L41: Arado’s WW2 Experimental MP40 Silencer

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The German military tested several designs of silencer for the MP40 submachine gun during late World War Two. Designated the L4x series, they were made by the Arado and Opel-Schneider companies. This example is an Arado L41, designed to use the sort of heavy rubber baffles as the Soviet Bramit pattern. The L41 used two such baffles and a single large expansion chamber, giving it a rather short overall length.

Instead of using a clamp-on attachment like many of the adopted rifle silencers, the L41 is threaded to the MP40 muzzle. However, the MP40 muzzle threads were made without a significant tolerance requirement (as they were only designed for use with blank-firing adapters) and so the exit diameter of these suppressors had to be made substantially larger than 9mm in order to prevent bullet strikes. Ultimately no MP40 silencers were formally adopted.