My first thought when the client, Spencer, brought in the Finnish 20 mm Lahti L-39 anti-tank rifle you saw on last week's show, was that I did not want to shoot the thing. Any firearm that needs to be attached to a plank so it doesn't drive your shoulder directly into your backside gives me a little trepidation.

I would hate to think of anyone shooting it without the lock bars on a skid board. All of the accounts that we read during the process said that this gun will break your shoulder if you allow your body to absorb the full recoil. It's a huge gun with a lot of firepower, not to mention a lot of history.

It was developed in Finland by Aimo Lahti around 1939 in response to the many doubts of the original idea of the 13 mm anti-tank machine gun. After testing, those boys found that the 20 mm offered better penetration than its anti-tank counterparts. It was put into action in several wars including World War II and the Winter War.

Nowadays, the de-militarized version of this big boy are pretty rare. When you are able to reactivate one, like we did, the value skyrockets. Which is why Flem's welding was key to this project.

Flem is a gifted welder, bottom line. But when you have a weapon of that size and explosive potential you have to double check everything. As you saw on the show, we had a rifle sonogram performed to ensure the welds.

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