Chinese Aid MK2 Long Branch Sten

In my collection I have a Long Branch MK2 Sten (old spec U.K. de-acc) which I have owned for some time and I couldn't figure out why it had some "oriental" writing on the mag housing in addition to the normal identifications/stamps etc. In the last few days, with the help of Peter's book I have identified this as being a military aid Sten supplied to China in WW2. What I have also noticed is that it also has a Canadian acceptance marking (arrow within a C) just above the breech opening on the mag housing.


What I am interested to know is whether all the military aid Stens made by Long Branch had the Canadian acceptance mark applied to the weapon before they left Canada or the more logical explanation that it was applied after capture by Canadian forces in Korea before being placed in Canadian stores. I would be very interested to hear from any-one else who also owns a Chinese Aid Long Branch Sten and whether or not it has the Canadian acceptance marking on it. Clearly any Stens captured by British forces in Korea will not have had the Canadian acceptance mark applied after capture but it may still be present for the reasons already mentioned.


It's funny how anything rare which I own in my militaria collection I have purchased by chance or accident.


Many thanks for any information.

all of the Chinese script marked Long Branch Sten MkII will have C^ markings.

Many or most (but not all) of the 1943 & 1945 Long Branch Stens will show Mutual Aid Board markings.

search "stencollector" posts as he is the most knowledgeable individual regarding Canadian Stens.

My LB Chinese contract STEN has the acceptance stamp and definitely went to China as it was converted to 7.65 Tok. The only problem is that no one is 100% sure what magazine it uses. Most say it is a standard STEN mag with the rear rib cut out and a strip welded in to make the mag take the longer Tok round.

Thanks for the info chaps mine is a 1944 example.

Here are what I believe to be proof markings off the barrel: 67 over NP 9mm .752"" 9.5 TONS MP over 82. Is any-one able to tell me the meaning of these markings, please? Are they U.K. or perhaps U.S. Proof houses??? Thanks for the information.

UK commercial proofs. That have absolutely no worth or meaning except to comply with a law relating to the 19th century, before blowback weapons with unlocked breeches had even been dreamed up!

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Originally Posted by Brit plumber

My LB Chinese contract STEN has the acceptance stamp and definitely went to China as it was converted to 7.65 Tok. The only problem is that no one is 100% sure what magazine it uses. Most say it is a standard STEN mag with the rear rib cut out and a strip welded in to make the mag take the longer Tok round.

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If it helps, there's an example in the Imperial War Museum in London which has been converted to 7.62x25mm Tokarev; it appears to be fitted with a PPS-43 (Or, more likely a Chinese Type 54, which was the same thing) magazine.

Yes, there's 2 versions of the gun, one uses a PPS type mag in a PPS mag well grafted to a STEN mk2 mag well. The other is the Unknown mag in a standard STEN mag housing, it is thought that a modified STEN mag is used but no one has seen one. I suspect most people dismiss them as bubbad STEN mags.

There was an ACI issued during the 'Korean unpleasantness' in the 50's to the effect that '........quartermasters coming into possession of Chinese marked Bren and Sten guns should take these interchangeable weapons on charge......' It didn't differentiate between 7.92 and .303" Brens but I assume that once on charge (accounted for on the books) the 7.92 guns would be chopped. While the captured 9mm Stens and .303" Brens would be returned to Ordnance stores

My example is just the standard 9mm version as far as I can tell but I wasn't sure about the proofs if they were U.K. or not. Thanks for confirming that they are; probably what happened is that when the total ban came on this type of weapon in the U.K. the then owner, not wanting to lose it totally, had it de-activated so it could be retained in a non working condition. Thanks for the help ever-one.

Your guess about its proof origins are based on fuzzy logic! The ban on auto firing weapons came about in 1925 or thereabouts. Except for those people approved by the MoD and later the Home Office. And the ban and later bans didn't apply to those people in any case

What sort of people were approved to have full auto weapons, Peter? The chap who carried out the Hungerford massacre in the 1980s used legally owned weapons if memory serves me correctly. I thought this was the incident that caused a total ban?

People who proved to the Home Office that they have a real and genuine need to possess prohibited firearms could and still can possess them. Manufacturers for a start! Researchers, some collectors. There must be a million more examples. The Hungerford man didn't have an automatic weapon, he had a self loading weapon(s). It was this that put self-loaders into the prohibited (the automatics) category

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Originally Posted by Lee Enfield

all of the Chinese script marked Long Branch Sten MkII will have C^ markings.

Many or most (but not all) of the 1943 & 1945 Long Branch Stens will show Mutual Aid Board markings.

search "stencollector" posts as he is the most knowledgeable individual regarding Canadian Stens.

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The Cdn Stens ran from 0L1 to somewhere high in the 12L8000 area. Anything after 11L2500 (approximately) from late 1944 to the end of production in 1945 were all marked with the Chinese script. Not sure if many of those went overseas as a lot of them remained in Canadian service.

Earlier batches for the Chinese were in the 9L and 10L range, but not all of them. Of all the Canadian Sten serials, 10L is the hardest to come by so I suspect the bulk of them went to the Chinese. There may be other batches of Chinese marked magwells, but as they went overseas, I don't see them here in Canada enough to determine their serial ranges. But any magwell that was made for the Chinese contracts had the LongBranch Sten markings on the underside, and the Chinese script on the top of the magazine housing.

I have also seen un-serialized receivers with the Chinese script that were later given a XR serial range. If they were some project, I can't figure out what the variation was. I usually see the XR serials on Chinese LBs, but I have also seen it on one British magwell.