 and that was my service weapon (not the CIA suppressor tho....), Really cool gun and was not surprised to learn US Navy SEAL´s also used this.
🇻🇳??? Viking här🤔
Very cool, thanks!
I served in the swedish military as a marksman in the coastal jaegers frkm 02 to 05, and i was as imtimate with the carl gustav, ssni was with my 7.62 arctic precision and the glock 17.
My guess is Phoenix programme operators were using this badger!!!
Such amazing background. B&T making great suppressors , any connection ??
I like how the endcap is held on by a LEGO brick.
It iş…Quite compact. High rate of fire,. For mobile (on feet) troops. Works!.
Best weapon ever loves it when i did my military service time. Fired that gun with stock foulded up and it duable but not prefreble
That looks like an original Swedish suppressor!
The B is a bit reinforced becaues of the 39/B 9mm ammo that isa bit hotter loaded.
Which version was quieter??🤔🤔🤔
I doubt they were ever tested comparatively.