Can't remember the source, but read that the Stens, if dropped, were prone to go off by themselves, spinning around until the magazine was empty. Soldiers fired them holding on their side with the magazine up as they were less prone to FTF. Also read that the Thompson was well thought of in Korea, with Brits and Canucks picking them up if they got a chance. Smoky Smith won his VC with a Thompson in Italy. Of course they were horribly expensive to manufacture.
Old myth.
If you had the bolt on a sten closed and a loaded magazine, and the gun was dropped, it could go off once. But this was not the approved way of carrying the sten, it was supposed to be open and the cocking handle locked into it's safety slot. You could drop it 10 feet and it would not go off.
If a sten did run away, it would not spin around and around either. Laidler did a test with a similar open bolt gun (the sterling) and it just sat there happily chugging away.
There was a tendancy for the Brit made stens to eventually suffer from a droopy magazine well. This only happened to the brit made ones and not to the Cdn made guns. So it is possible that holding the gun sideways might make it work, but I think if you try it, unless you are left handed, you would look like a pretzel trying to fire it.
Smokey Smith won his VC primarily with a PIAT was my understanding.
While I am kind of partial towards the sten as a good gun, my preference is weighed heavily by it's being the right gun at the right time. Simple, cheap, and easy to produce, it was what England needed in 41. There were more elaborate SMGs, but England had neither the time nor the money to spend on an elaborate gun.
My vote for the best SMG would have been the Patchett/Sterling. It improved on many of the stens features, and once it evolved into the mk4, it served many nations into the 80s and 90s.
