JBrady555
Member
Well my Suomi M31 arrived at the FFL yesterday. The pictures on centerfire systems website does not do this gun justice. The phrase "they don't build them like they used to" comes to mind. Its built like a tank and is as heavy as one too.
The first thing I did after getting it home was I took it apart for cleaning and lubrication. Taking it apart wasn't near as much of a pain as I thought it would be. The bolt on this thing is massive, I bet it weighs about two pounds! I lubed everything up and started reassembly. This was a little bit more of a pain so I found a youtube video to help, along with a pdf owners manual from Tennesse Guns. I noticed in the video and manual that the gun has two springs behind the bolt, mine only has one. This made me very wary that my gun wasn't going to function correctly, and that I would have to seek parts from the manufacturer. More to follow on this. Back to reassembly...there is a little trick to compressing the spring and screwing the end cap back on. I'm not going in to great detail on this, but its no where near as bad as some of the other owners have made it out to be. I finished reassembly and retired for the evening.
Today the fiance and myself woke up early and went to walmart to stock up on 9mm ammo to take to the gun range. I bought 400 rounds of federal bulk and 100 rounds of WWB. Both were 115 grain, I wanted 147 because I heard that the Suomi doesn't like light 115 grain loads but thats all that walmart had. Once at the range we started loading the 36 round stick mag and the 71 round drum. I started with the stick magazine first. They go in extremely tight, once getting it started I had to use my palm as a hammer to beat the mag in. The first two rounds fired flawlessy with no recoil at all due to the heavy weight of the gun, it was like shooting a 22lr. The third round cycled correctly but the trigger stayed toward the back of the trigger guard and the hammer seemed to not reset. I manually cycled the gun which reset the trigger and tried again. One round fired and the next cycle fine but I had the same trigger problem. Now I'm getting worried. I cycled the gun by hand and tried again. Two rounds later I had the same problem, damn. I'm starting to think that I should have went with a modern rifle instead of this old military surplus stuff.
At this time one of the senior members of the range showed up and we started discussing the problem I was having with the gun. He wanted to see it first hand so I shouldered the gun and began firing rounds. It never jammed again the rest of the day with the 36 round mag. About 300 rounds worth fired flawlessly. The only thing we could think of is that the internals are also parkerized causing quite a bit of extra friction. Once we got a few rounds fired through it, it must have worn the finish a little bit to where it would cycle a bit more free. I couldn't have been more happy with the gun. At 25 yards it was grouping tight, but at 7 o clock, around 3 inches from the bullseye. After a few mags I had blown a baseball size hole in my target. One thing I should mention is that the trigger is god awful, the only thing I can compare it to is the double action trigger on my taurus judge that I used to own. If you double the pressure needed to shoot the judge in double action that would be about equal to the suomi. This really didn't bother me because this thing is just so much fun to shoot.
On to the drum mag. This thing sucks plain and simple. I couldn't fire more than a few rounds without this thing failing to feed. The bad thing was that when it would jam, because the bolt is so heavy, it would shove the bullet back into the brass about twice as far as it should be. This could be really bad due to pressure changes since the bullet is so much further back. These rounds were discarded. Not much more to say on this, the drum just wouldn't run. I wasn't dissapointed because I had read lots of reviews stating that the drums were hit or miss. The gun is so fun with the 36 rounders that I just don't care about the drum anyways. Plus the straight mags give you something else to hold on to while shooting. They also can be used as a rest while shooting from a bench.
Overall I love this gun. Its now the funnest gun in my collection. My fiance loves it, she used to shoot my ar exclusively but after feeling the .22 like recoil of the suomi she now wants nothing to do with the ar, lol. Even out to 100 yards we had no problems hitting the 8" gong. Outside of those first few rounds it seems really reliable. The other range members thought it was a nice piece, many of them wanted to shoot the gun, which I let them do. Its nice to have a gun that everyone wants to see and shoot like that, its a good feeling, lol. If you have had thoughts about buying one of these I would definitely say go for it. Its an extremely fun gun, and if it stays reliable with the 36 round mags I'd even say it could be a good HD/SHTF gun.
This is my first long winded review. I'm not much of a writer but I hope that you find this review helpful.
The first thing I did after getting it home was I took it apart for cleaning and lubrication. Taking it apart wasn't near as much of a pain as I thought it would be. The bolt on this thing is massive, I bet it weighs about two pounds! I lubed everything up and started reassembly. This was a little bit more of a pain so I found a youtube video to help, along with a pdf owners manual from Tennesse Guns. I noticed in the video and manual that the gun has two springs behind the bolt, mine only has one. This made me very wary that my gun wasn't going to function correctly, and that I would have to seek parts from the manufacturer. More to follow on this. Back to reassembly...there is a little trick to compressing the spring and screwing the end cap back on. I'm not going in to great detail on this, but its no where near as bad as some of the other owners have made it out to be. I finished reassembly and retired for the evening.
Today the fiance and myself woke up early and went to walmart to stock up on 9mm ammo to take to the gun range. I bought 400 rounds of federal bulk and 100 rounds of WWB. Both were 115 grain, I wanted 147 because I heard that the Suomi doesn't like light 115 grain loads but thats all that walmart had. Once at the range we started loading the 36 round stick mag and the 71 round drum. I started with the stick magazine first. They go in extremely tight, once getting it started I had to use my palm as a hammer to beat the mag in. The first two rounds fired flawlessy with no recoil at all due to the heavy weight of the gun, it was like shooting a 22lr. The third round cycled correctly but the trigger stayed toward the back of the trigger guard and the hammer seemed to not reset. I manually cycled the gun which reset the trigger and tried again. One round fired and the next cycle fine but I had the same trigger problem. Now I'm getting worried. I cycled the gun by hand and tried again. Two rounds later I had the same problem, damn. I'm starting to think that I should have went with a modern rifle instead of this old military surplus stuff.
At this time one of the senior members of the range showed up and we started discussing the problem I was having with the gun. He wanted to see it first hand so I shouldered the gun and began firing rounds. It never jammed again the rest of the day with the 36 round mag. About 300 rounds worth fired flawlessly. The only thing we could think of is that the internals are also parkerized causing quite a bit of extra friction. Once we got a few rounds fired through it, it must have worn the finish a little bit to where it would cycle a bit more free. I couldn't have been more happy with the gun. At 25 yards it was grouping tight, but at 7 o clock, around 3 inches from the bullseye. After a few mags I had blown a baseball size hole in my target. One thing I should mention is that the trigger is god awful, the only thing I can compare it to is the double action trigger on my taurus judge that I used to own. If you double the pressure needed to shoot the judge in double action that would be about equal to the suomi. This really didn't bother me because this thing is just so much fun to shoot.
On to the drum mag. This thing sucks plain and simple. I couldn't fire more than a few rounds without this thing failing to feed. The bad thing was that when it would jam, because the bolt is so heavy, it would shove the bullet back into the brass about twice as far as it should be. This could be really bad due to pressure changes since the bullet is so much further back. These rounds were discarded. Not much more to say on this, the drum just wouldn't run. I wasn't dissapointed because I had read lots of reviews stating that the drums were hit or miss. The gun is so fun with the 36 rounders that I just don't care about the drum anyways. Plus the straight mags give you something else to hold on to while shooting. They also can be used as a rest while shooting from a bench.
Overall I love this gun. Its now the funnest gun in my collection. My fiance loves it, she used to shoot my ar exclusively but after feeling the .22 like recoil of the suomi she now wants nothing to do with the ar, lol. Even out to 100 yards we had no problems hitting the 8" gong. Outside of those first few rounds it seems really reliable. The other range members thought it was a nice piece, many of them wanted to shoot the gun, which I let them do. Its nice to have a gun that everyone wants to see and shoot like that, its a good feeling, lol. If you have had thoughts about buying one of these I would definitely say go for it. Its an extremely fun gun, and if it stays reliable with the 36 round mags I'd even say it could be a good HD/SHTF gun.
This is my first long winded review. I'm not much of a writer but I hope that you find this review helpful.
