Mk5 Sten Fore Grip Saga

For many, they may have seen the Fore Grips available for the Mk5 Sten that fit on the barrel nut, although I offered to help out two forum members with the ones they had bought, it seemed straight forward until a last hitch......

So a few pics of one of the grips one things for sure they aren't a fit at all, but very nice wood and well finished its just the band that lets it down.... although its the grip itself that is a friction fit and not the band, the band has a square nut welded to it that the screw goes through and tightens the grip to the barrel nut.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...kkuykblo-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...mhucoiy0-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...bqntaiw5-1.jpg

You can see from above, the band is far too big on a Mk5 Barrel nut, so I decided to measure the nut in the pic which is from a Mk5 Sten plus I took another measurement from my Mk5 Sten and both were about the same ( I must stress here that one single measurement of the diameter is no good you will need to take several and work the average) the Nuts themselves have probably had some hard use combined with bangs, knocks etc will soon take it out of
shape.

Armed with the info I decided to make a simple spacer to be a push fit into the original band and be a decent fit on the nut, again with a distorted nut its not possible for it to be a perfect fit but certainly better than what it was.

After making these I thought I'd make two complete new bands, once home I checked them against my barrel nut, as I'd made the inside diameter oversize so I could turn them to be a good tight fit, so with a few finish cuts they fitted on my barrel nut perfect.... of course at this time I had a members Sten that was due for phosphating and Suncorite, so tried one of the new made rings to this barrel nut.....

A bit taken back when it rattled on..... so tested with mine and a good fit, took the one off my other Mk5 and a perfect fit..... so only option here was to make another spacer for the original.

pics below is the difference of the two barrel nuts in the new complete band I'd made,

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...k7uedm9f-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...x7lg7c98-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...tu55whdq-1.jpg

I would assume the barrel nut was a standard size ? I guess its over to the man who wrote a book on the Sten....

So one member has a package with original band with one of the spacers fitted and also one of the complete bands I made, the other member..... well he gets a bigger package but only the original band with a spacer fitted.

The barrel nut should be 1.5" dia according to the drawing. Geoff amply illustrates why it was such a waste of time. There's only one way to do it properly and that is have the spring steel band radially grip the barrel nut by using the screw to tighten it up. Not original of course but then, neither is the fake repro band you're trying to fit. And furthermore, fit it to a deact that can be used again!!

Forgot to mention, some wood will need to be removed for the band to sit lower and allow the grip to contact the barrel nut, if I was to fit one I'd use a piece of rubber (bike inner tube etc) to sit between the the Grip and nut like a gasket, will give more friction.

I had some similar band that Peter mentions but to me it didn't look right......... probably just me but then again I don't think they look right with the grip on anyway.......

I seem to recall that the originals were quite a thin material

Hi
Just wanted to add my thanks for the excellent work bigduke6 did on my grip, it was a perfect fit on my barrel and not much wood needed to be removed so the grip could be tightened.
Terry

Spotted this interesting photo on eBay. It appears the foregrips took a while to disappear from service:

1947 Malaysia - British and Malay Soldiers with Sten Guns - photo 9 by 6cm | eBay

The general issue SMG there until full deployment of the Sterling in the mid 60's or so (and later the AR15's) was the Owen. This was apparently for strategic reasons - so said. I suspect that it was because the Owen was tried and tested in that environment while the Sten was, er......, marginal!