The Sten - It's a Toob, Innit?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ม.ค. 2023
- Today we take a deep dive into the British Sten SMG, one of the most popular historic subguns of all time!
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I need me a toob shirt 🔦
fantastic toob
I fucking love this channel bro
Check Instagram dm
Do the Bren MG
When I was in high school, my shop teacher, who was the local gunsmith built a registered sten. We did it at school in the industrial arts building. Milled out the receiver tube with a paper wrap around template and welded her up with TIG and parkerized it right there in school. He took a few of us out to the local gravel pit afterwards to try it out. Needless to say, times have changed. I am a high school shop teacher now, and I always tell my students that story just to show how much ground we've lost in 30+ years.
It truly is a shame how far we've fallen
Thanks for being teacher that is down to earth. Hopefully your students will remember you the same way.
well, you can still build and register destructive devices. To build a real grenade launcher would be pretty fun. Times have still changed, but making an m79 or m203 is legal (ammo is nonextistent)
Well, he obviously inspired you so his job is done.
I’m lucky my schools still got our rifle team with rifles still kept in the building of course they don’t a low any ammo and there in a new safe but some is left still not the days of being able to have a truck gun in HS
It's actual nickname was 'the Woolworths gun' because it cost just over £2 to make
Woolworth's? I was banished from there. I don't remember if it was just the one branch or all of 'em.
@@imperialbricks1977 isn't that the gun that hurts more to shoot than to be shot with
@@imperialbricks1977 "And stay out of the Woolworth!"
The Woolworth's Gun was the nickname for the Liberator pistol. The Sten was known as the Plumber's Nightmare.
2 quid!? Bloody right deal there.
The reason for the STEN's magazine being to the side is so that it was far more efficient when defending positions due to the gun being able to be flat on sandbags etc., as it was designed for trench warfare.
I’m conjunction with low quality springs struggling to feed rounds upwards it was a product of circumstance
Nah, they just copied the german mp40 and needed it to look different to avoid a patent war...
@@Substance2020 the explain the grease gun? Patents didn’t mean shit in those days
@@EPICLIGIT "the explain the grease gun"..the guy says.
Ok... America imported the MP40 when designing the gun.
Does that do it for you?
Low quality springs? LOL.....that's made my day. Good one. Oh and the patent reference was a joke.
@@Substance2020 The MP 40 had nothing to do with the Grease Gun. The Thompson did though. The M3 Grease Gun was a much, MUCH cheaper version of the Thompson. Lower rate of fire, which allowed it to stay on target better. It fired from an open bolt and "slam fired" like the sten, but it fired the .45 acp.
Unfortunately you missed one of the major bonuses of the Sten. The magazine slots in horizontally allowing the soldier to shoot lying prone. This him to get lower to the ground unlike the Germans who had vertical magazines pointing downward and they were more comfortable kneeling which of course provides the enemy with a larger target. See, the Brit designers weren't mad after all!
I get the idea and what ur trying to say but honestly that's not really accurate to even point out as a major bonus because the sten smg due to its simplicity and mass production was highly in accurate and it was made purely for close range combat to spray and pray bullets towards ur enemy while charging at them running towards them the sten smg had also was known for its poor reliability and it jammed quite often so yeah the horizontal magazine didn't really help this gun get any better also in the grass proning u would never notice a soldier with stem smg just as well as u wouldn't notice a soldier with a standard vertical magazine smg it didn't give much of an advantage to proning you can argue the vertical mag sub machine guns were better for proning because u could use the magazine as a bipod for ur gun and control the recoil much easier than u would with a sten so yeah that's an argument not even worth mentioning its definitely not a major bonus for the sten
@@Dav624 punctuation exists.
@@DestricaUKGaming I couldn't care less
@@Dav624well then, most won't be bothered to finish your painstaking essay.
@@MorAodhan I couldn't care less
Proving once again that many great British Inventions could either be built in a shed, were made in a shed (arctic warfare) or could be built better in a shed (L85A1)
Arctic warfare wasn't built in a shed, green meanie was.
What about all the hood british racing 🏎 and supercars built in a shed
Wasn't it just a simplified copy of the MP28?
Or decoded in a shed
@@23GreyFox The Lanchester was the British copy of the MP28 and was designed to be cheaper and easier to build, while using less resources and man hours. However this was still too expensive and manpower consuming for post Dunkirk Britan to mass produce, and eventually they got all the way down to a spicy pipe with nubs.
Kinda like how the USSR went from the PPD-40 > Cheaper Easier to make PPSH-41 > Cheapest Easiest PPS-43.
Or the Americans from the M1928 > Cheaper easier to make M1 & M1A1 > Even cheaper easier M2 > Cheapest and easiest M3.
I'd much rather have an M3 Grease Gun or PPS-43 (Is it still considered a Papasha, or just the PPSH-41? I know paPAsha is how PPSH is said in Russian, but also means Daddy), or even an Owen gun.
The STENs a great gun and surprisingly reliable, like when they accidentally found out the recoil springs were weak and prone to breaking in half, but that it didn't matter as the gun still ran fine. But its greatest feature is it costs nothing and can be made from nothing, ergonomics wasn't an afterthought as it was never considered in the first place.
Also worth noting, is that the development of the Sten took around 6 weeks, from conception to adoption, which is really quite incredible.
Something to be said for the simplicity of a TOOB 😂
That long? I would have thought it would be half that time.
@@EsotericDrifter If you look at how long other weapon projects take this is quite impressive. Even consdiring wartime pressure this is still out of the ordinary.
@@EsotericDrifter You wouldn't be saying that if you knew anything about the usual process of weapon conception and adoption.
@@Kiiw3y but it's just a toob, innit?
Because, as the Germans found out, it is difficult to fire prone with a downward mag. As this was a mainly commando/para weapon this was particularly important.
Yep, that was obvious to me too. Same reason the Bren gun was designed the way it was
My Sten story is similar to Jamie Carter's below, except that we never made a Sten. Instead, one of my teachers, a WWII Marine would bring in his war trophies from time to time. Japanese rifles, pistols, swords, battle flags, and so on. The thing that always stood out to me, mostly because it was so out of place, was a Sten gun. I never asked how he came to have it, was it registered, did it work etc. Someone else could ask him, but I sure wasn't going to. (He also called a magazine a "clip" but I wasn't going to tell him he was wrong. That old man had fought his was across the Pacific in some of the biggest battles of the war. If he wanted to call it a "clip" he had earned the right.)
Many WW2 Vetts called a magazine a clip due to the clip fed mechanism for the m1 Garand.
The British fought the Japanese too. It wasn't just an American theatre. He could've got the sten that way.
@@mikeycraig8970: Or else perhaps it could have come from the Australians or NZ Armed Forces who also fought in the Pacific, Papua-New Guinea & the Dutch East Indies, who earlier also had used the ‘STEN Gun’ over that time during WW2?!! However, subsequently, the Aussies mainly preferred to use & operate their own locally designed & produced, from the Lysaght Works in Newcastle, NSW, the ‘Owen 9 x 19 caliber, Submachine Gun,’ in most of their infantry units, especially after redeploying the bulk of their combat infantry forces to Papua-New Guinea & the Dutch East Indies (Now known as Indonesia) during & after 1943!
The British were fighting the Japanese too in the Pacific, Burma, Malaya, Thailand, etc. It wasnt just the 'Mericans (despite what you all seem to think). Despite our country having 1/8th the population of yours, the British fought for longer and in every Theatre. From Africa, Europe, Asia and on the seas of the Atlantic from 1940 as well. The Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and Canadians were there from the start, meanwhile the US has the largest Nazi-supporting population outside of actual Nazi Germany (Google "4th Reich")
around 70% of Japanese men and materiel was directed to the mainland against China and The Indian Army under Brit Administration. ANZACS use the Sten and yanks were stationed in both Aussie and NZ. @@mikeycraig8970
The Sten was designed with foxholes and trenches in mind. The magazine well being to the side aided in prone shooting and reloading. Helping keep lower profile to the ground but still have useful ammo capacity.
I wonder why they didn't bother adding it on top like the Bren. They said fuck all to the sights anyway.
Yeah it's wierd to think about today but a major concern of brass back in that era was overly long magazines would interfere with lying prone and shooting, part of why they were rather unimpressed by the stg44
@@Dhips. Owen gun: 👀
Came here to say this, and was also going to add the "correct" way to hold the Sten is with the support hand on the smooth piece directly forward of the trigger, below the barrel (the part that looks like a handguard). Holding by the mag can induce jams, as Brandon demonstrated.
@@Dhips. big weight above the gun makes it wobble sideways more. The sten was made to fire from a bipod.
The mag comes out the side for the same reason as the Bren mag comes out of the top. The British army at the time had an obsession with being able to fire and reload effectively from a prone position.
Their battle doctrine was "if ya get shelled, ya git prone" so they wanted them to get as flat as possible
Would you support Brandon making a remake of the Morita Rifle from Starship Troopers?
The sten was prone to jamming if the magazine was held while firing. The gun body should be held instead.
Brens top loaded mag allowed an assistant to aid with the reload as well
Nope - reasons for top or side magazine placement is reliability. Magazine spring doesn't have to overcome gravity when feeding the rounds.
I read a memoir from a British Tank Commander who said a lot of them swapped their Stens for MP40s as the horizontal mag got in the way when they were engaging infantry out of their hatches. I believe they designed it like that so you could lay on your stomach and still use it whilst having a lower profile.
I just love this Sten II, absolute definition of Fallout 4 pipegun. Basic, cheap, almost DIY, does what it's supposed to.
100% approved haha
Just wait until you see a Sten mk3
There's something beautifully rebellious about cheap, stamped sheet metal, open bolt SMGs. The Sten and the Luty are my absolute favorites.
Imagine the wonderful firearms that could have come out of Great Britain if they hadn't cut the balls off of their firearms industry...
Yeah towards the end of the war the guns needed to become a lot cheaper and simpler to make.
Like the PPS43, the M2 Grease Gun, The Owen Gun.
@@theKashConnoisseur The L85a1 comes to mind.
@@theKashConnoisseur we still got some legendary guns like the AWM
@@theKashConnoisseur now they have assault butter knives and acid face washes.
Well about the sideways mag, when I saw it I actually thought “what a jolly good idea” (I’m British) because it means you can fire the weapon while laying on the ground and get lower than you would with say other bottom fed sub guns.
And when the enemy have MG42s you tend to do a lot of laying on the ground…
although it would seem - just turn the weapon 90 degrees and shoot if you really want to shoot.
but I think if you are lying on the ground with Stan or Thompson, and MG-42 bullets douse you - your business is very bad anyway, and it doesn’t matter if your weapon magazine is looking down or sideways.
The question is though, how often would soldiers have the need to fire an SMG from a prone position that you would feel the need to the SMG that way?.
The Germans actually made tgeir own version of the Sten called the MP 3008. This design was exactly what Brandon was desiring: magazine facing down. That was the only major difference. Most everything else was exactly the same as the Sten. They designed and built these late in the war when Germanys defeat was close. They too needed a cheap easy to make SMG and they saw how the Sten excelled at this. It was even cheaper and easier to make than their own cheap/mass produceable smg the MP40. They say about 10,000 were made before the war ended. I havent read anything about any being used in combat. I imagine some might have with rag tag Volkssturm units during the last days of the war.
This was what I was always told as well by a couple different people when I asked. I have no idea if it was true, but it seemed like the most logical explanation, esp considering the experiences from trenches and the like.
@@comanderfrost it was pretty much british standard procedure at the time especially after trench warfare where you were laying down in a ditch most of the time. Tho ww2 was less trenches
One of the key points in training for both the Sten and the Sterling, was that you NEVER hold the magazine while firing; holding the magazine could cause misalignment and a jam. Some Stens were fitted with a leather wrap to protect the shooter, yet most didn't, and the magazine was rested on the forearm while holding the barrel.
you can grip on the magazine mount. but not on the magazine itself
Let's be honest. The British government didn't really care what happened to their boys if they were sending them out there with this in their hands.
People always make fun of the Germans like, "Haha they actually cared about their people enough to try to give them the best thing they possibly could! What losers!" as if that were some kind of own..
The only other people who even came close were the U.S. and that's because our government wouldn't have been able to get away with treating our boys like that back then.
@@gratefulguy4130 A case of needs must... if you Americans 'care more about your boys' then how do you explain the Grease Gun?
@@peterburry2531 It's pretty self explanatory. The grease gun may be simple to manufacture, but it's also reliable and rugged.
@@gratefulguy4130it’s was good enough for the SAS to use and the SBS the most fearsome unit to be messed with who dares wins proud to be British 🏴
It was awfully nice of you American chaps to finally show up, what what!?
Loved the impression, and the joke about the French 😂
Jolly good, capital stuff, old chap.
It sucks how gun reviewers can no longer show footage of inserting a magazine into a gun
I've started to notice that too, why ?
@@HoundVII Because TH-cam is being run by mentally challenged snowflakes.
@@HoundVII cause TH-cams a bunch ot ass hats
@@HoundVII probably the same reason why he wasn't allowed to show the suppressor being attached to the skorpion
Is that what it is? I was just wondering why he put the TH-cam logo over it. Thought it had something to do with the angle that it exposed into the gun.
The reason for the side feed mag, was so the commando could lay completely prone to the ground. A bottom feed 30 round mag requires you to be elevated to accommodate the bottom feed mag. The Sten probably saved many lives due to the side feed.
Wanted to check the comments to see if anyone else said it before I made posted a repeat.
Or just shoot like you in the hood!
The really reason for side feed mag is that old military officers where prepering for war that alredy been so ww1 when fights wher in trenches and sten was build beacuse of cost the first mp britiah gets was tompson sup machingun that they buy from us but the cost was to big for them so they need to find better solution for that one of first prototype was copied ww1 german mp18 and why they start buillding machine guns now but not earlier is beacuse of elegancy for them mp is gun for criminals and degenerates thats why they still use revolvers so they need to use italian 9mm ammo they get from beafore war for sten @jeffsherrod2137
@@quilby591 punctuation, please, i beg you
The Aussies went for a top loading design for the same reason. An added bonus was that gravity assisted feeding and having the ejection port on the underside meant that you weren't spraying whoever was next to you with hot brass.
Great vid as always. There are a few things that you should know, or might interest you about the Sten. It was chambered in 9mm so that it could be parachute dropped to resistance forces in occupied Europe and they would be able to use captured German ammunition rather than having a supply of .45 ACP that would run out. Because it was so cheaply made it did jam often, but was a quick replacement to the guns lost at Dunkirk. The official way of holding it was by the barrel shroud. Holding the mag or mag receiver affected the feed into the gun and could cause jamming. My dad was on guard duty at the end of WW2 and his mate dropped his Sten, it went off and shot my dad in the leg! The joys of an open bolt design. Thanks for the vids!
Where do you get such nonsense? It was a copy of a German design so it used the same cartridge. British used revolvers so they did not have an existing pistol cartridge.
@@okaro6595 Rubbish. The MP 3008 was a German copy of the Sten! When they were loosing the war and couldn’t produce their regular arms. My dad carried a Sten during the war, was even wounded by one going off accidentally. It wasn’t a copy of a German gun. They copied it!
It was chambered in 9mm to prevent overheating on full-auto
@@okaro6595, the guns true origin is in it's name. They combined the first initial of it's two creators(Shepard & Turpin), & added the "en" for "Enfield", & you get Sten. The Bren gun was similarly named as well. The Brits were already using the Lanchester SMG & 9MM ammo for it before the Sten, so 9MM ammo manufacturing capability was already in place in the UK. The Germans copied & produced a Sten variant in small numbers late in the war, called the MP 3008, because the design was so cheap & easy to make.
The Thompson was the only SMG in .45 ACP used by the Brits, all of which they purchased or received as aid from the USA. They were already using the Lanchester SMG & making 9MM ammo for it before the Sten, so the manufacturing capability was already in place. Producing 9MM ammo also uses less materials per round than .45 ACP, & gives you "more bangs for your buck", pretty important when you're already strapped for cash & raw materials. The ability to use captured 9mm ammo was also a big plus.
I remember reading somewhere that the British had the side magazine so that the troops can be able to lie down as flat as possible and still fire
Yes, prone position making yourself a small target.
I'm really into WW2 stuff (I'm English), and with the evacuation of dunkirk we actually came back with a lot of our infantry weapons as they could easily be carried, what we did loose a lot of though was our heavy equipment and vehicles and stuff. I learned that we made the Sten is because we needed a cheap and numerous sub machine gun for the influx of new soldiers, and we moved away from the Thompson because it was expensive and complicated to make, but the sten was a lot cheaper and easier to mass produce that’s also why the Americans moved from the Thompson to the Grease gun
We hadent produced the sten till after Dunkirk, it was really made to find a cheaper alternative than buying Thomson's which were already in short supply for about @$200 each in gold and with the added risk of them ending up on the floor of the Atlantic via German U boats. It did what it was supposed to do when needed, the mark 5 with the wood stock and foregrip which came along in 44 was more pleasant to shoot and had better sights. It was to be replaced by the "patchet" or what went on to become the "stirling but had to wait to the 50s before being introduced.
Yeah, turns out not many nations prioritized SMGs until WW2. It had the debut in WW1 but many considered the ugly duckling of weapons which only made logistics a pain. Also their rep as "gangster weapon" did more harm than good for a bunch. Contrast this with semi-auto rifles which everyone tried but nobody really aside from the US got to properly work. Sure, some could have been functional but aside from the SVT models for the Soviet none really got issued in numbers but the Garand. Which sucks when said semi-auto rifles were used as the counter point to acquire more SMGs.... ooops!
The US had a failed SMG between the M1A1 Thompson and the M3 grease gun called the M2 Hyde, it was also a lot cheaper than the Thompson. Prototypes were incredibly accurate and reliable even in harsh conditions and in full auto, but after production started, quality went out the window and these attributes that made it an appealing replacement meant that orders were cancelled after the M3 Grease Gun was adopted instead!
@@willyvereb the Germans got the Gwerh or something, and why do you say the M1 Garand sucked? Also, America also had the M1A1 carbine and then later variants
Gold, juno and sword
Brandon, as an American with a father very interested in history so I was named Sten (no joke), I have been waiting FAR too long for this video. Big thanks!
EDIT: Brandon I need the shirt
do you have any siblings? if you dont mind me asking?
Toob?
Well first of all... you should tell him he has a terrible taste in firearms, but an absolutely goated taste on baby name
@@roo99710 yes I have 2 younger sisters if that means anything. Both basic names tho :(
I think he has a sister…called Bren..da.
There was a reason for the side mounted magazine , it allowed the gun to be used from the prone firing position . Having the mag well rotate was to prevent " CRUD " from getting in the gun while it was not in use , it might have helped but the slot in the side will let " CRUD " get in ! On the up side with the clearance used in the manufacture it most likely had little effect on the gun . schmedly , Head Down , Eyes Open And ( First Point of Contact ) In The Grass
The disassembly reminds me of when I got bored in school and started taking my pen apart just to put it back together.
It was made with the sideways magazine so you can shoot from a lower position while behind cover. Where the MP-40 had to shoot from about 6" higher which created a slightly larger target.
Especially when trenches and snipers were the way if war, those 6" mattered.
@@shadowsnake5133 Yeah 6" inches is a lot 😉Also dont have to deal with that pesky gravity that you would have if it was vertical. Could technically get away with weaker spring since it doesnt have to counteract gravity
@@colindonoghue6120 And a weaker spring is cheaper to produce and also easier to load a mag with one. Its stupid smart really.
I figured it was (at least in part) to help with reliability some since it didn’t have to fight against gravity to load and eject
Can it be shoot while the magazine well facing downward? Or rotate 180° to the right side for left-handed user?
The Polish underground army designed a SMG based on STEN that actually had a "normal" magazine well. Check out Błyskawica, they built like 500 of them all homemade during occupation. Pretty neat
germans did a similar smg with a normal magazine, i know there's a company in Germany who makes semi auto replicas of it for the European Market
@@ambivalentonion2620 the MP3008
And then there is the Owen, australian domestic weapon rival of the Sten with a curious magazine well allocation. ...upwards.
@@Sammael66685 it was different from the STEN (not derived) and in some ways, way better then the STEN
Note that they did this becuase the STEN's they were dropped were.. Well, shit. They were prone to jamming, as well as other failures. So partisan groups improved them or used captures weapons as much as possible.
Realistically the STEN was honestly mind of shit.
Hi Brandon, love all your videos. I just finished watching this and you pointed out that the mag points out to the side. The shroud can twist further over to allow the weapon to lie flat for shipping. Why didn't the Brits just leave it in that configuration, like the M3? My guess would be to allow the shooter to not have to expose so much of their head when using the Sten while lying on the ground. With that 30 round mag sticking out the bottom, the shooter would have hold their head higher off the ground; thus, exposing the old cranium to more danger. With the mag on the side, the shooter could literally kiss the dirt while shooting this weapon. A lot less exposure.
Again, I am an old gun nut, been that way since I was a little boy with my dad teaching me all he knew about them. He did a lot of gunsmithing back when he was young. Back in the 70's and 80's, I was over in the FRG in the US Army. I qualified as a Sniper with the M1 Garand. Also got to play with the M3 a lot. Now, I have a much nicer arsenal with way better optics to shoot today. Keep up the good work.
Actually the reason for the side magazine when operational was very tactical, since it has the long stick mag they wanted it to be Easily fired from the prone position as well as the rested position (like on sandbags atop a foxhole) without the soldier needing to stick half his body out as a target. It worked well for it's purpose...
Exactly! In the video I have the information from about the STEN, the trenches were mentioned as an explanation for the horizontal magazine.
Bolt action rifles were developed for this exact reason even though lever action technology already existed
And we just thought they were stupid. I guess we were stupid?
You could also look at the BREN gun. Brits were all about this "prone fire" thing. Whatever it was.
Rounds coming at you, there's a real need to get small
My grandfather was issued a Sten in his army days right after WW2. I still have all the different weapon training manuals. The most interesting book is the Soldier field hand book. One chapter is about CQB. "If you hear people know that you can shoot through walls, floors and roofs". Not exactly up to today's ROE 😆
XD they literally told their soldiers: go nuts.
Technically true
which as we all know, is the best kind of true
It's the same advice for dropping a couple of grenades down a chimney of a wood burning stove.
Turns the whole thing into a glorious cloud of shrapnel, ideal for clearing the room, and hopefully setting fire to it at the same time
@@tetraxis3011 We literally gave our soldiers meth, the Germans were especially fond of it
@@bobmarley2140 I think it was the Air Force that gave their pilots speedballs during Desert Storm .
It was never meant to be "aimed" as such, it was meant for close quarter and room clearance.
Great video. It’s successor (the Patchet SMG) was my personal weapon at times in the 1980/90s.
It's a wonderful description of the WW2 stens when you shoot 3 rounds and it immediately jams, but they were also know for unpredictably deciding to mag dump too. The designers told the British gov they could "have is fast, cheap, or good; pick 2". So they took the first 2.
The Bren was the one that Chose the “Fast & Good” option
@@Peter_Turbo4 Helped the bren was based on a chech design... so was the sten actually. had a precursor in what was a copy, of the mp18. Also known for it's side feeding magezine.
The Sten doing Shakespeare- Tube be or not tube be, that is the question...
Stop making shut up.
Would you support Brandon making a remake of the Morita Rifle from Starship Troopers?
It has become my life goal to make the single-shot bullpup sten from cursed gun images a reality
do it
The cobray terminator... it's a real gun, and it's shockingly awful in princabl3 and in design.
@Professional Milker oh I know as much, fired one before, my friend told me to brace for unreal recoil and my heart sunk when he pulled the barrel forward, I realized the whole frigging barrel would have to come back while trying to keep on target, missed by a mile and screwed up my shoulder, this the same guy who had me fire a Smith and Wesson .500 magnum, what had a higher than standard powder charge ... my entire back hurt that day
Remember to wear ears and eyes..... and gloves. Stay safe my dude.
Remember to make it California compliant with a 5 round mag.
Enjoyed the video. My Dad was an armorer at Station 61 during WW2. He had to be able to field strip a stem gun (and other firearms) blindfolded. For fun they would load up with ammunition that was potentially defective (water damaged etc.) and take a stem to the firing range and shoot until the barrel s too hot to handle (there goes that overhand grip that you didn’t like anyway).
In the 60's I was trained to use the Stirling which was the successor to the Sten. The most obvious difference being a curved magazine. We were instructed to always shoot holding the magazine with an over-the-top left hand. Gripping round the barrel usually ended with chopped finger tips. The same happened if firing an SLR. The front of the Stirling got very hot by the third magazine change. Everybody dismantling the Stirling, for the first time, always lost the return spring. Also, the gun pulled up and to the right after the first shot so bursts fired at over 30 yards distance were totally wasted. The rule being 3 shots and re-sight.
No,you bloody weren't - not by a Skill-at-Arms instructor! You were instructed to hold the barrel shroud and NEVER the magazine. Your hand on the SLR (L1A1) was never on the magazine or near the ejections slot either. No one I know lost any part from the SMG when they stripped it. If you held it properly there was NO deviation of shot. (ex-Skill-at-Arms instructor.
Was chatting with a bloke in Portsmouth once who sold deactivated antique firearms. He told me about how stens that were given to the French resistance had suppressors that were just cemented onto the barrel. The idea was they'd be disposable so after a raid the resistance fighters would ditch the guns so they wouldn't be caught in possession. Therefore it doesn't need to be detachable
BS
Most vets from the war said to never hold a sten by the magazine. It's probably the most natural way to hold it but they found out the hard way that it induced stoppages since they were quite crude and weren't exactly precision made the mags often moved slightly in the mag well if you were pulling them. The manuals state to hold it to the guard below the barrel.
I guess it makes sense to see people firing the Sten whilst holding the magazines as it seems the natural place to do so but yeah you are meant to hold it where you said as the magazines weren't the best and caused a lot of the reliability issues. I'm always a little surprised when in videos they ask the "Where to hold it" question as most pictures of WW2 soldiers using it in action are holding it by the front.
Meanwhile people who own them attest many dont work unless you do put a specific amount of back or forward pressure on the magazine due to poor consistency in mag well angles etc...
Back in the day I had a 9mm Sterling SMG and FN Fal as a personal weapon, Golden rule for all Army weapons was don't hold the Mag on the SMG and don't rest the Mag on anything with the SLR
@@cycadaacolyte6349 came to say the same. In a perfect world you aren't supposed to, but in this reality, sometimes you have to.
I have shot a couple of hundred rounds through one several years back and the owner he warned me that I could get a stoppaged if I grab it by the magazine so I kept my hand more on the magwell and it functioned flawless until i got a runaway because of dirt and subsonic ammo. But It was a fun and very controllable gun to shoot.
I was trained to hold the shroud around the barrel, our trainers were concerned about muzzle climb during firing exercises as apparently there were a lot of accidents in training.
My great grandfather was in the battle of the Marne in ww1. He was wounded p.o.w., And everyone in company C, 110th infantry of the 28th divison, was either killed or wounded and took prisoners of war because the french pulled back and let them get surrounded without them knowing the french even pulled back! So it really hit home! He earned a purple heart.
4:25, your malfunction probably happened because of holding the gun by the magazine/magazine housing. It's extremely common for that to happen. The correct way to hold the Sten or side loading weapon is by the front handguard or the lower part of the receiver.
Yep
yep the mag didn´t really like been hold when fired. not sure if modern mag for stens/MP40s are any better (material and production quality).
You just quoted the British STEN Manual at Arms, which taught grabbing the barrel shroud from underneath and resting the magazine well on the left wrist. OTOH Grabbing the magazine is a bad habit that will eventually cause feeding problems. Holding the magazine well also risks accidentally pushing the magazine release, another bad habit.
Oi m8 you av a loisence for that machine gun eh
This
We had one in Rhodesia in the 70's. The only thing that was ever shot by us was a very large cobra which my Mother shot with 2 bursts rather than the intended single shot.
They used MAT-49s too, right? Nifty little pistol holster. (Always thought it was a shame a .30C never came to fruition...)
What were Rhodesia's gun laws like?
@@johnnyjohn-johnson7738 I'd assume it differed before and after their independence from the UK.
Given the farm raids its lucky it never needed to be used in anger
My Great Uncle was taken off the beach at Dunkirk, I was very young when I knew him as he wasn’t a young soldier during the war, the main thing I remember is an overwhelming sense of him being calm and content. His story back then of hopping off the train when he recognised where it was (a few miles from his home) is almost identical to the script of the movie Dunkirk - spookily similar TBH. The things they went through.
Brandon, Many German commanders allowed French Regiments to march home carrying their wepons because they fought until they ran out of ammunition and their resistance enabled the allies to evacuate Dunkirk. Mark Felton has some videos on this on his channel, and is as awesome as yours. The German enlisted and Officers addmired the French military bravery against impossible odds. 😮😮😮
Well he is just joking, yet the joke always was a bit lame given the French (sadly for them) were always too much fond of warfare...kind of also repeats the stereotype of Murica saving Europe while it had a lot to do more with the Ruskies on the other front and the Krauts not being able to secure the oil from that region...yet the war itself it's lame and awful, way closer to even a surreal film like "come and see" than any "heoric" war movie. BTW yes, Dunkirk was possible and the UK army "saved" because of the Frogs hold the Krauts while the Krauts also were still mixed feeling about trying to force an Alliance with the UK, as bizarre as it might sound.
@@laureanoalfaro9351 I know Brandon was joking, but there are many who believe the stereotype of the Bungling inept French of the First part of the war. I am glad that you are one of the few people I rarely encounter that understand what happened to the French. Thank-You for your response. We live in a time when college students don't even know who the first President of the United States was, They Even can't tell when was the War of 1812.🤥
@@jameslockard929 The main problem with French performance in 1940 was their Governments ineptitude in the Interwar years, and their Generals ineptitude (at least most of them) in 1940.
Nothing to do with the fighting qualities of the French soldier. The fighting qualities of the French soldier are probably better epitomised by battles such as Verdun in 1916.....
Its also worth noting however that with Dunkirk a large number of British units also fought until they were essentially wiped out in all but name in order to hold the perimeter. Something that is more or less ignored by pretty much everyone, ESPECIALLY the French. What is often also ignored is that the British lifted almost as many French troops off the beaches at Dunkirk as they did British......
It didn't enable anything. Hitler ordered a halt because he still hoped there could be peace with Britain and ending the entire Expeditionary Force would have shamed Britain and made that more difficult.
They would have been annihilated at Dunkirk without that order and nothing could have stopped it.
@alganhar1, they always forget the 51st highlanders who held out at St Valerie, were then marched to Poland to pend the rest of the war in prison camps.
My grandfather got his hands on one of these after the war and absolutely HATED it. There were burrs on the bolt that caused it to jam all the time. He finally took it apart and filed everything down. Ran like a dream after that and became his new favorite.
In Soviet Russia, you start filing before assembly. By the manual.
Hey, jamming was a feature, not a problem, Reinhard Heydrich was a big fan of that one.
Obviously the Ministry of Defense knew squadies would have plenty of extra time to finish off the production process...🙄.....🧐Wot,Wot.
@@seanquigley3605 as a proud son of workers state you master an art of filing long before you master a skill of writing
You made that up though.
I served as a Sapper in Northern Ireland in the early to mid 90’s .
We managed to find some crude replicas of the SMG in an IRA hide.
Our CO subsequently asked our resident Blacksmith how long it would take him to replicate the crude replicas found in The Hyde.
He managed to produce 6 in a day in our Workshop.
These weren’t so crude and definitely did the job as proven on the pipe ranges that week.
The weapons were then claimed by the CO and some Officers as part of their own private collections.
Good morning Mr. Stevens, it's a windy., notchy night!
Rubbish
@@sapper82 Oolum-da cried Matabele
@@brownwarrior6867 Oolum Da, Away we go!👍
I've gotta give it to you, the Irish, be they Northern or Southern, are really something else
Brandon , a bit of Sten history. Germany experimented with a near copy of the sten except the magazine well was on the bottom like the mp 40. They were made in limited numbers, say limited use in commando raids, however, were never adopted.
Mp3008 , Gerät Neumünster if I recall correctly
Correct. The MP 3008 was to have been a primary issue weapon for "Operation Werewolf", Heinrich Himmler's plan for German commandos to execute guerilla raids behind the allied lines in cooperation with frontline troops. Allied rumors, fanned by a misinformation speech from Josef Goebbels, made the allies think it was meant to start widspread endless guerilla warfare throughout Germany, even after the war ended. Fortunately, Germany never considered guerilla insurgency, mainly because even discussing defeat or making post-war plans marked one as as a defeatist or traitor, & was a fast path to a quick execution by the SS.
You had me at Sten...you lost me at "waiting for 'murica to turn up"
My late grandfather was a WW2 engineer. After the war, he worked in the NZ railways workshops. Apparently he and a number of the other workers there knew how to make these and a number were built sneakily on quiet days. My cousin and I had some incredible replicas to play with as kids until replicas were banned and our parents decided it might be a good idea if we didn’t get shot for having what appeared to be a fairly concerning weapon…
These were being built in the toolmakers shop at the Rover Longbridge plant in Birmingham as late as the 1970s as "foreigners".
Lol wise grandparents. Toy guns started looking way too real (theyre not all bright orange nerf guns) and I nag my nephew not to play with that shit for the same reason
Government gone nuts shooting children; child sub-machine gunners are not a problem anywhere.
Nice video and it didn’t offend my Britishness too much. The magazine was not placed on the bottom alla MP40 as it allowed the the Sten operator to fire from prone thus showing less of their organs to Gerry. They teach this stuff in schools here in Blighty.
I wonder maybe if you have to think like a Brit to work that out lol "why it's so you can balance your cup of tea on it idiot!"
Excellent. For those only accustomed to second rate English, the gentlemen above is referring to a lying down position whilst targeting the enemy. It proved really useful as a walk and fire too as you have more control on the recoil.
@@sphericalempirical9359 Missionary position Sir,
It also aided in reliability, removing gravity from the equation of feeding rounds. Not intentional design, but they weren't going to complain about it.
@@sphericalempirical9359 Second rate English?
My seat friend, American English is an upgrade.
Since the Sten was designed for things such as trench warfare, it was necessary for the mag to be horizontal, since it was needed so you could lay the gun on a defensive position like a sandbag, and if you needed to prone fully you could.
Although the STEN was hurriedly put into production it actually had some thought put into it as you can see with the stock removing and the barrel being taken out as well as the bolt
The side feeding SMG’s were engineered that way as it allowed a soldier to go fully prone with a 30 round magazine, something the MP-40 did not
Exactly.
and it might also help a bit whit the MP-40 stick mag having a few realibility problem.
like how soldier was inscruted to not fully load it but load it 2-3 rounds short because of something whit the spring mag just breaking or something.
and I think the brits decided to go side mounted because I rather not deal whit a mag whoes spring is not fully up to task or the mag is not fully up to task.
The Sten was used widly by resistance groups across occupied Europe,. An inadvertent advantage of the side-feeding magazine was that the gun could be carried flat under a coat.
STEN was a simplified version of the British Lanchester SMG which was in turn a copy of the original German MP18.
A STEN copy was built with a vertical magazine well. That was the German MP 3008, built towards the end of the Second World War as Germany industry collapsed due to combined RAF Bomber Command and USAAF 8th Air Force bombardments.
My Grandfather was issued this SMG while serving in the Belgian army. I don't know if his story is true, but he hated it so much he threw it under his barak housing. When a few months later his unit was chosen for a parade they had to hand in their guns for maintanace and re-painting. So he got it out, did the maintance himself and painted it dark blue as it was before, and ended up parading it next to his unit's who were all painted black... :p
Another reason for the horizontal mag was, as these finished up being made in back street garages and basements across Europe, quality wasn't always good, springs are a bit of an art, but if the mag is horizontal it takes very little pressure to push bullets sideways as opposed to lifting 30 rounds vertically. Plus of course keeping your head down is always a good thing. " Kept the British going till the Americans turned up to save them" Really!!! Two world wars and you turned up three years late both times! Apart from that ,keep up the good work.
Dad was used a Sten in WW2. He was a UK Desert Rat and was at El Alamein and Monte Cassino. You're not supposed to hold the magazine when firing as it caused a malfunction. Also it was common to not load the mag to capacity, usually maybe 2 less bullets which was thought to enable to gun to fire all of them!
The underloading was more likely to aid in seating the magazine when the bolt is closed
@@khaaaaaaaaaannn the sten gun mad spring is made of butter and it helped sprin retension to underload
@@jdm_kxng2377 ah that makes sense, I was assuming it was a similar issue to the AR15
My grandad was also a Desert Rat, although he spent more time in prisoner of war camps than anything else, he was originally an engineer so was mostly responsible for keeping all the vehicles running, it sounds like the sten was the original drive by shooting weapon of choice, that and as many Lewis guns as they could mount to the vehicles, I also heard that you never hold it by the mag or magwell, I have seen pictures of thd heat shroud with extra materials wrapped around it so it would make sence that would be the place it was best to hold it.
My grandfather left Australia for Britain in 1937 and used one of these. He always said that would "malfunction" about every 40 to 50 rounds and was useless after 50 yards for accuracy. He still liked it close up. I was an Australian Air Cadet in the mid eighteys and got use one on an airbase at one point. Heaps of fun lol
Nothin beats the good ol’ Aussie Owen mate, it’s what my grandad used in WWI
Would you support Brandon making a remake of the Morita Rifle from Starship Troopers?
Did he ever use the Owen?
From Wikipedia:
"The Owen gun, known officially as the Owen machine carbine, was an Australian submachine gun designed by Evelyn Owen in 1938."
Am I missing something here?
@@caleballen6588 oh shit fr? Grandpa must’ve used something different then, my bad mate
Blowbacks are so simple and cool. Same with the old British SMG. 👍 But I think your one commenter was correct, use the ventilated barrel sleeve for your left grip, not the magazine, especially with aftermarket mags. 😇
We had one at the war college in R.i.,loved it!
10:19
The Sten was designed with a side-mounting, horizontally-aligned magazine so that the gun could rest on something, such as cover, and still be aimed and fired without the magazine potentially getting in the way.
Mostly so you can keep a lower profile while prone. Not craning you head up to use the sights
The mp-3008 was the german equivalent with bottom mounted mag
Very interesting, I didn't know that.
@@eddierudolph8702 neither did Brendan...
@@CS-zn6pp I'm pretty sure "Brendan" Fraser knew that.
It actually amazes me between how similar taking apart a Sten and taking apart a ballpoint pen are lol
Finally, all those years of dismantling and reassembling my pen in school is gonna pay off
I think the pen is more complex.
Fun fact you can use the spring in a pen as a substitute for the spring in a Walter ppk
@@jamesbutler9771 wow. Shots fired. Lol
ballpoint sten
I used one of these backing the mid 80s whilst in 7:28 Her Majesty's Army. They were surprisingly good. I preferred the Belgian FN rife we use to use. Now that was a powerful gun.
2 best reasons i heard for the side mounting mag
1. making it easer to fire and load while laying prone
2. it needed to be fast and reliable this was a tried functioning way of doing it. we didnt expect to have a lot of time for do overs so innovation was not valuedit was all about reliability , ease and cost of manufacture
7:45
Per the 1942 manual, the only approved grip was "left hand on the barrel locking nut with the wrist under the magazine...". This manual doesn't mention it, but it's often cited that holding by the mag will induce stoppages.
Hi Brandon, being a limey myself my Grandad once told me that the advised way to fire the stench was to hold around the barrel. By holding the magazine the gun could jam. Early examples would often injure the person firing them when there little finger would slip into the firing mechanism, later stens would have a guard so this wouldn't happen. 👍
Agree, my Dad learnt to shoot the sten as a lad in the home guard (Private Pike anyone). The flimsy build quality of the magazine could cause jams if used as a handle. He went on to become an air gunner in Lancaster bombers so knew his way around a machine gun.
Pictures of early Stens show a padded hand hold around the barrel. It contained asbestos fibre. Dangerous!
(Joke).
Everyone who's ever read anything about the sten, knows not to fire it holding onto the magazine. This guy is a blithering idiot.
My father told me the same.
The stench
A marvelous submachine gun, for-runner of the excellent Sterling. First rule impressed on me at small arms training - do NOT hold the clip - you'll cause a jam. Nice to see our "expert" paid heed - not. Fun fact: the suppressed version of the Sten was so effective, you only heard the bolt clacking - same with the suppressed version of the Sterling.
And suppressed Sten are still in use by spec op forces...
@@Jreb1865It’s a suppressed Stirling, fantastic weapon
@@joebloggs8422 *Sterling
@richardcaves3601 *magazine
My grandfather used this in Malaysia and said he would go into a room as point man close his eyes and hold the trigger down sweeping and just hope it didn’t jam. He loved it.
My grandfather was a paratrooper in market garden and spoke highly of the Sten, most of the time!!
My Grandfather was a Royal Engineer...he hated it 😄
@@stevebolt7132 Really? Felt like I would've loved it but depends weren't there different version of the Sten? Idk which was the best though.
@@wealthybone2990 My grandfather (a tanker) lost some friends / colleagues to misfires. They were prone to just magdumping if bumped (sometimes didn't even require that to run away). Since they were mass produced at various qualities, sometimes the safety features / fire selector wouldn't work right. Could be that, the patchy reliability or inaccuracy. Ergonomics weren't great either with the stock especially.
Apparently it wasn't made clear that you should lock the bolt back in that notch as an added safety precaution.
market garden? TF2 reference?
@@JGT-yd2wx It was a huge airborne operation behind enemy lines during the WW2 campaign in Europe. Major balls-up that resulted in an absolute shooting gallery for the poor paratroopers. It was poorly managed and resulted in a lot of losses and a failed objective. They tried to capture bridges and hold them for the armour to advance. You may have heard of the film "A bridge too far".
Fun fact: the way you had the sten at 10:12 was actually a real thing at the end of the war. As a last ditch effort, the Germans took whatever Sten’s they were able to get and “redesigned” it to have the magazine go horizontal like the MP40, that new “redesigned” gun is called the MP 3008. Research the last ditch resorted guns that were produced at the end of the war, they’re really cursed 😂
When I joined South Yorkshire Police in 1978 they had one in the tiny Firearms unit, it was their pride and Joy and actually used it in Firearms Operations !.
Currently in my final 8 months at SDI thanks to you and Garand Thumb. I was just using the good old Sten as an example of a low cost but highly effective firearm in a paper I’m writing. Would like to manufacture a modernized Sten as well as a few other cool old guns like the Aussie Owen gun.(it’s got a really cool story) Really any older guns you don’t see too often are what I want to manufacturer for the market.
You must enjoy bankruptcy.
For a modernised Sten, look up the Sterling SMG.
@@jimbeam3280 absolutely! the Sterlings are great guns. I don’t know why, but I like the simple little sub guns from that era. Even the knock off ones built by other countries like the Volksturm. The same goes for the Luty and all the crazy ones built by the IRA
How is your enrollment there btw? I was considering it during lockdown but i've been burned by higher education institutions before.
@@jamesp7351 as a Veteran it was super easy. Filled out some paperwork, they have Veteran Liaisons That know the process in and out so it’s pretty painless. Non veterans I’d imagine would be just as easy, but I’m not 100%
The side mounted Sten magazine permitted firing from a low prone position. It also assisted feeding since the magazine spring did not have to push the bullets up against gravity.
"I need a pipe that can spit bullets"
"Understood, Mr Prime Minister"
I'm from the UK and used the L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle, officially "Rifle, 7.62mm, L1A1", also known just as the SLR it was a great weapon as the 7.62 round would go through almost anything even better if you could get your hands on AP rounds. With a AP round you could go through whole trees and brick walls and as for body armor it went in one side and out the back piece of cake.
I got to fire one of those in Grapevine (Texas Gun Experience) and I have to say, as a history geek, getting to hold and fire a true Sten was just amazing. That said, I've had 9mm pistols most of my life (around to fire when going with Dad and since I turned 21) and I was SHOCKED at the recoil 9mm can produce when you fire 20 of them in under 3 seconds.
It's the design
That place is awesome, I shot an MP7 there once
@@MadMagyar13 I've done Full Auto Friday twice now, Sten, M15, HK36 (i think that's the number) 249Saw and they were great.
You probably won't see this, but you've been a big inspiration in my decision to actually do something with my life and become a gunsmith. I've been done with high school for almost a year now and I haven't done anything but play video games and sit around the house. I've been interested in guns for as long as I can remember (maybe a little too interested lol) and seeing as how guns are starting to become a more and more expensive hobby I've decided I can kill two birds with one stone and become a gunsmith so I can screw around with guns and get payed to do it. Thank you for not only entertaining me these past 3 years I've been subscribed to you but also introducing me to something I can spend the rest of my life enjoying.
Kick ass bro. Where are you based out of
I actual intend to do same as well, the SDI ads have been getting to me.
Good plan, video game (not good) working with your hands is the bomb 🧨
@@forestfire1333 Same.
@@forestfire1333 there are a few cheaper options.
The advantage of the magazine out the side is you don't have to get up or roll sideways, when prone, to reload. It is why the Aussie SMG has the mag on top as well.
It isn't a vital design feature, but it was a reason for the design choice.
The British didn't end up at Dunkirk by running away, they stayed organised and fought a very difficult fighting retreat for a long time and didn't have their lines broken once, in fact they broke all German bridgeheads and made good counter-attacks against German units trying to break British lines. The British Expeditionary Force was highly competent but far too small to do anything except keep falling back as the forces on their flanks were collapsing thus leaving British supply lines exposed, so the British just kept falling back and back, fighting all the way.
he was joking
Exactly, Ignorance at its finest. Britain were fighting Germany alone for over a year. Britain won the battle of Britain and defeated hitler, they had no chance of invasion. Then the yanks cropped up
@@TheTwoFingeredBulldog he was joking 😄 I'm sure he knows his ww2 history
@@crumpetcommandos779 He knows everything about nothing.
@@TheTwoFingeredBulldog right.. it's very clearly meant to be satirical though so if you want an accurate and serious video on the Sten Gun watch "The STEN Gun - In The Movies" by Johnny Johnson :3
10:12 The brits liked defensive resistance. Lay down as close to the ground as possible, especially in a fighting hole, and aim at the enemy, fire and reload all while lying down. This is evidenced in the Sidways magazine of the Sten, The upward magazine of the Bren, the top-down stripper clip of the SMLE, and their soup bowl helmets.
Us bri'ish lads like becoming the floor, yes i am british so i can make dat joke without offending other british ppl
Fun fact, there's actually a gun called the MP 3008 that was made by Germany as a last-ditch way to armed soldiers during the last stages of the war, and it was essentially just a stun gun with the magazine facing downwards instead.
It was apparently even cheaper and easier to build than the MP40 which was itself a cheap and mass produceable design.
@@dankim7488 yeah, well, the MP40 was a typically German over-engineered and over-built weapon. MUCH more expensive.
H. J. Turpin, one of the credited designs of the StEn worked at Philco Radios in Perivale Middlesex (now Greater London) in the mid 30's - across the road from where I was born. The factory still stands, but is now sub divided, & is behind the slightly earlier built Art Deco Hoover building - that is now luxury flats.
No mention that the 'push through safety button' above the trigger is actually the select fire device, i.e.: Semi/Full selector. The actual, & only, safety device (with the magazine in) is the cul-de-sac cutout to the rear of the cocking slot. The (empty!) rotating magazine well was primarily a storage/marching configuration but also acted to keep dirt out - & was an unintended extra safety.
Someone has prob already said it, but the side mag was there so that the 30(28) rd mag could easily be fired from a defensive position and not have the firer have to raise his head up while firing prone or from a slit trench. The overhand grip while looking cool will cause stoppages if the mag is also held at same time !
Stoppages only exist for firearms produced after 1960
@@Peter_Turbo4 looks like Jozef Gabčík didn't get that memo
I was thinking about shooting it it out of a trench too.. the lower the profile the better unless you want to catch an 8mm in the forehead, right!?
@@stephenlawrence554 IF YOU BUILD A FIREARM, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DESIGN THE DAMN THING TO SURVIVE IN THE TRENCHES OF VERDUN.
NOT THE ACCOUNTING OFFICES OF PARIS.
@@Peter_Turbo4 are you… feeling okay?
A couple of points.
It's a British weapon, so it does NOT have a "charging handle", it has a "COCKING HANDLE".
And NEVER cock the weapon before fitting the magazine as you did at the end of the video. It only takes a weak seer spring for that to cause a negligent discharge.
I feel like Benny Hill woudl say your mother likes my cocking handle, even after I negligently discharged her.
The guy's father had a negligent discharge the night he was conceived.
2:11 As an Englishman by birth but with both Danish-German and French strands to my heritage I will be repeating this line with a mixture of hunour and humility at the next family gathering.
First encountered the Sten in Return to Castle Wolfenstein where it was used as a stealth weapon. Saw a real one recently when I took a trip to Normandy with my dad a few weeks ago.
Back in the early 80's there was a gunsmith in Noblesville, Indiana that manufactured reproduction Stens. His name was Jim Ethrington, and his shop was in an old farmhouse in the country. There was a revine behind the barn that had an old car and other targets for R&D and testing purposes. I had the privilege of test firing some of them before delivery. His weld quality and gray parkerizing was second to none. I'm not sure how many he produced. I would be curious where Brandon's originated. Thanks Brandon for bringing back those special days of my youth.
When I was a kid my old Uncle Jim (my dads uncle) told me stories about his time in Italy during WW2. He did mention that he used a Sten gun when fighting near Salerno, he said it was useless firing at anything further than 20 yards away but excellent at doing "close up dirty work". He would have turned 100 this year but sadly he passed away in the early 2000s.
I am surprised to hear that a Sten was used near Salerno, which was the area attached by the US 5th Army. I thought the British soldiers' SMG amongst those in the US 5th Army was the Thompson due the availability of the US supplies. Do you recall his regiment/division?
@@christopherquinn5899 He had a cap badge in a picture frame with some medals. I can remember as a kid the badge had a tiger on it and it said Hampshire so I assume he was in the Hampshire regiment or division (I'm not sure of the terminology).
He did see a picture of him with a Sten, but I haven't a clue where he was with that, maybe he misremembered where he had it??
@@christopherquinn5899 Sorry, but no. By the time of Salerno the Thompson was MOST DEFINATELY NOT the standard British SMG. In fact the Sten was developed to REPLACE the Thompson because the Thompson was so fucking expensive.
The Thompson was only used as a standard SMG at the beginning of the war when the British did not have their own home built SMG. By the time the Americans actually joined the war the Thompson had been phased out as the standard SMG.
@@fearsomemumbler9946 My grandfather was with the Coldstream Guards at Salerno. It was always difficult to get information out of him, and the only weapon he mentioned to me was the Bren Gun he was using when he was awarded the MM. His obvious reluctance to talk about it to a boy discouraged further questioning.
Your Uncle Jim was a badass, RIP.
Bit late to the party but holding the mag is what causes the stoppage’s holding it the third way you did was the correct way, but obviously, holding it, the way you like, is the easy way and more comfortable, great video 👊🏻
Great design for firing from the prone
having served with the British army medics in the 90's we used the grandson of the sten the Stirling SMG, famous for being the weapon of choice of the star wars storm troupers.
Regarding the left hand position while firing, the 'manual-correct' way is to hold the shroud. The manufacturing standards were such that the magazine is almost in 'hotdog down a hallway' situation, and gripping the mag well/mag could very easily move it far enough to cause feed failures.
The STEN, a 1930s bed sorced for parts. One bed spring, one chunk of post, one chunk of canopy rail, bed rails, and conecting block.... whala!! Great - need it yesterday design, timeless, and can store in 3 peices in SOE cases next to soap box radio.
I'm guessing part of the reason for the sideways bolt is to facilitate, firing from a trench or fox hole. It the mag was on the bottom (storage position), you would have to be much more exposed, holding it higher above the burm, to clear the long mag.
What I gathered from this is that the sten would be the best apocalypse weapon
Home fabricators are drooling.😉
The magazines are the weak point, just run a Sterling if you really want something decent in that form factor...
@@cycadaacolyte6349 to be fair, blueprints for STEN are really easy to find on the internet while Sterling blueprints are hard to come by.
@@enolastraight4829 also sten is way easier to make, srsly, a tube, some metal and tools and boom
The Luty has entered the chat
Out of all the "Guntubers" out there, I truly enjoy your channel the most. Not only, do you demo the firearms in an amusing fashion. After all, who doesn't enjoy a good ol' White Claw massacre. But, you also do a deep dive into what makes it click so to speak. And as someone whom truly enjoys that type of thing, I look forward to each new video. Keep the great content coming Brandon!
The Sten could also be disassembled and carried in a brief case. It was the sub machine gun of choice for covert operatives working for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to take out high value targets such as Reinhard Heydrich in Czechoslovakia during operation Anthropoid. Sadly the Sten used had a critical fail and Heydrich was wounded by a the second Czech assassin with a grenade lobbed in Heydrich’s staff car. Heydrich died of his wounds a week later.
The sten gun which was held by the magizine was a classic. But the way it was held caused lots of blockage, so always hold weapons by the barrel not mag💪💪💪
It also had a side loading magazine purposely so majority of the compact weapon could be laid flat on sand bags and dug outs when firing. If the mag was vertical, because of its length, it was thought to be hindered. Cheerio
I had a question, can a Mauser c96 stock fit the slide on the sten?
And probably one of the reasons why the BREN mag was on top so you could stay low while firing.
Yep. Better for staying low in the prone
@@frosty3693 As you say, but mostly the BREN mag is on top as it's a crew served gun, the assistant can rapidly swap a top magazine while the gun is deployed using the rather decent bipod. While it could be fired while standing that was not how it's intended to be used.
Watch some videos of the contemporary BAR and you'll see the major advantage of a top fed gun, plus gravity helps not hinders feed. The immortal R Lee Emery made a comparative video.
As an armoured vehicle crewman in the Royal Artillery in the late 80's\Early 90's my PDW was the Sterling SMG, the big brother to the Sten. An equally simple piece of kit never let me down when firing. Kinda miss the old thing. Testament to the Stens success that its basic design saw us well into the 90's.
The Sterling was a good weapon. They only got rid of it because they wanted to replace it and the SLR with an assault rifle. And we all know what that led to don't we?
As long as it launches a bit of metal fast and accurately enough to go inside the guy you don't want alive reliably, it's a good gun
@@tiagobelo4965 Exactly. As with the Sten, it didn't matter a jot what it looked like as long as it was cheap and easy to produce and did the job.
you mean little brother
Yes the Sterling was a Sten with all it's problems fixed.