#Sten

Remember that .22LR X95 conversion that Dylan made? Well, that is not the extent of his DIY skills. He made his own Modernized Sten 2.0. If you recall, I posted about a modernized Sten over three years ago. Funny enough, Dylan says that build inspired him to make one with his own twist.

I am always in awe of people who have the skills to build their own firearms from scratch or a parts kit. Tube-based firearms like a Sten and Sterling are supposedly some of the easier firearms to make, at least so I have heard. I think the next step up is bending an MP5 flat into 9mm roller lock goodness. Foster Huntington shared his modernized Sten MKII build.

When I visited GSL Technology they had a few projects they were working on. At the time I could not post about them since they were still works in progress or they were waiting on patent pending like the GSL Technology Boss emergency suppressor. One of their other projects has just got the green light to be published. They are making a Sten suppressor.

In the mid-2000s, India began looking for a carbine to replace their 9mm L2A3 Sterling submachine guns which they inherited from the United Kingdom. Two weapons were developed, one by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), and another by the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), a subdivision of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The Ordnance Factory Board produced the AMOGH carbine, while the DRDO produced the Modern Sub Machine Carbine (MSMC, also known as the Joint Venture Protective Carbine, or JVPC). These weapons reportedly competed against each other, and by the early 2010s, the MSMC had been selected as the Sterling replacement.

In the mid-2000s, India began looking for a carbine to replace their 9mm L2A3 Sterling submachine guns which they inherited from the United Kingdom. Two weapons were developed, one by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB), and another by the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), a subdivision of the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The Ordnance Factory Board produced the AMOGH carbine, while the DRDO produced the MSMC. These weapons reportedly competed against each other, and by the early 2010s, the MSMC had been selected as the Sterling replacement. However, the AMOGH is still being marketed to customers by the OFB, and has reportedly been purchased by the Indian Coast Guard.

While the STEN gun endures to this day, if only as the “cheapest” full-auto machine gun that US civilians can purchase, it was not the first sub machine gun from the UK in World War II. That honor goes to the Lanchester MkI, which certainly has a familiar pattern.

The Sten machine carbine was one of the most hastily completed and most expediently made submachine gun of the Second World War. Although it was reliable, a number of users didn’t like it simply because they saw it as a cheap pipe gun created as a last ditch effort. Nonetheless, there were a number of suppressed versions of it, two of the most prominent featured here, the Mk. II(S) and the Mk.VI with the wooden stock and furniture. Initially, the first suppressed version created for SOE was a Mk. II with a suppressor that was 22 inches in length, horribly heavy and unwieldy for the operations that the British clandestine service found themselves in most of the time.

The Sterling L2A3 was the iconic Cold War submachine gun of the British Army. Inexpensive to make, compact and rugged, it was a design that incorporated the experience from the Sten submachine gun, a weapon which though inexpensive really left a lot to be desired. In a recent video, Ian from Forgotten Weapons and working in concert with Armament Research Services (ARES), produced a video overview of some of the British developments in submachine guns (which they called “machine carbines”) just before, during, and after World War II. These designs helped pave the way for the Sterling, which saw service all the way through the Gulf War until its retirement in 1994.

Previously on Operating Systems 101, we discussed the straight blowback method of firearms operation; today we’ll be talking about its close cousin, API blowback. “API” stands for advance primer ignition, which refers to the chief way that the mechanism differs from its pure cousin. We’ll get to that in a bit, but first we need to discuss the concepts of open bolt and closed bolt operation.

Here’s an old article from Small Arms Review detailing a 9mm hybrid submachine gun made from a STEN parts kit combined with a registered M16 lower receiver. It fires at around 800 to 900rpm and has a 13 ounce bolt which was turned down from an original casted bronze example. It reportedly ran flawlessly from the get-go.

The Daily Mail has come out with an article about a lady who served in the British intelligence service after World War Two as a translater and left behind a 9mm Sten submachine gun after her passing in 2014. She was 99 years old and lived in a small row house in south west London. The Sten still had the original sling, but there was no mention made of a magazine or live ammunition. From the Daily Mail-

A reader noticed this strange looking short barreled rifle being auctioned off on GunBroker. The upper receive resembles the Sten submachine gun’s receiver and its lower looks to be a modified AR-15 lower with a AR-15 pistol grip and a A2-style stock.

StrategyPage reports thats the Greeks are selling off their Lee-Enfields, Brens and Stens.