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Everything was going great in Sweden until 1940, when they looked up and realized that on one side they were next to a bunch of Finns busy trying to fight off the Russians, and on the other side were a bunch of Norwegians not being quite so successful at fighting off the Germans. It was a dangerous looking world, and Sweden realized that it somehow had never bother to get any scoped snipers’ rifles. So, they made a quick deal with the Germans to buy 4x AJACK telescopic sights and short rail type mounts, and the Carl Gustaf factory complex quickly put into effect a program to build sniper rifles, which were designated the m/41.
These rifles were built on existing guns which showed particularly good accuracy – and so m/41 snipers exist with markings form all three of Sweden’s rifle sources (Mauser, Husqvarna, and Carl Gustaf) and from a wide range of production dates. Between 2000 and 3000 such guns were converted before Germany realized that it also needed quite a lot of snipers’ rifles, and stopped selling the optics to Sweden. At that point, the Swedes turned to domestically-made AGA scopes, which were really not a good as the German ones. In total, 5,300 m/41 snipers were built between 1941 and 1943.
The rifles were never actually needed, and in 1955 Sweden decided to initiate a rebuilding program to bring them all up to the same standard. Virtually all of the AGA scopes were discarded, and AJACK scopes made universal. The mounting rails were now numbered, and their attachment method changed slightly (peened screws instead of additional locking screws). The rear icon sight leaves were also replaced with more precise dial-adjustable m/55 sights, allowing the guns to be used quite well both with and without the scopes. They would remain in Swedish service in various roles all the way until 1991, when the last ones were replaced by PSG-90 precision rifles.
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