The Mauser was not so superior as to have provided the Germans any kind of advantage over the Finns. By the way, they were, at the time of the Lapland War, being forced to draw down significant portions of their armed forces whilst forcing the Germans to retreat to Norway as a result of their loss to the Soviet Union in the Continuation War.
This is, frankly, silly. Wars are almost
never decided by what small arms the individual infantryman carries. The vast majority of killing on the battlefield is done by artillery. After that, machine guns and other crew served weapons are the most casualty producing weapons. Infantrymen fire
thousands of rounds of ammo for every enemy soldier killed. Even rifles that are a whole generation ahead don't provide
that much advantage. American soldiers had semiauto Garand rifles while the Germans were still using bolt action rifles with five round magazines, and the Germans still beat the boots off us at Kasserine Pass, turned Operation Market Garden into a defeat for the Allies, and slowed Allied progress in the Italian Campaign and in the Hurtgen Forest, despite massive Allied superiority and total Allied air supremacy. After the war, the US army itself estimated that the German army, man for man and unit for unit, was 20 to 30 percent more effective than were the British and American forces they faced, and this despite the fact that the Americans were
definitely armed with a superior rifle, and the British arguably so (the Lee-Enfield had double the ammo capacity and a slightly faster rate of fire).
You are attaching far, far too much importance to what rifle was carried by whom. The Finns did NOT drive out the Germans because they had Mosin-Nagants and the Germans had Mausers. That was actually a pretty insignificant factor in the outcome of that engagement. In another theater, the Mauser-armed Germans monkey stomped the Mosin-Nagant-armed Russians early in the war, and then later in the war, the Russians turned the tables. But it wasn't because they suddenly acquired better infantry rifles. That's
not what decides things in war. All things being equal, armies want their troops to have the best rifles they can, but again, it's mostly other weapons, and factors like logistics, numbers, leadership, air supremacy, artillery support, etc. that really decides things.
In any case, as to the safety, you simply don't know how to operate it, no offense intended. Those who fielded them knew how to use them. It isn't hard at all, requiring only fingertips and the muscles of the forearm to operate. I should know, as at my height I owned more than 40 Mosins.
I know how to operate it just fine, thanks very much. It's still and awkward and hard to use safety, and greatly inferior to the ones on the Mauser or the Enfield. The only ones who managed to field a more awkward safety on their bolt guns were the Japanese.
As to bolt handles, you seem to forget that the Japanese didn't field turn-down bolts in WWII. Regardless, the bolt handle has nothing at all to do with firing a shot down range. And Finns seemed perfectly capable of sending accurate fire upon the Germans with their Mosins (as well as the Soviets).
The Japanese also fielded some of the crappiest firearms of any army during the war. Only the Italians had it as bad or worse. Their machine guns needed cartridge oilers to function reliably, and some of their pistols (e.g. the Type 94) could be fired by simply by grasping the slide a certain way, without one's finger ever being near the trigger. Japanese generals actually considered the quality of their weapons to be, not unimportant, but not nearly the most important factor -- they thought their troops' martial spirit of Bushido vastly more important (and look how that worked out for them in the end). If they, with their collection of unprepossessing infantry weapons, held onto the straight bolt handle, it's
not a ringing endorsement.
A straight bolt handle has nothing to do with firing a shot downrange. It has everything to do with how fast you can fire follow up shots down range however, and remember, in war, fire superiority -- the ability to put more lead in the air than your enemy can -- counts for far more than pure accuracy.
The OP should stick to Mausers or Enfields, which ever he likes. However, the Finnish Mosin remains an outstanding arm with accuracy requirements that were on par or better than any other bolt action arm used in WWII.
M39's have excellent triggers, superb sights, very ergonomic stocks, and are very accurate shooters.
None of which I have contested in the slightest. And I'd still vastly prefer a Lee-Enfield if I were going to carry a bolt gun into combat. After that, I'd take the Mauser.
M28/76's are even better.
SAKO, Valmet, and Tikka all got their start manufacturing Mosins - and they made some superb rifles. And Mosins, as military actions, outlasted true Mauser M98's, with nations who know guns, the Finns and the Czechs, adopting Mosin-based snipers into the 1980's and 90's with the TKIV-85 and VZ54/91 respectively.
And the British were using Lee-Enfield sniper rifles just as long. Even with its rear locking lugs, it was a very accurate gun, and in fact the No. 4 sniper rifle is widely considered the best sniper rifle of the war. Only the Marine Sniper M1903 might rival it overall.
