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When Estonia took its independence in 1991, it had to form a new military essentially from scratch. Keeping the structure that existed before Soviet occupation in 1940, two separate forces were reinstituted. One was the Defense Forces – the formal Army, with a cadre of professional soldiers and annual classes of recruits serving their obligatory military service. They purchased Galil rifles from Israel as their primary infantry rifle. The other part of the Estonian armed forces was the Defense League, a volunteer territorial sort of organization, somewhat akin to the US National Guard. Arms for the Defense League were a bit less standardized, and included a large number (in excess of 40,000) M14 rifles provided by the United States.
A small number (thankfully small…) were made into sniper rifles circa 2000; the M14 TP (“Täpsuspüss” or Precision Rifle). This was done with locally made plywood stocks designed to look like sniper chassis, local production bipods, B-Square scope mounts, and “Hawke” brand 2.5-10x Chinese optics. The result was not good. Awful, really. The scopes and mounts did not hold zero at all, and the guns gained various alternative nicknames like “Täitsa Paska” (“total shit”).
The M14TP was replaced by the far superior M14TP2 in 2008, and those are likely to be replaced now by new LMT R20L precision rifles.
Thanks to the Supply Battalion of the Estonian Defense Forces Support Command for giving me access to film this relic, even though it is rather embarrassing to them!
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At Forgotten Weapons I think the most interesting guns out there are the most obscure ones. I try to search out experimental and prototype weapons and show you how they work, in addition to more conventional guns that you may not have heard of before. You’re much more likely to find a video on the Cei Rigotti or Webley-Fosbery here than an AR or Glock. So, do you want to learn about something new today? Then stick around!
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