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.
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. :-(
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…
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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' :)
"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 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.
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.
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 года назад
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.
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.
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
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!
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.!
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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
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).
I can't figure out if it is steam punk or not. It has a sort of hand-made Pakistani-mud hut roughness but it was a full auto sub of the XXth century. I notice a lot of government arsenal produced Lee Enfield rifles are quite roughly finished however well they perform. Maybe it's a cultural thing. The Swiss or Germans wouldn't stand for it. Even the American arsenal rifles were actually pretty nice.
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.
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
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.
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....
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.
@Erik, the language spoken by the guy behind Bloke is actually Bernese German or even more precise Bernese Oberland German. Swiss German doesn't actually exist as a general spoken or written language. Every region has its own dialect. My own dialect (Zuri Schnurre) is different from the folks in Berne, Thurgau, or Basel. And if you really want to hear a strange dialect you have to visit the German part of Valais or Wallis. And by the way Bloke starts to sound like a real Berner lately.
@@TheTejanoJose I used to live in Fort Worth area for about 15 years but I have also lived in Frankfurt as well as Kyiv and I hope to be able to visit Switzerland at some point in the future.
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.
Not a military expert or anything but every time I see videos about stens I really feel for those soldiers that had to use them . They look like garbage compared to even low budget PPSh or grease guns
An old uncle of mine fought in WW2 and he said the Sten was made a cost of 10 shillings and sixpence. A weapon made for this price has to be an inaccurate device.
They weren't made for 10 shillings and sixpence... There's no exact figure, and it will have varied, but somewhere around the £5 mark seems about right. Maybe as low as £3 for the Mk.III's, but that would surprise me somewhat...
I think one of the reasons it was in 9mm was so they could use captured ammo. Throughout the whole war British tanks were equipped with BESA machine guns which used 8mm Mauser, I imagine they used a lot of captured German ammo in those.
@@minuteman4199 Not really. The reason for using both 9mm and 7.92mm was that we already made it domestically (and because the Besa was a foreign 7.92 design and it was quicker to keep it 7.92
it saddens me that so many gun experts have basically no understanding of close quarters combat. one would NEVER fire a sten at distances that far away unless they are simply harassing or trying to get the enemy to ground so they could move away. stens are made for full auto ambush fire within 15m. youre trying to basically hit a pizza box sized target with three to five bullets and then move tf out. look at the statistics of who actually got shot in the war and by what and it will tell you why the russians immediately copied the stg and then changed the ak47 to the ak74. the inability of ordnance to get their heads around this full auto burst concept cost hundreds of thousands of lives. stens and grease guns were some of the best weapons of ww2 but never get their propers because of civilians who dont know about actual gunfighting.
Rather than write utter nonsense like that, why don't you actually read the training manuals of the era? The British and American ones are available online. And "the russians immediately copied the StG", no they didn't, lol. They took the concept of the cartridge and developed the SKS. The AK (which is also not a StG copy, although some of the concept is there) came a fair whack later.
Yes, but a squad of 4-6 firing on the same target wouldn't be at all optimistic. Plenty of hits then even on full auto I would think. It's a Simple 9mm Blowback Operated SMG. The only way to make it more accurate is to make it closed bolt and to delay the recoil of the bolt using rollers of some kind.. Yes MP5. But of course that is not an open bolt weapon and the price is significantly more.
Seeing your aiming shot it reminds me the time I was given a 96/11 to try out. First shots at 300 not seen, had to aim low in the green about the same height of the target to get in the black. Gave it to a experienced armourer and now it's a great rifle to take to shooting events.