AG42 Ljungman: Sweden Adopts a Battle Rifle in WWII

Sweden developed, adopted, and produced a new self-loading rifle during World War Two. The process began in 1938, with an attempt by the state rifle factory to convert Swedish Mauser bolt actions into semiautomatic; that did not go well. Trials for a ground-up semiauto followed shortly thereafter, with the two finalists being the Pelo rifle from Finland and a design by Erik Eklund of the C.J. Ljungmans Verkstäder, a company that made gas pumps and had no prior small arms experience. Eklund focused on making his rifle as simple as possible, and created a direct gas impingement system with a tilting bolt and a rather unique method of operation. It was chambered for the 6.5x55mm cartridge, with a detachable 10-round magazine (which was intended to be reloaded with stripper clips).

The rifle went into production in 1942, and by 1944 rifles were being delivered to the military. They were never a complete replacement for the various patterns of Swedish Mauser, instead being used to supplement squad firepower. In 1953 a major refit program was put in place, making a number of changes and creating the Ag m/42B pattern. Those rifles remained in use until eventually replaced by the AK4, the Swedish model of the G3 rifle from Heckler & Koch.

10 Comments

  1. Fascinating. Really good video. I’ve handled a couple of them in the distant past (and, first time, got completely befuddled by the push forward, pull back slide/bolt thing). Especially for a designer and a company with no background in small arms, there is a huge amount of innovative and intelligent design there, especially by 1930s semi-auto rifle standards. Not that that makes it a good weapon (I strongly suspect not, as you alluded to re wandering zero), but a lot of it is cleverer than I had previously thought.

    Are you doing a Hakim video too?

  2. Well, the principle of keeping things simple certainly applied here. Now if only the user didn’t have to engage the safety catch in order to reload without the risk of mashing his fingers with the bolt carrier… but I could be wrong.

  3. Ok, now look at the the gas setup of the Degtyaryov DP-27, where the same rimless “open gas tube” (it’s a piston BTW) is put at the end of the barrel, and the same “cup” (it’s a mobile cuylinder BTW) it’s at the end of a rod solidal with the carrier.
    What makes that a piston action, and this a gas impingement action?
    Nothing. As Elklund (a guy whose primary job was designing hydraulic pumps, he probably knew a thing or two about pressure) wrote in his patent. This is a piston action.

    • Respectfully, I don’t follow… The DP system has a long gas piston and operating rod, which operates a modified Kjellman-Friberg flap-locking system at the moment the LMG fires from the open bolt.

      The Ljungman rifle system is a hollow tube that allows compressed gas from behind the bullet going down the barrel to go back to a small concavity/ “cup” machined into the face of the bolt carrier, a direct gas impingement system like the French MAS, which then moves back like on a Tokarev SVT-30 or SVT-40, and unlocks the tipping bolt with a cam, and moves it back, performing the extraction, ejection, re-cocking, and re-loading functions under the main spring’s pressure returning it to battery…

      • I said to look at the gas setup. Not the locking.
        Ian stated the Ljungman’s one is not a piston, but an open tube, because it has not sealing rings (many rifle gas pistons dont’ have sealing rings, starting from the M1 Garand’s one). So I asked to look at the Degtyaryov DP-27’s gas setup, where you have the SAME “open tube” (that’s a piston in reality), without any sealing ring, only it’s placed at the end of the barrel. and the SAME “cup” (that’s a cylinder in reality) placed at the end of a rod solidal to the carrier.
        What makes the DP-27’s a piston action, and the ljungman’s a gas impingement action, when the gas setup is practically identical? The rod? Machining a 1cm rod at the end of the Ljungman’s carrier would have made this a piston action? Or (as it’s written in Elkund’s patent) they are BOTH piston actions?

    • I have to ask… WTF would an actual direct impingement system look like, in your universe?

      Direct impingement is defined as tapping gas from the barrel, and then using it to act directly on the bolt/carrier mechanism. There is no op rod, no piston head, no piston cylinder. It’s just gas, hitting the bolt carrier, piped back from the gas tap.

      I mean, if you want to stretch things and call the gas tube an extension of the gas tap and then define the cup it’s hitting an “obverse piston”, well… Maybe.

      There’s enough distance between designs here: Gas impingement is basically the simplest possible gas operation system; no piston, no cylinder, no op rod. Just a gas pipe and a receptacle for it in the bolt carrier. Other gas systems, whether short or long, have pistons, cylinders, and operating rods.

      Which is precisely why describing the Stoner gas system as “direct impingement” is such ‘effing lunacy. It partakes of enough pieces of other systems that really deserves its very own category, one all to itself.

      I can’t think of any designs that have borrowed from that bit of genius that I only now recognize, using the operating gas to blow dirt free from the mechanism. Nobody else has copied it, and you have to wonder why…

      • “direct impingement” doesn’t exist.
        No action works thanks to a supposed “kick” of the gasses to the carrier. No designer described his action as a “direct impingement” action. That’s not how pressure works.
        The designer of the Ljungman action knew it perfectly, he perfectly described its action as a piston action. He perfectly described what part of it was a piston, what a cylinder, and how the gas was sealed between the two to build up the pressure.
        The fact that this design is different from the one of Stoner, doesn’t mean this is a “direct impingement” one and Stoner’s is not. BOTH ARE NOT DIRECT IMPINGMENT ACTIONS. They are piston actions.
        Browning’s tilting action is different from Steyr’s rotating barrel action, but BOTH are short recoil actions. One doesnt’ become a supposed “gravity action” because they are different.

  4. Why they did elect to put muzzle brake behind front sight? Was configure sights for old or new bullets supposed to be done by user themselves or armorers? Why they make magazine detachable, if they anyway planned to use 1 magazine per rifle?

    “(…)Erik Eklund(…)rather unique method of operation(…)”
    HANS ERIK EKLUND managed to secure U.S.Patent US2388396A https://patents.google.com/patent/US2388396A

    “(…)focused on making his rifle as simple as possible(…)”
    In his own words from above patent
    The present’invention has for its object to bring .about asimplication and improvement of the vweapons of a similartype as rhitherto known

    • the setup used in the rifle is that of Fig.3

      “Fig. 3, in difference from Figs. 1 and 2, illustrates the pipe conduit 10 as opening into the casing 5, but with the end portion ofthe pipe conduit 10 formed into a rigid piston 13 cooperating with the end portion of the lock piece 8 taking the form of a movable’cylinder M. In spite of this reversal of the conditions the effect is obviously the same. In Fig. 3 the casing is furthermore provided, round the end portion of the piston 13, with an annular groove 15, which in order to provide a more elective closure between the piston 13 and the cylinder 14 is adapted to receive at least a portion of the end of the cylinder 14 directed toward the pipe conduit 10.”

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