Lanchester barrel question

[Peter Laidler]

The flat is at the bottom on the Sterling BAR. The Lanchester extractor is anchored about 1.5" rearwards of the extractor claw and is retained by being pressed in a hole. Over engineered and prone to breaking. A modified extractor was made with better steel and heat treatment and marked M on the shank. Academic here but it doesn't stand proud of the bolt (well, it might be a few .001"s or so but the claw end was shaped to fit into that wide slot. Don't tell anyone I told you, but just use a Sterling Mk4 breech block, reposition the cocking handle by grinding away the .014" deep case hardening and drilling a new hole - and be done with it!

We used to rebuild loads of these for the Aust, NZ and Royal Navy that came in from the big NoD at Sembawang. They were part of the coastal patrol boats and submarines and were usually minging. But once they'd gone through the system they were as good as gold. Good fun range testing them because we were only meant to shoot short bursts. But how do you just shoot short bursts with an auto fire rock and roll Lanchester. It's very difficult when you're all just 20 years old and the ammo is free. No shortage of most spares as I recall and there were still 6 or so in the workshop armoury when we pulled out. Left behind from an ex UK submarine that was given to Australia (HMS Aurochs?)