The Tokarev self-loading rifle was a big step in the development of domestic firearms. It was first used during the Soviet-Finnish war. Based on the results of combat use, it became clear that the SVT-38 has a number of serious shortcomings. Then changes and amendments were made to the design of the rifle. The SVT-40 was born, with which the Red Army met the Great Patriotic War. True, in the early years of the war, there were cases when soldiers simply threw their SVTs. What was the reason for this behavior?
The Tokarev self-loading rifle was a real miracle weapon for the end of the first half of the 20th century. During the war years, the SVT-40 was produced in the amount of 1.6 million units. At the time of 1941, the Red Army was the only army in the world that had a really representative number of self-loading rifles in service. By the way, it was the prevalence of self-loading rifles in linear units that was one of those things that greatly surprised German soldiers, officers and industrialists.
Tokarev's self-loading rifle was noticeably superior in performance to manual reloading rifles. When using a 7.62x54 mm caliber, the SVT-40 confidently laid the target at a distance of 400 meters, and the rate of fire of the weapon reached 20-25 rounds per minute, which was a very good result for the 1940s, especially given that the SVT ammunition -40 was carried out from 10-cartridge magazines. The best proof of the superiority of the SVT is that after the rifle fell into the hands of the Germans in 1941, they immediately formed the development of their own "self-loading" - Gewehr 43. Many design decisions in this rifle directly copied the Soviet predecessor.
Nevertheless, at the early stage of the war, there were cases when the Red Army soldiers in a difficult combat situation simply threw out their SVT-40s. This happened mainly due to the fact that by 1941 the Red Army did not have enough time to retrain a sufficient number of shooters, and therefore many soldiers accustomed to rifles with manual reloading literally fell into a stupor from one of the functions of the SVT-40. We are talking about the famous bolt lag - holding the bolt in the retracted, extreme position after the magazine runs out of cartridges.
The Red Army men, who did not have time to teach how to handle the SVT-40, mistakenly thought that the rifle was jammed. Actually, the shutter delay was an extremely useful feature. It made it possible to reload the SVT without removing the magazine, simply by pushing the clip with 7.62 cartridges from the three-ruler from above through the retracted and held bolt mechanism. To return the weapon to the combat position, it was enough to lightly pull the bolt again, after which the rifle was again ready to fire.
Continuing the topic, read about why during the second world war Soviet tanks did not have a muzzle brake.