Sten Guns

Ljungman said:
+1 A short pistol mag would look goofy.

For sure but...ever shot a Sten? I used to have one. They jam. The stock mags suck. If all you do is remake the stock mag housing, with the same mags, what stops the RCMP from saying it's still the same gun and thus prohibited? There have to be some changes.

Why pistol mags? 10 rounds Watson...
 
Ljungman said:
That reminds me, are their any non-prohib, open bolt guns in Canada?

Bingo! Not many...I think they stopped Gevarms long ago, not prohibited but not imported either. I've had 2 of them, the mag situation sucks with them, but the gun is neat.
Open bolt is pretty much prohibited. All you have to do is remove the trigger group/sear and release the bolt...
 
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cantom said:
For sure but...ever shot a Sten? I used to have one. They jam. The stock mags suck. If all you do is remake the stock mag housing, with the same mags, what stops the RCMP from saying it's still the same gun and thus prohibited? There have to be some changes.

378476.gif


Maybe a mag housing that would use Suomi mags? They are 9mm too. Changes would not be dramatic I guess. :rolleyes:

J. Savoie
 
J. Savoie said:
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Maybe a mag housing that would use Suomi mags? They are 9mm too. Changes would not be dramatic I guess. :rolleyes:

J. Savoie

Suomis must have been more reliable than Stens were...they did some pretty dramatic things in the Winter War...

But, still 5 round capacity. That's the issue, if you have to make a new mag housing anyway, why not make one that can up the capacity to 10? Lots more fun eh?
Anyway, this is just my opinion, and we all have one of those, don't we? Yes, pistol mags are short and look stupid. But, upping the capacity is ###y...
 
And I suppose it is illegal to modify a Suomi or a Sten mag body to "house" a pistol mag in it. Something that would use a pin to fix the pistol mag in the bigger mag housing would provide both the looks of the "standard" mag and the use of 10 rounds pistol mags. Or maybe it is simply illegal to make so.

What d'ya think? :confused:

It would be somewhat like the Philippino M-16 in .22 lr a few years ago, mag looked like that of an M-16 but it was .22 lr


J. Savoie
 
cantom said:
Bingo! Not many...I think they stopped Gevarms long ago, not prohibited but not imported either. I've had 2 of them, the mag situation sucks with them, but the gun is neat.
Open bolt is pretty much prohibited. All you have to do is remove the trigger group?sear and release the bolt...

this is why you need to remove fixed fireing pins and put a springloaded one in its place it would require a hammer blow to fire the gun useing a semi auto trigger group such as from an ar15 would require a trigger pull for each shot
 
contact148 said:
this is why you need to remove fixed fireing pins and put a springloaded one in its place it would require a hammer blow to fire the gun useing a semi auto trigger group such as from an ar15 would require a trigger pull for each shot

Like they do on SAS3 in USA
 
J. Savoie said:
And I suppose it is illegal to modify a Suomi or a Sten mag body to "house" a pistol mag in it. Something that would use a pin to fix the pistol mag in the bigger mag housing would provide both the looks of the "standard" mag and the use of 10 rounds pistol mags. Or maybe it is simply illegal to make so.

What d'ya think? :confused:

It would be somewhat like the Philippino M-16 in .22 lr a few years ago, mag looked like that of an M-16 but it was .22 lr


J. Savoie

Squires Bingham M16, I've had 3 of them...nice rifle.
 
Heres a shot of my restricted (only) open bolt sterling smg. This is the second one I have owned, the first one now resides in Calgary as a TSE range gun. The open bolt thing is a US BATF rule; it is not one here. The term up here is "not easily made to fire F/A.'
Like all sterlings, this one functions fine with sten SMG mags. Of the many various sten mags (and trust me, I've had quite a few) I have had very few mags which ever gave me a problem with this gun. The story of the sten mags being crap has been stretched somewhat. They have a double thick lip, so they'll open beer bottles, and keep on shooting, long after many of the single lip variety have given up.
sterlingpolicecarbine.jpg

I take this gun to the range about once a month. Reliable, accurate, and surprisingly, almost no recoil. The only fault I have with this sterling is that it is so much fun to shoot, you lose count of how many rounds you have fired, and it seems like those lousy 5 round mags are always empty.
 
stencollector said:
Heres a shot of my restricted (only) open bolt sterling smg. This is the second one I have owned, the first one now resides in Calgary as a TSE range gun. The open bolt thing is a US BATF rule; it is not one here. The term up here is "not easily made to fire F/A.'
Like all sterlings, this one functions fine with sten SMG mags. Of the many various sten mags (and trust me, I've had quite a few) I have had very few mags which ever gave me a problem with this gun. The story of the sten mags being crap has been stretched somewhat. They have a double thick lip, so they'll open beer bottles, and keep on shooting, long after many of the single lip variety have given up.
sterlingpolicecarbine.jpg

I take this gun to the range about once a month. Reliable, accurate, and surprisingly, almost no recoil. The only fault I have with this sterling is that it is so much fun to shoot, you lose count of how many rounds you have fired, and it seems like those lousy 5 round mags are always empty.

Looks like it takes the C1A1 bayonet? I didn't know Sten mags fit it as well.

A very reliable gun?
Of the many available, the Sterling L34A3 has the advantage that it's horizontal magazine allows shooting from a very low prone position. 10 and 15 round magazines are available and suitable for use in cramped conditions. The American Gunsmith Institute claims the Sterling is most reliable SMG in the world. In one test the L34 silenced Sterling fired 60,000rds! It was then examined and the silencer and all other parts were found to be within required limits and quite capable of being fired further.
 
cantom said:
Looks like it takes the C1A1 bayonet? I didn't know Sten mags fit it as well.

A very reliable gun?
Of the many available, the Sterling L34A3 has the advantage that it's horizontal magazine allows shooting from a very low prone position. 10 and 15 round magazines are available and suitable for use in cramped conditions. The American Gunsmith Institute claims the Sterling is most reliable SMG in the world. In one test the L34 silenced Sterling fired 60,000rds! It was then examined and the silencer and all other parts were found to be within required limits and quite capable of being fired further.

The British made guns used a slightly modified no5 Jungle Carbine bayonet. Thats the reason why the JC bayonets were so rare for all those years; they were still required for the sterlings. The Canadian version of the sterling was much simplified, and it used the C1 bayonet. The Canadian sterling also had a sten-like one piece bolt, which functioned quite fine. I can use either bolt in my gun. The Cdn guns also used a cheapened stamped trigger mechanism, which did not feature the stainless steel sideplates of the sterling.
Sterling intentionally made the sterling smg accept the sten mags, but ensured the sterling mags did not fit the sten guns. Sterling wanted to sell guns more so than magazines. They could just as easily have made a better sten mag, but there was no long term money in that.
One of the problems with a sten mag was that the sides weren't ribbed, so any dings to the sides resulted in bullets jamming up. The ribbed mags on the sterling afforded better protection from this. Shown in the photo with my gun are the 10 round and the 30 round Cdn magazines. Up at the top of the photo is the 80s pattern smg mag pouch. You will normally find these brand new at the surplus stores because by the time they were ready to be issued in the mid 80s, the smgs were starting to be withdrawn in favor of the C7/C8s.

For everything you wanted to know about these guns and then some, get the Collectors source book "Guns of Dangenham". The only thing that really sucks about the book is it keeps showing guns that 95% of us will never own, and 98% of us will never get to shoot.
 
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The Madsen 1946 or 1950 was subjected to a 40 000 round test. My experience with Stens is that with good ammunition, reliability isn't a problem.
 
stencollector said:
The British made guns used a slightly modified no5 Jungle Carbine bayonet. Thats the reason why the JC bayonets were so rare for all those years; they were still required for the sterlings. The Canadian version of the sterling was much simplified, and it used the C1 bayonet. The Canadian sterling also had a sten-like one piece bolt, which functioned quite fine. I can use either bolt in my gun. The Cdn guns also used a cheapened stamped trigger mechanism, which did not feature the stainless steel sideplates of the sterling.
Sterling intentionally made the sterling smg accept the sten mags, but ensured the sterling mags did not fit the sten guns. Sterling wanted to sell guns more so than magazines. They could just as easily have made a better sten mag, but there was no long term money in that.
One of the problems with a sten mag was that the sides weren't ribbed, so any dings to the sides resulted in bullets jamming up. The ribbed mags on the sterling afforded better protection from this. Shown in the photo with my gun are the 10 round and the 30 round Cdn magazines. Up at the top of the photo is the 80s pattern smg mag pouch. You will normally find these brand new at the surplus stores because by the time they were ready to be issued in the mid 80s, the smgs were starting to be withdrawn in favor of the C7/C8s.

For everything you wanted to know about these guns and then some, get the Collectors source book "Guns of Dangenham". The only thing that really sucks about the book is it keeps showing guns that 95% of us will never own, and 98% of us will never get to shoot.

Thus the Enfield no 5 bayonets being sold by Collectors Source...Sterling mentioned.
http://www.collectorssource.com/category.asp?catid=4

I met a guy who was in the Canadian Army once. He told me that the Canadian Sterlings had problems and had to be reworked by someone, I forget who. From what you say it does sound like they were a bit different than the Brit version.
 
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I met a guy who was in the Canadian Army once. He told me that the Canadian Sterlings had problems and had to be reworked by someone, I forget who. From what you say it does sound like they were a bit different than the Brit version.

There were some depot repairs done to the trigger mechanisms, and the trigger mech retaining areas, that were done by Diemaco. But overall, the guns were a very simple unit. The Cdn cheapo design of the bolt, and the alternate design of the trigger mechanism, were done as much to avoid royalties as to cut production costs. Other shortcuts included more use of stampings on areas like the rear retaining cap, and the front of the receiver. These resulted in very favourable results at much reduced cost.
The Cdn C-1 was not really any less reliable than the Brit equivelant. Our mags also had the flat platform inthe mags instead of the roller platform of the British. But towards the end, we were using the roller system as well.
I use the Cdn non-roller mags and haven't really noticed any problems with them.
 
stencollector I was wondering, do you sometimes have StenMk3 for sale? I have the C/A class but not the F/A. If so, how much does it fetch for a good nice clean one? I'm considering buying one next fall (the wife is expecting in early July so I'll put my buying on the ice 'till September or October).

J. Savoie
 
J. Savoie said:
stencollector I was wondering, do you sometimes have StenMk3 for sale? I have the C/A class but not the F/A. If so, how much does it fetch for a good nice clean one? I'm considering buying one next fall (the wife is expecting in early July so I'll put my buying on the ice 'till September or October).

J. Savoie

I'd look for a Mk II before a Mk III. Nicer looking, removable barrel...
 
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