9mm Sterling SMG Magazines: How Are They Constructed? L2A3 Mk.4 

As a mechanical engineer who did far more sheet metal than I would have preferred, this is familiar. [Shudder.] Everyone thinks sheet metal design is EASIER. Only BAD sheet metal design is easier. And sheet metal tooling design, as you mentioned is mind blowingly subtle sometimes. Nice work.

Always good to know that provision is made for cack, whether it be sand-grooves or cack-rollers. Cheers 😊

Really fantastic bit of design. It almost goes OTT in the quest to make the magazine reliable, sturdy and long lived

"I will have to go through my Stengun magazine collection". Definitely well past entry level gun nerd.

Once visited the Sterling factory in Dagenham, and they made every component in the factory. The most interesting was a locked caged that contained gold plated sterling SMGs !

The licensed Indian made SAF MC 1A & SMGC 1A1 follows the more elaborate construction of the commercial Sterlings...including the magazine. Build quality was surprisingly good till about the late 90s, after which it mostly went to rat-poo.

Lithgow Small Arms Factory in Australia produced Sterling Submachine Gun Magazines for the F1 Submachine Gun, the agreement between Sterling Armaments and the Australian Government was informal, basically, Australia could produce them for free, so long as they did not sell them to other nations. Australia produced the magazines and F1 Submachine Guns until 1973, and were phased out in the 1990's. Apparently a few L2A3's and L34a1's were also in inventory in the ADF and were phased out in the 1990's as well!

Thanks for another great video. The Sterling is the only SMG I have shot so my experience is limited but it was excellent on both semi and full auto: reliable, ergonomic, easy to keep on target and accurate enough to get me my OTC marksman's qualification.

Thank you for the review of the Sterling mags and all that goes into their manufacture. The Sterling is iconic.

Great video Mike. Something I've always meant to strip and look at and never have.

Very clever solutions to early problems. Some lessons need to be learned more than once. Early MP5s had straight mags before adopting curved ones in later production models. And for the same reason of enhanced reliability.

I'm still holding out hope that Bloke, Chap, Othias, May(mae?), Ian, and Rob can get together to do a video someday.

Funny how they bothered with magazine development for a weapon that can only hit secondary characters and never the actual dangerous ones attacking your ship, outpost or space station.

Thanks Bloke, that nerdiness was most enjoyable.

The Canadian C1 SMG "Sterling" magazines were simplified ever further compared to the "army" pattern magazine you showed. The C1 magazine had a stamped steel follower that omitted the rollers for a more conventional follower design. While probably not as good as the original sterling mag they seemed good enough as I don't recall them being a source of issues during my brief stint as a reservist in the late 1980's.

Excellent video as always, explains why my SMG was so reliable 😊

I imagine that latter designs in other weapons just reduced the surface of the follower that make contact with the interior of the magazine, to achieve similar effect without resourcing to rollers.

I was on the range during my army service (RMP) in BAOR when the rollers on one of the lads mags jammed as he canted the SMG to the right the rounds all rolled out of the ejection port. If it can happen it will, no matter how daft it might seem.

I appreciate the nerdery. I'd probably even like some nerdery on the crackle paint finish that some guns have.

I wonder if ze Gerrmans took a sneaky look at the Sterling mags when the MP5 stick mags were found to be sub optimal? 17:37

Thanks for the deep dive.

A decade or so after I last fired the SMG, unimpressed by its accuracy (well, compared to an SLR/SA 80) but never having had any concerns about the magazines, I worked for the patent attorney firm, Heron & Rogers, that did Sterling's patents. Today I am working for another IP firm, and have a signed photograph from Frank Whittle in my office!

Nerdery 101 - love it.

For a moment I thought you had lost it! Until I was able to zoom in, I was sure that code at the bottom of the military mag said, 'CHINA'. Thanks for illustrating how complicated a bit of sheet metal with a spring can be. I tend to think that the simple change to double feed was in itself a huge help to reliability, though that was probably a bit complicated to work out. The coil spring was a bit surprising; I had never seen that in a magazine before.

Nearly everyone forgets how crucial magazine design is to a firearm.

Sterling mag video? *slides over tissue box* Just watched the vid. I never noticed the guide rails before. They're better than I thought they were.

Great Info , Great Video 💯💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

That was very interesting, thank you for the video. Maybe I'll do one myself in relation to this. I also own a Sterling magazine.

Sadly, I have no slat for Sterling magazine--they, even the knock-offs, are just too much the cat's meow. But, it's definitely cool to see inside the business part of things. And, a rather clear and precise Patent being rather a hen's tooth, too.

Thanks for making a video on the Sterling magazine! I keep making incorrect assumptions in some of my comments on your previous videos so I'll just leave it at that.

Disassembled STEN mag is giving me Glock vibes.

Thank you! What a lovely magazine. Viele Grüße

"We can't make it right, how do we fix it" "Buy from us."

12:04 the punches and dies have to be made for cutting these. Before the time of EDM machines that was done by hand and was a very precise job. I have watched a lot of these videos at the time I had finished my research on reamers and was talking to Ivan the Troll on EDM and maybe the possibilities on making a barrel. I was not convinced it could be done as small, but he managed produce a mandrel to hold the electrodes to electrically erode rifling instead of swaging it with rifling buttons. Very interesting to see double stack magazines in SMGs, but they are even more rare in pistols. For pistols the Russian MP443 has it, and maybe some others but these are very rare. I am very excited about the design perspective it brings when you look at 3D printing and the possibilities of casting receivers in metals or even steel with vacuum casting. Sheet metal can be formed with punches and dies. EDM machines are the way to go to make punches and dies. You need a large tonnage hydraulic press to get good quick results. No idea on how much tonnage you would need, but the larger the place where the force needs to be applied the more tonnage you need. Maybe you can get around this with having a punch that cuts on small portions at one time i.e. a slanted cutting surface. Also the follower in the magazine could be one casted part. With fluid 3D printing you can have high enough definition to make parts out of jewelers casting resin to do vacuum casting with. :) I like the rollers in the Sterling magazine. Very cool! Greetings, Jeff

Great video as always and very helpful to see the depth of design features and the origins in the patents. One has to wonder how Sterling would have got on if they hadn't been stitched so many times by HMG. I nearly spat my sausage out at 15.38 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uYMlOV_sCjM.html when the stamped marking CRIIIA appeared to read "CHINA"!

Do you know how they modified those to hold the blaster gas for the BlasTech contract?

10/10 for using the word "cack" 👌🏻

They are so pretty!

Nice gun sir

As far as i remember, from stripping and refinishing them, the Sterling was all induction brazed not welded ?

Love side loading magazines , don't know why just do .

Such a good magazine.. .

Neat design, for sure. What Sten mag loading tool do you use/suggest?

I the m45 magnis very similar and they are very reliable and they are double stack for 36 rounds

Jam rate for mp18 snail drums

Just wondering if there is any noticeable difference between the sterling and the knock off issue tissue when it comes to feeding?

You forgot about the feed ramp being integrated into the magazine and not the firearm.

Bloke have you ever had the chance to play with the Owen gun?

17 mins of nerdy storytelling about the magasine of an obsolete gun Ill never see irl ? Yes please ! (Gun tism is real, thank you for showing all the documentation and drawings, looks like it took a lot of research to make that vid)

So cleaning a STEN's magazines is definitely part of the program, esp. In sandy/dusty evviroments....not as critical for the Sterling. Still best practices.

I really enjoy the nerdy stuff on this channel. The only thing I didn't click to was putting the spring into a "box" of 4 guide ribs. Doesn't its diameter increase when it compresses? Can't it cause the coils to rotate and stand diagonally to accomodate this increase? Or it's not that tight? Also, British patent database is a pain.

Any experiences with WW2 experimental suppression systems?

my husband brought a parts kit for the sterling

I look forward to a submachine gun family tree video.

❤❤❤❤❤

And the soundtrack to this vid is the clog dance from la fille mal gardee ....you know the one rat a tat tat ...pause for removing the jam rat a tat tat etc ad infinitum 👍

Just wondering how long will it take to get a firearms license in Switzerland because I’ve talked to Swiss people and some say I have to live there for 10 years before I can even get one some say longer some say I can get one straight away I’m just not sure if they’re saying that so I don’t move there

MP 28 magazine. "Vorsprung Durch Technik"; in 1920, not in 1940.

Just what was it that the government had up its third point of contact that caused it to work so hard to destroy Sterling?

Perhaps I missed it, but is anyone else making such magazines for other full auto guns. I did not note the patent date, but I assume the patent is now expired.

I would say NaCl - salty enough for you?

Sodium Chloride

So long as Brits engineer something that's not a car electrical system in the rain, they can out do the Germans. Fantastic magazine to be sure.

Undertale music?

words

The nerdy stuff is just fine ... I can't however, donate.

Probably, a very naive question, but still. Why don't we see these tricks on every mag elsewhere? They seem very rational, and they ended up working -- so, why not? In, say, bolt design, the tendency to pick the best solutions has driven us to rotating bolts, with lugs in the front part, on 99% assault rifles and machine guns. Why don't mags converge to some "best practice"?

Here is a throughly iodized salty comment

As requested, une commentaire salé.

@ 15:38. "CHINA"?? Nope! CR111A Pert or drawing number. Then, there is the story of the Lithgow "knock-off" for the Oz SMG F1. Every so often, a UK Sterling mag would find its way into the Oz system. If it fitted and worked,nobody but the "eagle-eyed" armourers and the hard-core "enthusiasts" would notice or care. Oz has long regularly trained with Sterling-equipped forces, like NZ, Singapore, etc. In times of yore, L1A1 mags and parts thereof seemed to "float about" somewhat.

*salty comment*

This is a salty comment.

Sterling. The choice of the modern women's royal air force 😅😅😅😅