One of my grandfathers (in Germany) was a police officer in the 1950s-1960s. He told he that they had these Volkswagen Beetles as patrol cars with a rack between the front seats for two Beretta M38 SMGs stored vertically (butts down). One day such a car hit a pothole (and the guns were sitting there, magazines installed). One of them went bang, with the bullet exiting the roof of the car.
Typical problem in 1-2 gen Smg. Uzi it has 🇳🇵in top cover to prevent it. 100% safety is magazine off. Closed bolt.. have sticky Grease etc pin is a bit forvard no trigger needed
Interesting! I visited the US last autumn, and took a rented AR15 out on the range for the first time. I had a feed stoppage, and 'cock hook and look' took over after not handling a self loading rifle for over 35 years. I suppose there are reasons why armies like to teach drills!
Always fun stepping into the box with an open bolt and inevitably you have to remind the RO, "you don't want me to do that" when he tries to have you safe the firearm.
12:24 I saw someone have this type of malf with a Thompson M1A1. Being used to ARs and AKs, he pulled the bolt back just a bit and let it fly forward to chamber the round all the way... and it did... and it fired the chambered round into the wild blue yonder. Oops.
You pretty much nailed it. Open bolts tend to be dramatically simpler than closed bolt, making manufacture easier and quicker. They can absolutely give multiple safety issues though. From a bolt bounce to some systems giving issue for magazine removal.
One of the most quiet weapons ive ever seen was 5 mark 2 stens with integral supression. Each was different. One of the most extreme and surprisingly great option was wrapping the perferated barrel with a damp towel and or canvas. It just steamed.
I have a buddy who builds machine guns (yes, he has the appropriate permits) and he has a Sterling. It's one of my favorite subguns! The Sten made me think of my own Angry Pipe; a Kel-Tec Sub2000. I chuckled when I understood that it, like the Sten, is basically a steel pipe with a heavy chunk of metal sliding in it...
When I get a jam. I always (at least) try to lock the bolt back, remove the mag, and sical the action. Then put the mag back in or put a fresh one in and back in action.
As an ESL speaker, I just love the backasswards family. I think the A-backwards is the more "grammarly correct", but Bloke's is great too. The expressions conveys two ideas, while my mother tongue's versions only conveys one idea.
My TA unit was one of the last equipped with the SMG before we were equipped with L85 ( this was because of the knock on effect of reworking of the initial L85 batches to improve magazine release problem, of course no one told the ammunition procurement planners so 9mm ran out one year). Anyway by the end many SMGs in units had worn sears so double taps were common on the ranges, also the magazines frequently had knackered feed lips so misfeeds were common. I used to tuck the butt under the 58 pattern shoulder straps on the range so it was locked into the shoulder, I found this improved the control and therefore accuracy as I could pull the weapon tight into the body.
Being British I have done a lot of weapon handling in the dark on various cold and wet training areas. If in doubt its safety on and mag off first. Working parts to the rear to see whats happening. That drill has never failed me and ive never had an ND. Treat every stoppage as a magazine stoppage/misfeed and you cant go wrong. Its knob ends who put magazines back in at the wrong time that always have NDs. 16:03
Thinking back to when we had the SMG as well as the SLR, even people whose personal weapon would, in theory, be the SMG would spend far more time training with the SLR and end up having that mindset about weapon states. Although I am not quite(!) old enough to have served with the STEN and never used the BREN, it strikes me that the drill (1942) for the BREN to load is "fit magazine and cock the weapon" as opposed to "cock the weapon and then fit magazine". As everybody in a section would be trained on the BREN but only a few would end up getting a STEN and probably have less range time with it, I propose that the BREN "mindset" got carried through to the STEN even though the pamphlet said otherwise. Most people do the greater amount of their practical field carrying and firing with blank and I bet there was never any 9mm blank available so people didn't get much practice in handling it other than formally on a "square" range. In theory there were Blank Firing Adaptors and blank available for the SMG in my time but we could never get any and I remember us doing a CQB exercise with GPMG as a substitute. (which was entertaining!) If people did carry SMG on exercise it was usually just as an encumbrance.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, I remember the warning back in the day about the L2 Sterling being pretty good at mangling the little finger of the left hand if you failed to keep it in front of the guard and found its way into the ejection port on firing :/
In the 80s and 90s a lot of SMG platforms were sold on the US market after being converted to semi auto only guns. The problem was they were also converted from open bolt to close bolt guns. The result was, you could not fire a single magazine without a number of failires to feed and eject. To much of the internal systems were tampered with to allow for a reliable gun. The sears often had to be modified or replaced. Internal hammers were installed since the guns could no longer have a fixed firing pin. That part was replaced with a floating firing pin and spring. The internal mechanics were changed so much that the weight and friction on the inside of the weapon totally changed. Modern closed bolt weapons were designed that way from the ground up, avoiding all the problems of these older retro fit guns. I personally owned two such weapons. A MAC 11 in 9mm. And a converted M76 also in 9. Feed jams and ejection failures were more common than not in both guns. My point is, if you have an opportunity to buy a semi auto variant of a formerly open bolt design, see if you can take it to a range first and make sure it is more than something you hang on the wall.
I've got an original Sterling Mk.6 (factory closed bolt) coming soon - it's interesting how they tweaked the design to be incompatible with the open bolt Mk.4 and hence to please BATF.
Great explanations. You may recall (or not) that I incurred your wrath a few years ago with a comment. On watching you in a video discussing what is/is not considered safe for a Sten on a range, I said, "in my army you'd be thrown off the range for that procedure.." or some such. You let me have it in your response (in retrospect, my not properly appreciating the 'bump fire' danger of a Sten, you were correct). Still, we are an anal bunch when it comes to mags on/off and the cocking of weapons etc. I do have experience with: Sterlings semi and full auto, as we were still using them in our rifle platoons until 1988. I kind of miss them and wish I had bought a semi-auto only version when it was legally allowed. As for your story at the 10 min mark, this happened to a friend of mine on/about 1987. He was an infantry platoon commander on a combat team live fire range. The platoon was dismounted following behind/among the leading armour (wheeled AVGP Cougars. Canadian-built Mowag Piranhas with Scorpion turret and 76 mm gun. Given your Swiss connections, you are likely aware of these). He and his signaler were walking behind a Cougar but not cleared to engage targets yet. The Pl Comd (carrying a C1 FAL) wanted to direct the 'tank' fire as part of the exercise. The phone at the back was not working (as so often is the case). He told his sig to bang on the back door to get someone's attention. The sig reversed his SMG, hand over the muzzle, and banged the butt end on the Cougar door. Bang. 9 mm round through his hand. Lucky the muzzle wasn't in line with his face. We always assumed he had cocked his SMG contrary to the orders. However, given the truth about open bolt guns, he likely had a mag on with the bolt forward in the situation you describe. According to my friend, he applied immediate first aid, called a medic and proceeded with the shoot. 😁 This, for me, highlights the trouble with handling weapons where drills are slightly different or, to us, counter-intuitive. There have been several NDs in our army with our BHPs. In one case, an NCO friend of mine was shot through his pelvis during a field expedient pistol range in Africa. In another instance, a very experienced Sr NCO had an ND while clearing his BHP in weapons stores in Cyprus following a routine patrol. The round shattered on the concrete floor sending a shard into an Lt's ass. The problems stem from a combination of lack of exposure (prior to most soldiers being issued a back up sidearm in Afghanistan) coupled with the stupid mag safety. In most cases, the 'offenders' got the sequence of clearing mixed up. They drop the mag, clear the chamber, inspect and show clear with the slide locked back. Then, knowing they need a mag on to ease springs by firing the action, they often insert a mag, release the slide (which picks up a fresh round) and pull the trigger... oops.
If I remember correctly, back in the ‘80s when we still used the Stirling in Canada, the stoppage drill was ALWAYS to cock the gun first, then look at the cause of the stoppage through the ejection port. It was of course people not following the drills that had NDs .
The most common accidents that I know of is someone getting a hold of an open bolt firing gun, not understanding how they function and trying to chamber a round as one would normally do with closed bolt guns. What I have seen in an african country with two on a motor scooter. The cop that had the submachine gun had the magazine in his pocket and once off the bike inserted it into the weapon. These were guns that looked a little bit like an MP40 and guessing that they were Berreta made guns.
I'm half way into this and SMG like the Sten were supposed to be cheap ass bullet hoses. Minimal production effort first, everything else second. Wartime emergency. And on top of the limitations of the gun, you have the draftees who are given it. If post war professionals mess up with Sterlings, i would not want to be around for conscripts with Stens.
The number of wartime photos you see with STEN guns in unsafe conditions is quite amazing... And you can tell from the cocking handle if it's definitely not got the extra safety hole for with the bolt forward...
That's interesting. It might indicate that the Sten was actually a lot less unsafe in that condition than we think today. Presumably the n00bs just followed what the Old Hands were doing. But if there had been enough NDs the army rumor service would have informed the troops that the Sten was a true Tommy Killer. Any fudd lore to that regard?
That was great,well done winning with the auld Smig, it was the last weapon😊 I fired before I left 1RHF in 1989,god knows where it came from as we had switched over to the L85A1 by then, I' daresay someone found it lurking in an armoury in Otterburn
Excellent. An ex soldier I knew who worked with cadets, told me the following, which I have never fully believed; that back in the 1980's, while on and exercise in Germany using live rounds, one brilliant chap had left a Sterling, cocked, but obviously not on safe.... leaning against the front offside tire of a Landy while they were using the bonnet as a map table. Following the nav brief, they went to sort themselves out and the Landy driver jumped in and started to reverse. The Sterling , apparently...fell down, fired off a round and in so doing, apparently....jumped itself onto its stock and continued to fire off the entire mag. 🤔 I genuinely have no idea if that is possible with a Sterling, but everyone apparently...dived for cover behind other vehicles until all the shooting stopped. I was told....that the weapon had spiralled around on its stock until it ran out of ammo, firing it's rounds skywards. I would love to know if this is actually possible or just a lovely bit of 'military mythology'. ( I suspect the latter!). In a way, as no one got shot, I would love to think this actually happened! Perhaps you can tell me if it's even possible or complete bo*****s!😂
There's variations on that kind of story going back to STENs in WW2 and aside from a really shagged sear the only way it could happen would be with bolt forward on a loaded magazine and dropped on the butt, the movement of the gun not allowing the bolt to reach the sear when it fired.
@@BlokeontheRange Thanks so much for replying! Really appreciated. I rather think this was one old soldier with a 'war story' to impress the cadets he was working with at that time!! I had heard of stens being dropped and firing multiple rounds.....but had never been sure about the Sterling variation! Mind you.....leaning any firearm against a vehicle is a very silly thing to do.....like the chap I heard of out game shooting, who stood his empty, very expensive shotgun against a Range Rover while the guns had elevenses.....Range Rover drove away,.....nice shotgun went under the wheels and was destroyed.....Thanks for your excellent content! 😊👍🏻
I've a friend who was a Canadian MP (military police, not member of parliament) in the 90s. Apparently, they used to joke about the best way to clear a room with a C1 SMG (Canadian Sterling variant) was to take the safety off and lob it through a window.
Legit video idea: in the US, we have been getting a butt load of euro primers imported, because US companies can't even cover 50% of the demand, even with prices 3X what they should be. It would be awesome to see a European's opinions/testing of these to better understand which ones are trash, which ones are ok, and which ones are great.
Short answer is they're all fine unless you've got a weak striker/hammer for whatever reason. If you pass up CCI and go looking for Federal, you probably want to give them a miss.
I had a potential nd in basic training at Catterick in 1991 with a sterling. Luckily for me the working parts went forward but the blank didn't go off ( for sure a beasting would have been heading my way if it had ). I slipped into a stream when trying to jump it during the cleanup after a simulated ambush. I fell down face first and smacked the butt on a rock and felt the working parts fly forward, luckily with no bang. I always kicked myself over it , but maybe it wasn't all my fault.
Was the SMG cocked at the time? The bolt shouldn't be able to jump the sear if it was but I guess in 1991 at a training depot it could have been seriously worn down.
@@BlokeontheRange yes it was, I'd been firing it...parts locked to the rear. Safety on got up to jump the stream and my issue rubber waterproofs crotch were halfway down my thigh, so when I tried to jump my legs didn't spread so I went face first into the stream and rocks. Banged the butt and pulled the trigger as I hit pretty hard. Felt it jump but no bang luckily
It seems strange that the ejection port cover from the US M3 and M3A1 wasn't more widely adopted, since it seems to address securing the bolt either opened or closed and preventing debris from entering the action without having an extra bit hanging off to snag on things
It's all fairly straightforward but I have to admit on one occasion, I forgot that my 240 Bravo was open bolt... and close the bolt to get ready. The fact that the weapon was planted in a safe direction made it A minor mistake and a learning exercise. You do and you have to recalibrate your brain.
I was always taught to cock,hook and look on an SMG stoppage, never to play with the magazine until you had seen inside to see what the issue was. Maybe the training changed after I left the RAF
Great Vid as usual. The most common stoppage with an smg is an empty mag, unless the mag was not inserted correctly in which case it goes clunk ie fails to feed( speaking of the F1 from Ozland the improved Owen gun known to discharge when dropped) An embarrasing situation if you are on the Street in Prague in 1942. I can't remember the correct IA, i think it was mag off, to see if there were rounds in mag. Open bolt - simple blowback design and keeps the air circulating through the chamber. As it fires you can feel balance change as the bolt moves back and forward.
So a jam with one in the chamber but the breech unlocked is a massive safety issue on rifle calibre machine guns, which get hot enough to cook off after a couple of hundred rounds of rapid fire. Subgats a) don't get that much fire through them, and b) don't get as hot anyway cos the amount of powder is a mere fraction of a rifle calibre.
I once RO'd a PCC match where one guy was using an M1 Thompson, and it took some getting my head round the correct sequence unload-show clear-fire action-open action-insert flag-close action-muzzle up-range clear. Knowing it in theory is one thing, actually seeing it in practice is a bit wierd. [edit] incidentally, those AR dummies look an awful lot like "red plastic" blanks...
Once you've got your head around it and it all separated out conceptually it's fine, but the first few times I did a match it was a bit weird! But yeah, having to use the trigger to lower the bolt on the flag is an odd one with the "if clear..." drill!
Not an expert here, but with the early STENs could you not rotate the magazine receptacle down so it would not present the magazine where the bolt could pick up a cartridge?
Not being British, "cock, hook, and look," is not something I had ever heard before. In the U.S. army back in the nineties, the drill they taught us in the event of a stoppage was to "pull S.P.O.R.T.S." -- Slap (the magazine), Pull (the charging handle), Observe (the chamber), Release (the charging handle), Tap (the forward assist), and Squeeze (the trigger). The chamber _should_ be empty at the Observe part, because pulling the charging handle should have cleared the offending round; if it didn't, you stop S.P.O.R.T.S. there and get it out. Interestingly, on the police department where I work, our patrol carbine training is influenced by what the military learned during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan -- especially Iraq and the fighting in urban areas. S.P.O.R.T.S. was out. Instead, you left your head to clear the way for the charging handle, run the charging handle smartly backward and release it, then require your cheek weld and sight picture and shoot, and that's it. If that didn't work, transition to your pistol and sort the jam out later when you're not still facing an active threat. None of that Slap, Pull, Observe... etc. just run the charging handle. You also never touch the forward assist -- Gene Stoner just might have known what he was about when he disputed the need for the thing.
So the standard 'cock, hook, look' (on looking inside...) I got trained in nearly 30 years ago applies for both in real terms when it comes to stoppage drills? I remember being taught by ye olde instructors that Sterlings were best avoided for all of the drama you've explained (though we'd swapped to L85A1 by the time I arrived on the scene), and having seen this video, I can see why! Cheers Bloke!
Machine gun training is 50% learning how to fire the gun. The other 50 is how to maintain the gun and clear malfunctions. A great way to learn how to clear malfunctions with a m249 is to use a magazine. Hard mode is to use blanks.
Angry tubes are angry. Sitting in a comfy chair I imagine a lot of people would ask how it is possible to make a mistake like that. However muscle memory is a thing and once we learn how to do something (even if it's the wrong way) we tend to keep doing things like that.
I kind of have to disagree on one thing. I would never insert a mag into an open bolt gun with the bolt forward. Too easy to slip your grasp on the handle before the notch and ND
I assume that one minor reasons, open bolt fell out of favor, is that company what to sell to the civilian marked too and open bolt are just to easy to convert to full auto. I've I got that right.
Once cost stops being the driving factor, there's no reason for open bolts in subgats any more, and first round accuracy can be massively improved. Rifle calibre MG's are mostly still open bolt though, since what's driving that is the problems with cook-offs, which aren't an issue in pistol cal SMG's unless you're mag dumping more ammo than you can likely carry in a realistic scenario.
@@BlokeontheRange lol the red dummy rounds just made it look very swiss😋. Just cracked open the hornady manual to check dimensions. 7.5x55 is barely too big for an AR10, but you might be able to make it work in a custom rig. I know some companies offer complete side charging AR-style rifles up to 338 lapua. I think that a 7.5x55 AR would be a fun project for you and Chap. You could call it the "Swiss Ms." Because she would be smooth, elegant, smart, classy, and very attractive. 😎 Anyway, thanks for the reply, keep up the good work, and have a nice day Sir.
@@BlokeontheRange lol good to know. Still think it would be a nice BOTR project some day to build a custom one representative of you, Chap and the channel. You could go a couple of directions with it. Modern red, white, and silver themed, or (my favorite) polished Birch wood furniture, polished blued steel, polished silver aluminum or red rubber accented charging handle, with a steel or brass butt plate. Obviously custom engraving or graphics as you see fit. I think it would be very repetitive of you guys and the channel. It straddles the line of old and new(like Stoner's original design, and like you guys, and like the channel). I think it would look gorgeous and I think you guys would have fun building it, and I know we'd love watching the series. Anyway, thanks for the conversation, have a nice day Sir.
The principle difference is an open bolt firearm combine striker/hammer, firing pin, and bolt into a system that can automatically fires a round. Close bolt breaks up the system into individual components with specific functions. This gives more options for redundant safety features.
Most versions of the sten have a rotating mag housing to close the chamber after you remove the mag. And always use the safety notch. Gun jammed, safety notch is first step.
Turning the mag housing on the Mk.2 and Mk.5 down is for transit only. Doing so isn't part of the handling drills, and it unlocks the barrel nut, which is supposed to be tightened the last bit of the way with the magazine housing in the service position, since this this contains the ratchet pawl for stopping the barrel nut from unscrewing. In terms of always using the safety notch with a stoppage, Lesson 2, §4, of Small Arms Training Vol. 1 Pam 21, 1944 says simply to "cock" and does not say to use the safety notch.
It wasn't though... There's zero evidence of any of the Patchett prototypes going there (the entire claim is based on "we know how many there were, we can't account for X of them, therefore it's *possible* they went there", and that gets deformed into "they were there"). There's a couple of photos of French SAS with them at the very end of the war though.
@@BlokeontheRange I'll take your word for that, since I know that you've probably spent a great deal more time researching the subject than I have. Still, as you confirmed, they were used in Europe in the tail end of WWII, which was really my point. I just stated the earliest 'recorded use' of them that I could find, even if it turned out that it was likely just 'lore'.
Firearms are tools and just like with any tool you MUST be trained in how to use it and know anything particular about that specific tool or keep your hands off of it.
This would've added another step in the production on a weapon that had to be produced in big numbers within a short timeframe - thus they downprio'd it in order to get more guns out of the factories. Rather have thousands more guns where you could potentially get shit into the action compared to less guns where you wouldn't.
