Sten MkII

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Guys, here is my Sten MkII. This is an old spec deactivation and will cock and field strip.

I have also shown it in another guise with pistol grip and silencer.

Aslo shown are magazine loaders and a box of 1943 dated inert 9mm ammo.

Cheers, Ade.

[Bill Grist]

Ade, Very nice looking Sten Gun...BILL

[Darren Lillington]

Fine example of a Sten MkII you have there Ade.

One of my favs, a simple, reliable and effective weapon though like most weapons, it had its flaws but very good never the less.

Cheers-

Darren

[AZPhil]

That is nice!
So what do you have to do to have a deact Over There across the pond?
one more?
Who used the pistol grip on the Sten during WW2?

[Darren Lillington]

Im no expert but from my understanding the rear pistol grip was designed to be used on the MkII, MkIIS and MkIII in order to give better controll over the weapon.

You will often see them referred to as the Commando grip, where these rear pistol grips issued to British Commando's? I dont know, but perhaps Ade dose.

Like i said, in many respects a very good smg, very easely and cheaply manufactured i might add, fairly reliable apart from the odd accidental discharge or magazine issues witch were common with many magazine fed weapons even the modern weapons of today.

But it was accurate, compact, easley stripped and cleaned and would fire no matter what happend to it, weather it had been in the mud, sand, dirt or water it would still fire much like the Ak 47, no matter how dirty and beaten, it still fired.

Also a great advantage was that it used 9mm Parabellum
so you had plenty of ammo lying around.

Cheers-

Darren.

[Mick]

Fine example of a Sten MkII you have there Ade.

One of my favs, a simple, reliable and effective weapon though like most weapons, it had its flaws but very good never the less.

Cheers-

Darren

What flaws exactly ?

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Guys, the pistol grip was used by various special forces groups, commandos, Airborne and SOE.

Hi Phil, no licence needed. Just the work done needs to be to a certain standard: cuts to barrel and bolts etc.

Cheers, Ade.

[Pompa Mike]

Nice Sten, the simplicity of those things is just brilliant.

Mike

[alan8376]

Speaking as an ex soldier 63-88. I reckon 50% of stoppages were caused thru years of misuse of the magazine. Any soldier will tell you the mouth of the magazies fitted nicely around a German Beer bottle top!

Look at it this way. A squaddie in BAOR anyway, may have gone on military exercise about say 3-4 times ayear, ok beer wasn't always available.

Then when it came to an average of 2-3 Range Days average a year for 'tradesmen' anyway, ( they were the mostlikely to have been issued with the SMG). You can now see why there were stoppages caused by magazine feeds.

Anyway, that's my theory anyway. Me, well I never touched alcohol as a young man!!!!!

[Darren Lillington]

What flaws exactly ?

As i explained in my previous post in this thread, there have been accounts of them discharging accidentally more times that not coused by carelessness or simpley by accident, Dropping it with the hammer cocked and a round chamberd, ive also read accounts of the Thompson smg doing the same and in fact most firearms would.

Another problem, not necessarily a fault as it still acours with firearms of today is magazine issues, jams and such coused by spring stress and/or dirt.

The Sten gun magazine holds 32 x 9mm Parabellum rounds, the smart soldier would only load 30 of those rounds in order to minimize the stress on the magazine spring and hence reduce jams and is a practice still used today by many armed forces.

The Sten itself could be put through anything and still fire, but the magazine couldn't, if its caked with mud or full of sand or dirt there is no way its going to fire.

Cheers-

Darren