Official directions on the use of a Sten gun: 1. Come within 50 yards of the target 2. Point nozzle in their general direction 3. Hold down trigger until either you run out of ammo or the target is sufficiently perforated. That blob of weld looks suspiciously like it could be undone by a very naughty person with a dremel.
Most of those guns were carried a lot but never used in anger. I have shot a couple and they are remarkable for how cheesy they feel. I'm still obsessed with them and the much better Sterling.
Between Bloke and BritishMuzzleloaders, I am having a grand time remembering a good friend who served in the British Army back in the 1950s. He had one thing to say of the Stens he had to work with: "If it worked still after a decade of being in the hands of bloody fools like me, I think the bullets occasionally went the direction you asked them to, but they never did reply to queries on the matter. They may not have been literate enough to write back."
Apparently, you can still find tons of them in the Middle East, along with several other oldie SMGs. And I suppose, if situation dire enough, an old piece of sheet metal formed into angry tube that happens to spit lead is better than nothing.
@@Muster_Muckee_II At 10m for urban combat it really doesn’t matter how accurate your gun is, it needs to put that 9mm projectile on a human sized target…
I second the idea that installing the barrel at 180o to the way it was, might have worked. Once, in either the eighties or the nineties, there was some sort of WW2 anniversary programme on the BBC and a couple of (relatively youthful) Home Guard veterans were interviewed, on a firing range. One of them was give a STEN gun for a firing demonstration, but the first thing he did was face the camera over a bench, take the gun to pieces and very deftly put it back together again. He didn't stare at the barrel, he just gave it a glance and popped it into place in a particular way. Then, I think at 50 yards, he proceeded to fire in very controlled two or three shot bursts. When he looked at his target, they were all pretty well centered. "Not bad for a STEN gun firing bursts" with a gentle smile. Why would a Home Guard know how to do this better than then a conscript in the regular army at the time? It was a conscript army, to some extent trained by other conscripts, and few of the regular army would have any prior knowledge of guns other than what they were told in training. In contrast, the LDV ("Home Guard"), in Bromham, Beds, at least were recruited thus, according to my late mother. "The gamekeepers were all called in to Bromham Hall and told by their employer to volunteer. Then the policeman went round to all the poacher's cottages and marched them all down to volunteer." My grandfather, being a clerk and a Baptist lay preacher, was politely encouraged to join the ARP, which he did. Other men were recruited once the poachers and gamekeepers had become familiar with the available weapons and felt able to tell novices how to actually hit things with them. After Mr Eden's speech in 1942, describing what he knew of what is now known as the holocaust, even my grandfather was allowed to join the Home Guard and given a STEN gun. It was left to my mother to teach him about it...
@@awmperry I think it must have been BBC, and look in years that were Home Guard anniversaries. It might have been 1991 therefore. I was living in Clifton when I watched it, so not after 1999.
@@matthewspencer5086 You're not wrong. Back in the 80s there was a terrific kids' science show called Big Top Science, and there's hardly any record of it anywhere. :-(
Now I’m curious how often a sten in service would have be off that badly in elevation. The grouping is impressive regardless. Kudos to the man behind the trigger!
I machined a 16" barrel for my MkII from a large diameter 9mm barrel blank. It solved the eccentric problem and improved accuracy greatly. It now actually shoots to aim point at 100 yards.
My Father who joined the British Army in 1937 commented on the WWII Sten that a left handed man couldn't hit a barn door at 10 yds on full auto ! I only ever fired the Stirling version and that was 'very sophisticated, comparatively' :)
I bought a Sten MKII parts kit in the early 90's so I could have some spare parts for my transferable Sten . the parts kit came from either India or Pakistan. The barrel nut was actually spot welded to the receiver. Now I know why, the Army didn't want the soldiers to change the point of aim by messing with the barrels. Great video. Information I never knew about.
I have owned a Sten MKII since 1991 and I never knew this! I just looked at my barrel and found the mark. My Sten has always shot a little to the right. I will have to see if indexing the barrel helped. Thanks for this information.
Hello .Can u help me please ? I'm from Myanmar ,the country which the dictatorship military kill thousand of innocent citizens. We need to fight back to these murder army.But we don' have automatic guns even rifle.we only have muzzle loader. It's not ok in closed range . Now we are making LUTY SMG gun .we need some technics such rifling. Can u tell me how to riflinh for SMG ? We have man power but no weapons . We must fight for Democracy. Sorry for bad grammer.
Can’t you see that the runout on the bore is a feature not a bug? “Eccentric Zeroing”, just turn the barrel for a completely different POI. Very advanced stuff!
My semi-auto Sten I installed a locator pin to align with a notch in the barrel flange to where it indexes the same all the time. I then removed the front sight and installed a No. 4 Mk 1 Enfield sight with protectors on the barrel. Mine fires from a closed bolt and everyone comments on the range as to how I can ring the 250 yard gongs offhand. Replacing the sight and moving it out to the end of the barrel really made a difference. But firing from a closed bolt probably helped as much.
During my apx. 4000 days with the German Military I carried an UZI Submachine gun, the version with the folding stock. Was quite accurate @ 100 m and usable up to 200. Barrel can only be installed in 1 position there.
At my clubs zero range we have a giant berm at 185 yards. During real busy times I just shoot the berm. I am good at getting a sight picture and peaking over to see where my shots land. Saves time setting up a 50 yard where am I target. Especially when people shoot the dog crap out of all the target stands. We also do not have designated cold range times. This was awesome, thanks Bloke and Chap!
I remember watching a sten gun demo in the 50's being fired at about 25 yards at steel plates possibly 6 or 8 inch square and the guy was picking them off one at a time on semi auto.
4 роки тому+3
We compete with the Swedish K at 100m. Best group I ever saw was ~15cm standing from 100m with sling support only and the Swedish nationals. Edit: 5 shot group and the Swedish K also has a removable barrel that changes poi after removal. Regular sight leaf though.
That's an excellent idea--I was trying to ponder why the sights would be set too high given that a full auto Sten would already be climbing off of the target. If anything, you would set the sights up to shoot low in order to compensate a bit.
The weight of the 9mm projectile may make an impact difference. I once fired a WW II Walther P38 with 115 grain bullets and I could not get the pistol to print the target at 25 yards, I changed over to 124 grain bullets and it made a world of difference in getting my rounds into the bulls eye of the target.
"Blocked at semi-auto, back in the day, by the judicious application of welds to the selector" Now that's how it's done! I'm sure there's some American collectors who have now melted due to jealousy. :D Thanks for the video guys.
Before 1988, that was considered a perfectly acceptable way of turning a Section 5 (prohibited) full auto in a Section 1 semi-auto rifle (an easy to acquire slot on your FAC) in the UK. Brens often just had their change levers pinned at 'R'. SLRs had the auto notch filled in with weld. Sudanese and Portuguese AR10s (original style, with the trigger shaped cocking handle under the rearsight) were common on the market once their TMH had been fettled. Different times, different attitudes. Gun owners were largely trusted to obey the law. Dodgy pornstaches and aviators abounded at shooting clubs. Plenty of surplus ammo and gats available. Jumpers for goalposts. Tea on the lawn. Labourers doffing their cloth caps when the vicar walked past. Cricket on the village green. Pert, fresh faced young ladies cycling to tennis lessons. Perpetual summer.
And then something unfortunate happened and the national mood shifted a smidge. There's little like some absolute goit hauling off and shooting up a town to make the non-gun-owning british public put down their pipes, briefly lower their broadsheets and declare "that's quite enough of that sort of thing, thank you." before returning to the FT.
I had a STEN as a kid when I gave my pal an Elvis record for it. I never had any ammo (if I had I'd have been too afraid to fire it) and surrendered it at a local police station during an amnesty in about 1960. I used to enjoy stripping it down and rebuilding it.
I have shot my MK V at the 50m range quite a few times (prone position only) and it is surprisingly accurate. Probably due to the formidable adjustable sights. Something the soviets did always right, even my pps43 made in occupied Leningrad has adjustable sights for individual zeroing.
Hey you have a sten magazine loader also thats a good thing to have it really better than useing just fingers. That loader makes it way more enjoyable.!
If it was mine, I would mount a red dot sight on the exposed end of the barrel and blue locktite the barrel thread. I think you might get more usable groups.
My father said put a piece of shim stock thin brass sheet cut to fit a quarter area of the the ring of your barrel the shape of a quarter of a letter C and rotate it until you get it to hit center target like you want it to hit. That will move point of impact. shim stock is very thin and easy to cut with scissors ✂️ and it should work very well
I remember hearing somebody on the internet say that the test for accuracy for the sten was that on automatic it could put all 32 rounds from a magazine onto a 4 by 4 foot wooden square at 100 meters.
I get the impression from the WW2 training pamphlet that you are supposed to read out the "from 10 yards" bit clearly then the "to up to 100 yards" bit very quickly while hiding it with a cough.
I did some long range pistol shooting one day ( 200 yards) and my friend could see the bullets path in the spotting scope. I didn't believe him, but it's true. I was able to hit steel rams at 200 yards without a rest with a 44 magnum revoler. This was a sport in the US years ago called silloette shooting. Mind you this was with iron sights, flat on my back, with my pistol against my calf.
Probably more suited for a gun fight in a telephone booth!! Hickok's channel had him firing for a couple hundred meters and hitting targets so that was impressive but he had a modern made Sten and maybe its perfectly inline machined? Never jammed once and he was impressed as so cheap and rustic but gets the job done...
Thankyou for the video, Sten was really intended for CQB or tank and artillery crews looking at its limited range , this why the m1 carbine type weapon would have been a better choice and a effective range of about 300 yards max i did read somewhere atvb Steve
No one takes an open bolt Sten into a tank with them it's ludicrously dangerous. Stens were issued to the infantry section commander and the 2IC. The 2IC was the commander of the "gun group" and his job was to spot for the Bren and to defend the flank of the gunner - with the Sten. Artillery crews just had rifles. Nearly all AFVs had a Bren gun as well.
Try putting your front sight lower in your rear peep sight. Use maybe a third of your front sight sticking up in your rear peep sight hole and when you figure out how high or low to hold your front sight in the rear peep mark it with a line of yellow or white paint in a thin file mark . Or add more metal to the front sight and if it's to much on front sight file it down until you get it right where you want it. Either way will work I'm pretty sure I have set a few of them and sweating a peice of metal on front sight is pretty easy just put wet rags around your tubing and keep it cool and only use silver solder to add a piece of bent metal maybe 1/16th thick. Shoot it and file if necessary to right height and then put flat black paint on it.
Agreed, the 9mm x 19 round is not supposed to be all that effective at 100m anyway. Good enough for suppressing fire though, I shall be hesitant to expose any vital parts of myself with those 9mm bullets zipping around my close proximity.
The Sten is good only at ranges of 50 yards or less. I tried one. I got only 3 hits on the target out of 20 rounds from 150 yards and none of them were in the centre.
Having fired both the sten and the sterling in my opinion they are only useful at short range ie house clearing.Give me the FN if you really want to damage the enemy.
With the same gauges I would presume. If they even bothered replacing the barrel and didn't just junk the whole wpn cos they're practically disposable.
I bet they never replaced a barrel. Pistol bullets just don’t wear out barrels like rifles. As Bloke said toss the gun give another. I bet they all knew they would be scrapping them all as soon as the war was over and a better gun could be made.
If you could find a suitable rifle barrel to lathe down would 7.65 Luger be a possibility? Most .30 ish bullets seem to require around a 1 in 10 twist just like the Luger round?
zoiders would probably work however getting a magazine that would fit and feed correctly would be the hardest part, however the Chinese did convert some stens to use 7.62 Tokarev and use pps43 magazines so it’s not impossible
@@ArchieKeen1 7.65 Luger fits in any 9mm Luger magazine. 7.62 Mauser or Tokarev is a different/longer cartridge. 9mm Luger is a 7.65 Luger cartridge necked up to 9mm.
I've only fired the Australian designed Owen and the love child of the Owen and the Stirling; the F1. The Owen was OK; although (from memory) at targets no further than twenty five yards. I made conscious decision that if I were ever to be equipped with the F1 in combat, I would just throw it at the enemy and run away.
WHat are the laws when it comes to open bolts in Switzerland? Are they treating like any closed bolt guns in the same category or are they considered in the restricted category along with full autos?
A bit off the video topic, Mr. Bloke, but I am curious if you have any information on how many Swiss men, after they aged-out of service, kept their military-grade weapons. I was just thinking about the situation in 1939-40 when the Landsturm age was pushed up to 60 after many years of being 48. Just how many of those men who had aged-out in 1927-1929 still had their military-grade rifles ready to go in 1940? Did the Swiss have to rush out government reserves to make up for all the old droopy-mustached fellowed who had gotten rid of their old service weapons or did those old boys mostly still pack their old gear? Maybe a topic you can expound upon for us all who want to know more about the mysterious militia of the mountains. Cheers!
I guess, by trying to hit something with this at 100 meters one could just safely say the bullets were landing in the same country (provided the shooting range was not close to some border).
Hello Bloke. Great video and surprising accuracy from this much maligned tool. If I may suggest... maybe align the electropencil mark 180degrees different, on the underside of the gun. Reason I say this is, why leave such a crude mark atop a shiny new gun? The perfect horizontal sight alignment, along with the extreme vertical misalignment, says the gun is better made than it appears but also that something is being done wrong, such as a barrel exactly 180 degrees out, thus affecting only elevation zero.
Cos the mark is meant to be at 12 o'clock according to the manual, and if you put it at 6 o'clock, it shoots disasterously low (I tried it when I first got it) :D
@@JohnHughesChampigny JohnHughesChampigny It was used by the Israelis as that is all they could get and make early on in 1945-1948 were British guns. The Israelis made a lot of Stens. It was later replaced by their own UZI.
When I did military service in the 60's, we trained single shots at a distance of 100 meters. It was with m / 45 Carl Gustaf submaskingun 9mm. Mostly everyone hit the target in the black field without difficulty. We were 19-20 year old lads who did 1 year of military service. No elite soldiers just ordinary conscripts. I guess Carl Gustaf m/45 was a much better gun.
Wow I didn't realize Sten barrels were that hard to come by... I would just throw a fresh Barrel on , I'm sure you can find one as good as new ... I guess you like a challenge, lol....
How was the sten gun in street battles like Caen though and was it as effective at clearing rooms like the ppsh or the mp40? How did most soldiers effectively use the sten?
The Sten and the MP40 effectively have the same magazine give or take a mag catch cut out position so both guns suffer from the problems caused by double stack/single feed magazines. Room to room they are functionally no different. The single biggest improvement to reliability is the magazine, which was addressed in the Sterling and its prototypes. Prior to deployment to Normandy British and Commonwealth troops carried out extensive live fire exercises. Faulty mags were discarded. They knew what was coming and prepared accordingly.
Not all Stens were created equal. The Canadian long branch was much tidier and completely made in one factory. I have seen pics of British made Stens with crooked trigger guards as a sample of a Sten made from parts from different shops. Apparently troops were trained with Stens for use in Dieppe raid and when it was postponed and re-planed for a later date, the troops were re-issued new Stens (not broken in). the previously issued Stens had been tested and in some cases gone over by armorers.
You can't have a "crooked" trigger guard as both ends are positively located within the trigger housing and welded in place . The only way it could be out of shape is by damage after manufacture.
Sorry watched vid again, got it wrong you need a taller front sight. Sten front sights can be had in different (numbered) heights, a taller front sight will push the poi down at 10yds it may be a + 1/16” which would mean glue the filament on top. Still , show it to a gunsmith (let him fall about laughing) perhaps he can fix your issues(fit a new barrel)
My Dad was fighting in Palestine in 1947 with his Sten; I asked if he had ever hit anyone with it and his response was "not that I'm aware of". In essence, trying to use a this weapon against a target like you are doing is a ridiculous exercise given it wasn't intended to be effective at anything like that range by design.
This issue you're having with this non-concentric barrel is curious. Is there to your knowledge any small arms that take advantage of such an effect and incorporated this into the gun mechanism for say adjusting zero?
I wish we could leave them as open bolt in the us, we have to buy an expensive closed bolt setup to build one. If we could just weld the selector it would be hundreds of dollars cheaper to build.
The reason you can't just weld the selector for a Sten is that you can buy a $5 part and turn it into a full auto part in about five minutes with a file. You could then install that part in less then a minute and have a full auto Sten. Replace the original part and you have a semi auto sten.
Two reasons. 1. There were a couple of twats that gave the government an excuse to disarm folks. 2. Since 1917 the government has not wanted an armed population.
Only if you don't have the correct license, which is true in most countries. Of course, in the UK, getting the correct license in the first place is the tricky bit.
Some barrels were 1 piece There are different front sight 3 I think the best were canadian made some had pins that held the barrel nut to the barrel so it would go on in mostly the same place or had pin drilled into the barrel frm the recever tube the sten gun is the #1 illegal gun in Canada then FN ak & the other 1 you are know
Official directions on the use of a Sten gun:
1. Come within 50 yards of the target
2. Point nozzle in their general direction
3. Hold down trigger until either you run out of ammo or the target is sufficiently perforated.
That blob of weld looks suspiciously like it could be undone by a very naughty person with a dremel.
3.b. Or, indeed, you are sufficiently perforated.
3.c. It doesn't really matter so long as *something* now resembles a colander.
best $3.95 ever spent~~
Most of those guns were carried a lot but never used in anger. I have shot a couple and they are remarkable for how cheesy they feel. I'm still obsessed with them and the much better Sterling.
I feel like a lot of people don't realize how far 50 or 100 yards is when you're in a fight.
Between Bloke and BritishMuzzleloaders, I am having a grand time remembering a good friend who served in the British Army back in the 1950s. He had one thing to say of the Stens he had to work with: "If it worked still after a decade of being in the hands of bloody fools like me, I think the bullets occasionally went the direction you asked them to, but they never did reply to queries on the matter. They may not have been literate enough to write back."
That's fantastic :D
It wouldn't help that by the 50's they would basically be pretty worn out I imagine.
Apparently, you can still find tons of them in the Middle East, along with several other oldie SMGs. And I suppose, if situation dire enough, an old piece of sheet metal formed into angry tube that happens to spit lead is better than nothing.
Never forgetting Gun Jesus of..
Forgotten weapons...
@@Muster_Muckee_II At 10m for urban combat it really doesn’t matter how accurate your gun is, it needs to put that 9mm projectile on a human sized target…
I second the idea that installing the barrel at 180o to the way it was, might have worked. Once, in either the eighties or the nineties, there was some sort of WW2 anniversary programme on the BBC and a couple of (relatively youthful) Home Guard veterans were interviewed, on a firing range. One of them was give a STEN gun for a firing demonstration, but the first thing he did was face the camera over a bench, take the gun to pieces and very deftly put it back together again. He didn't stare at the barrel, he just gave it a glance and popped it into place in a particular way. Then, I think at 50 yards, he proceeded to fire in very controlled two or three shot bursts. When he looked at his target, they were all pretty well centered. "Not bad for a STEN gun firing bursts" with a gentle smile.
Why would a Home Guard know how to do this better than then a conscript in the regular army at the time? It was a conscript army, to some extent trained by other conscripts, and few of the regular army would have any prior knowledge of guns other than what they were told in training. In contrast, the LDV ("Home Guard"), in Bromham, Beds, at least were recruited thus, according to my late mother. "The gamekeepers were all called in to Bromham Hall and told by their employer to volunteer. Then the policeman went round to all the poacher's cottages and marched them all down to volunteer." My grandfather, being a clerk and a Baptist lay preacher, was politely encouraged to join the ARP, which he did. Other men were recruited once the poachers and gamekeepers had become familiar with the available weapons and felt able to tell novices how to actually hit things with them. After Mr Eden's speech in 1942, describing what he knew of what is now known as the holocaust, even my grandfather was allowed to join the Home Guard and given a STEN gun. It was left to my mother to teach him about it...
Matthew Spencer Having a hunt around for that, but it’s not easy to find. If you remember what it was called I’d be fascinated to see it.
@@awmperry I think it must have been BBC, and look in years that were Home Guard anniversaries. It might have been 1991 therefore. I was living in Clifton when I watched it, so not after 1999.
Cheers, will look around. :)
@@awmperry In a way I would almost hope that it was Channel Four: the BBC tends to put the tapes of all the good programmes in a skip and burn them.
@@matthewspencer5086 You're not wrong. Back in the 80s there was a terrific kids' science show called Big Top Science, and there's hardly any record of it anywhere. :-(
"Hi, we're out on the range today so please bear with gunfire you hear in the background."
Very Paul Harrell-esque....
jandayranl ....go play with yourself.
@@skuzapo9365 Just quoting another great gun expert
Now I’m curious how often a sten in service would have be off that badly in elevation. The grouping is impressive regardless. Kudos to the man behind the trigger!
I machined a 16" barrel for my MkII from a large diameter 9mm barrel blank. It solved the eccentric problem and improved accuracy greatly. It now actually shoots to aim point at 100 yards.
Been there, done that! Persistence and ALOT of ammo pays off sometimes! Good job Mike 😜
Lmao I readed persistence as pestilence
@@xaquko9718 well it's been a bad few yrs 😂
My Father who joined the British Army in 1937 commented on the WWII Sten that a left handed man couldn't hit a barn door at 10 yds on full auto ! I only ever fired the Stirling version and that was 'very sophisticated, comparatively' :)
I bought a Sten MKII parts kit in the early 90's so I could have some spare parts for my transferable Sten . the parts kit came from either India or Pakistan. The barrel nut was actually spot welded to the receiver. Now I know why, the Army didn't want the soldiers to change the point of aim by messing with the barrels. Great video. Information I never knew about.
I initially heard "the sight radius is kind of short" as "the sight radius is kind of shit" which, well, I guess it's not inaccurate that way as well.
I have owned a Sten MKII since 1991 and I never knew this! I just looked at my barrel and found the mark. My Sten has always shot a little to the right. I will have to see if indexing the barrel helped. Thanks for this information.
Hello .Can u help me please ?
I'm from Myanmar ,the country which the dictatorship military kill thousand of innocent citizens.
We need to fight back to these murder army.But we don' have automatic guns even rifle.we only have muzzle loader. It's not ok in closed range . Now we are making LUTY SMG gun .we need some technics such rifling. Can u tell me how to riflinh for SMG ?
We have man power but no weapons . We must fight for Democracy. Sorry for bad grammer.
Can’t you see that the runout on the bore is a feature not a bug? “Eccentric Zeroing”, just turn the barrel for a completely different POI. Very advanced stuff!
Just like the leaky window on Top Gear was a safety feature to keep you awake while driving. 😉
By 'free floating' barrel, I don't think they meant for it to float as free as a stoned hippy at Woodstock.
My semi-auto Sten I installed a locator pin to align with a notch in the barrel flange to where it indexes the same all the time. I then removed the front sight and installed a No. 4 Mk 1 Enfield sight with protectors on the barrel. Mine fires from a closed bolt and everyone comments on the range as to how I can ring the 250 yard gongs offhand. Replacing the sight and moving it out to the end of the barrel really made a difference. But firing from a closed bolt probably helped as much.
During my apx. 4000 days with the German Military I carried an UZI Submachine gun, the version with the folding stock. Was quite accurate @ 100 m and usable up to 200. Barrel can only be installed in 1 position there.
The Uzi is a fine weapon.
At my clubs zero range we have a giant berm at 185 yards. During real busy times I just shoot the berm. I am good at getting a sight picture and peaking over to see where my shots land. Saves time setting up a 50 yard where am I target. Especially when people shoot the dog crap out of all the target stands. We also do not have designated cold range times. This was awesome, thanks Bloke and Chap!
Wish I had a range that nice near my home.
I remember watching a sten gun demo in the 50's being fired at about 25 yards at steel plates possibly 6 or 8 inch square and the guy was picking them off one at a time on semi auto.
We compete with the Swedish K at 100m. Best group I ever saw was ~15cm standing from 100m with sling support only and the Swedish nationals. Edit: 5 shot group and the Swedish K also has a removable barrel that changes poi after removal. Regular sight leaf though.
Have you ever considered trying this will the barrel effectively upside down, so your mark is 180 degrees from where it should be?
Yeah I thought that!!! 🤔🤔
That's an excellent idea--I was trying to ponder why the sights would be set too high given that a full auto Sten would already be climbing off of the target. If anything, you would set the sights up to shoot low in order to compensate a bit.
The weight of the 9mm projectile may make an impact difference. I once fired a WW II Walther P38 with 115 grain bullets and I could not get the pistol to print the target at 25 yards, I changed over to 124 grain bullets and it made a world of difference in getting my rounds into the bulls eye of the target.
"Blocked at semi-auto, back in the day, by the judicious application of welds to the selector"
Now that's how it's done! I'm sure there's some American collectors who have now melted due to jealousy. :D Thanks for the video guys.
American here and yes, you spit the truth. Where in the world is Bloke on the Range located????
@@DoubleOddJosh Switzerland, I'm sure living there has it's downsides but their flag is a big plus.
@@jameshealy4594
I should have known, it's one of the best places in Europe to be a gun owner. Cheers from across the pond 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Before 1988, that was considered a perfectly acceptable way of turning a Section 5 (prohibited) full auto in a Section 1 semi-auto rifle (an easy to acquire slot on your FAC) in the UK. Brens often just had their change levers pinned at 'R'. SLRs had the auto notch filled in with weld. Sudanese and Portuguese AR10s (original style, with the trigger shaped cocking handle under the rearsight) were common on the market once their TMH had been fettled.
Different times, different attitudes. Gun owners were largely trusted to obey the law. Dodgy pornstaches and aviators abounded at shooting clubs. Plenty of surplus ammo and gats available. Jumpers for goalposts. Tea on the lawn. Labourers doffing their cloth caps when the vicar walked past. Cricket on the village green. Pert, fresh faced young ladies cycling to tennis lessons. Perpetual summer.
And then something unfortunate happened and the national mood shifted a smidge.
There's little like some absolute goit hauling off and shooting up a town to make the non-gun-owning british public put down their pipes, briefly lower their broadsheets and declare "that's quite enough of that sort of thing, thank you." before returning to the FT.
I had a STEN as a kid when I gave my pal an Elvis record for it. I never had any ammo (if I had I'd have been too afraid to fire it) and surrendered it at a local police station during an amnesty in about 1960. I used to enjoy stripping it down and rebuilding it.
Im supposed to get an semi only pistol grip one on Thursday and iam so excited!
Another example of video craft from the Bloke....... great consistent work in the character of the channel.
I have shot my MK V at the 50m range quite a few times (prone position only) and it is surprisingly accurate. Probably due to the formidable adjustable sights. Something the soviets did always right, even my pps43 made in occupied Leningrad has adjustable sights for individual zeroing.
Thats some fine swissgerman right there bloke
Hey you have a sten magazine loader also thats a good thing to have it really better than useing just fingers. That loader makes it way more enjoyable.!
The practical test would be snap shooting in bursts on a fig 11 set up to drop if hit and see how effective it is in its role.
Some weld on the receiver is what keeps it from going into full auto? Sixty seconds with an angle grinder and I could fix that.
And if that the day? The cops show up
The deterrent is the prison sentence if you get caught.
If it was mine, I would mount a red dot sight on the exposed end of the barrel and blue locktite the barrel thread. I think you might get more usable groups.
My father said put a piece of shim stock thin brass sheet cut to fit a quarter area of the the ring of your barrel the shape of a quarter of a letter C and rotate it until you get it to hit center target like you want it to hit. That will move point of impact. shim stock is very thin and easy to cut with scissors ✂️ and it should work very well
I remember hearing somebody on the internet say that the test for accuracy for the sten was that on automatic it could put all 32 rounds from a magazine onto a 4 by 4 foot wooden square at 100 meters.
That's an unrealistic test. MAYBE at 25m...
Feet not meters old chap
I get the impression from the WW2 training pamphlet that you are supposed to read out the "from 10 yards" bit clearly then the "to up to 100 yards" bit very quickly while hiding it with a cough.
P.S love your video keep them coming and good luck for southern Georgia USA.
I did some long range pistol shooting one day ( 200 yards) and my friend could see the bullets path in the spotting scope. I didn't believe him, but it's true. I was able to hit steel rams at 200 yards without a rest with a 44 magnum revoler. This was a sport in the US years ago called silloette shooting. Mind you this was with iron sights, flat on my back, with my pistol against my calf.
What a mission! Just wondering, what happens if you turn the barrel 180 degrees? Does it get better or worse?
And here I thought hitting the target at 100 m with the Swedish m/45 SMG during my military service was bad...
Kpist m/45B is a marksman’s SMG compared to the STEN gun.
Probably more suited for a gun fight in a telephone booth!! Hickok's channel had him firing for a couple hundred meters and hitting targets so that was impressive but he had a modern made Sten and maybe its perfectly inline machined? Never jammed once and he was impressed as so cheap and rustic but gets the job done...
Thankyou for the video, Sten was really intended for CQB or tank and artillery crews looking at its limited range , this why the m1 carbine type weapon would have been a better choice and a effective range of about 300 yards max i did read somewhere atvb Steve
No one takes an open bolt Sten into a tank with them it's ludicrously dangerous. Stens were issued to the infantry section commander and the 2IC. The 2IC was the commander of the "gun group" and his job was to spot for the Bren and to defend the flank of the gunner - with the Sten. Artillery crews just had rifles. Nearly all AFVs had a Bren gun as well.
Great video
Try putting your front sight lower in your rear peep sight. Use maybe a third of your front sight sticking up in your rear peep sight hole and when you figure out how high or low to hold your front sight in the rear peep mark it with a line of yellow or white paint in a thin file mark . Or add more metal to the front sight and if it's to much on front sight file it down until you get it right where you want it. Either way will work I'm pretty sure I have set a few of them and sweating a peice of metal on front sight is pretty easy just put wet rags around your tubing and keep it cool and only use silver solder to add a piece of bent metal maybe 1/16th thick. Shoot it and file if necessary to right height and then put flat black paint on it.
My grandad was a sharpshooter in the early 50s, he said the only way you'll ever hit anything with a Sten is when they're within punching range
7:30 'Gar nüt'. Interesting exercise... but that weapon system strikes me more like a close quarters gun than anything else. Cheers.
Agreed, the 9mm x 19 round is not supposed to be all that effective at 100m anyway. Good enough for suppressing fire though, I shall be hesitant to expose any vital parts of myself with those 9mm bullets zipping around my close proximity.
The Sten is good only at ranges of 50 yards or less. I tried one. I got only 3 hits on the target out of 20 rounds from 150 yards and none of them were in the centre.
Having fired both the sten and the sterling in my opinion they are only useful at short range ie house clearing.Give me the FN if you really want to damage the enemy.
hickock 45 did very well with his ?
So the Sten Mk II qualifies as a "Ramirez" Challenge at those aranges?
I did laugh when you showed the sight picture!
That's why it was known as the STENCH gun also loved to run away when dropped by tripping the Sear.
True of any open bolt SMG. And could not happen if carried bolt closed in the correct condition.
"Bloody hell! I'm in the next township over. Could ye stop peppering me flat, mate??"
Back in the day where i come from the military used these to clear out bunkers/ im from ireland btw
In service, if they had to replace the barrel, how would they go about re-zeroing the weapon?
With the same gauges I would presume. If they even bothered replacing the barrel and didn't just junk the whole wpn cos they're practically disposable.
I bet they never replaced a barrel. Pistol bullets just don’t wear out barrels like rifles. As Bloke said toss the gun give another. I bet they all knew they would be scrapping them all as soon as the war was over and a better gun could be made.
@@BlokeontheRange Yeah, you just get another one. It's a war, there's plenty of extras laying around usually.
If you could find a suitable rifle barrel to lathe down would 7.65 Luger be a possibility? Most .30 ish bullets seem to require around a 1 in 10 twist just like the Luger round?
zoiders would probably work however getting a magazine that would fit and feed correctly would be the hardest part, however the Chinese did convert some stens to use 7.62 Tokarev and use pps43 magazines so it’s not impossible
@@ArchieKeen1 7.65 Luger fits in any 9mm Luger magazine. 7.62 Mauser or Tokarev is a different/longer cartridge. 9mm Luger is a 7.65 Luger cartridge necked up to 9mm.
zoiders oh sorry I was getting confused with 7.63 Mauser sorry
The spray and pray gun
I've only fired the Australian designed Owen and the love child of the Owen and the Stirling; the F1. The Owen was OK; although (from memory) at targets no further than twenty five yards. I made conscious decision that if I were ever to be equipped with the F1 in combat, I would just throw it at the enemy and run away.
Would rotating the barrel 180° make things worse or better?
WHat are the laws when it comes to open bolts in Switzerland? Are they treating like any closed bolt guns in the same category or are they considered in the restricted category along with full autos?
It’s either full auto (restricted) or not. Operating system is irrelevant.
@@thebotrchap thanks for the reply, thats very interesting and makes a lot more sense than the American system.
Did the sten not usually be used with mk2 ball which was a hotter 9mm + would that explain the zero
STEN was used with both mark 1 and mark 2 ball, and also captured ammunition.
Nice gun
NCOs were predominantly armed with STENs within regular infantry divisions.
Stupid question, but did you try shooting with the electro-pencil mark on the bottom?
A bit off the video topic, Mr. Bloke, but I am curious if you have any information on how many Swiss men, after they aged-out of service, kept their military-grade weapons. I was just thinking about the situation in 1939-40 when the Landsturm age was pushed up to 60 after many years of being 48. Just how many of those men who had aged-out in 1927-1929 still had their military-grade rifles ready to go in 1940? Did the Swiss have to rush out government reserves to make up for all the old droopy-mustached fellowed who had gotten rid of their old service weapons or did those old boys mostly still pack their old gear? Maybe a topic you can expound upon for us all who want to know more about the mysterious militia of the mountains. Cheers!
I guess, by trying to hit something with this at 100 meters one could just safely say the bullets were landing in the same country (provided the shooting range was not close to some border).
Perhaps the barrel index mark would better serve for 200 yard zero!
Hello Bloke. Great video and surprising accuracy from this much maligned tool.
If I may suggest... maybe align the electropencil mark 180degrees different, on the underside of the gun.
Reason I say this is, why leave such a crude mark atop a shiny new gun? The perfect horizontal sight alignment, along with the extreme vertical misalignment, says the gun is better made than it appears but also that something is being done wrong, such as a barrel exactly 180 degrees out, thus affecting only elevation zero.
Cos the mark is meant to be at 12 o'clock according to the manual, and if you put it at 6 o'clock, it shoots disasterously low (I tried it when I first got it) :D
Yep, you are just a Nightforce scope away from complete accuracy and precision-at 5-15 yards. Ymmv. Good video! Thanks!
Your switzerdütsch is adorable
A complete mystery why the french resistance fighters liked Lee-Enfields, loved Brens and hated Stens.
After the war Stens were used by prison guards and maybe police.
Maybe the Chap could enlighten us? 🤔
@@JohnHughesChampigny JohnHughesChampigny It was used by the Israelis as that is all they could get and make early on in 1945-1948 were British guns. The Israelis made a lot of Stens. It was later replaced by their own UZI.
They had no choice in the matter.
When I did military service in the 60's, we trained single shots at a distance of 100 meters. It was with m / 45 Carl Gustaf submaskingun 9mm.
Mostly everyone hit the target in the black field without difficulty.
We were 19-20 year old lads who did 1 year of military service. No elite soldiers just ordinary conscripts. I guess Carl Gustaf m/45 was a much better gun.
Yes, a much better weapon. The Stens were wartime expediency.
...where are you shooting? Range location?
Wow I didn't realize Sten barrels were that hard to come by... I would just throw a fresh Barrel on , I'm sure you can find one as good as new ...
I guess you like a challenge, lol....
They aren't hard to come by at all
Holy crap... how does a STEN group at 50 yds?
How was the sten gun in street battles like Caen though and was it as effective at clearing rooms like the ppsh or the mp40? How did most soldiers effectively use the sten?
I'd have thought it would be exactly the same in a room clearing capacity as an mp40. Both used 9mm I think.
@@KeterMalkuth i mean its an MP4 that had an unfortunate incident in an alleyway and Picasso
@uncletigger yes
@uncletigger Think @Alistair Shaw was actually agreeing with you, the Sten was 'good enough'.
The Sten and the MP40 effectively have the same magazine give or take a mag catch cut out position so both guns suffer from the problems caused by double stack/single feed magazines. Room to room they are functionally no different. The single biggest improvement to reliability is the magazine, which was addressed in the Sterling and its prototypes. Prior to deployment to Normandy British and Commonwealth troops carried out extensive live fire exercises. Faulty mags were discarded. They knew what was coming and prepared accordingly.
Wait , the only thing keeping it semi is a weld 🤔
Not all Stens were created equal. The Canadian long branch was much tidier and completely made in one factory. I have seen pics of British made Stens with crooked trigger guards as a sample of a Sten made from parts from different shops.
Apparently troops were trained with Stens for use in Dieppe raid and when it was postponed and re-planed for a later date, the troops were re-issued new Stens (not broken in). the previously issued Stens had been tested and in some cases gone over by armorers.
You can't have a "crooked" trigger guard as both ends are positively located within the trigger housing and welded in place . The only way it could be out of shape is by damage after manufacture.
Sorry watched vid again, got it wrong you need a taller front sight. Sten front sights can be had in different (numbered) heights, a taller front sight will push the poi down at 10yds it may be a + 1/16” which would mean glue the filament on top. Still , show it to a gunsmith (let him fall about laughing) perhaps he can fix your issues(fit a new barrel)
The steps between the 3 STEN front sight heights are 3" at 100 feet.
It's beautiful to hear bloke speak Swiss German xD
Good shooting nice bit of history thanks for sharing.
My Dad was fighting in Palestine in 1947 with his Sten; I asked if he had ever hit anyone with it and his response was "not that I'm aware of". In essence, trying to use a this weapon against a target like you are doing is a ridiculous exercise given it wasn't intended to be effective at anything like that range by design.
This issue you're having with this non-concentric barrel is curious. Is there to your knowledge any small arms that take advantage of such an effect and incorporated this into the gun mechanism for say adjusting zero?
It's not a desirable quality.
Any old iron!!
Is that a single feed mag? Was the bolt changed?
Sten has Always been a single feed mag. Sterling is double
I remember the sten i shot had probably the 3rd worst trigger ive ever used. (Fie derringer and p64 are worse)
The swiss german caught me off guard lol
Wohnsch du i de schwiiz?
Ja genau. Das sott klar sii :D
Das switzerdütsch ist süss
Its easy to tell if you have hit your target. The bugger stops shooting at you.
How do u have these in the eu?
Not in the EU.
I wish you would’ve had a scope handy when you Shot the sterling
Dear Bloke, what language were you speaking to friend in?
Swiss German (specifically Bernese)
295st comment. With a standard UZI, on semi auto, we could do groups of 30 cm diameter on 100 m. Every guy of my peleton achieved that.
I wish we could leave them as open bolt in the us, we have to buy an expensive closed bolt setup to build one. If we could just weld the selector it would be hundreds of dollars cheaper to build.
The reason you can't just weld the selector for a Sten is that you can buy a $5 part and turn it into a full auto part in about five minutes with a file. You could then install that part in less then a minute and have a full auto Sten. Replace the original part and you have a semi auto sten.
I'd be so tempted to take a dremel to that selector switch and go down the range on a quiet day... why cant us brits have any fun?
Two reasons.
1. There were a couple of twats that gave the government an excuse to disarm folks.
2. Since 1917 the government has not wanted an armed population.
Where term "spray and pray" came from.
I think the Sten was more of a spray and pray weapon. Of course WW2 soldiers were issued new weapons.
Parts kits for these are cheeeeep!
I can see why.
You might try firing United States grease gun up alongside of a sten
No wonder this guy left the homeland. Getting caught in possession of that thing in Brittanica would result in some serious judiciary book throwing.
Only if you don't have the correct license, which is true in most countries.
Of course, in the UK, getting the correct license in the first place is the tricky bit.
Two Sponge Bob references and a Sten.👍
Some barrels were 1 piece There are different front sight 3 I think the best were canadian made some had pins that held the barrel nut to the barrel so it would go on in mostly the same place or had pin drilled into the barrel frm the recever tube the sten gun is the #1 illegal gun in Canada then FN ak & the other 1 you are know
Sten needs a longer barrel and a much much more precisely machined barrel, and itd be good.