Building the Canadian Semi-Auto STEN

[Claven2]

OK, time to start talking about welding jigs. You SHOULD use a jig when you weld your mag box to your collar.

It is made up from a 1.5 inch diameter piece of steel bar stock with a peg made from threaded rod that threads into place on the bar shaft to accurately position the box against the collar. It uses the plunger guide on the front of the box, and the plunger guide hole at the front of the collar to stop movement when clamped together. The piece of threaded rod and a plate clamp the box to the collar.






When the time comes to weld the mag housing pieces together, the box will be tacked in place, then removed from the jig for the welds to be completed (you function test it first with dummy rounds to ensure it will feed). Once the box is permanently assembled to the collar, the box will be cut to finished length, the slot for the barrel nut detent cut, and the rear wall of the box cut back for the magazine catch retainer. The slots for the magazine catch will be made, and a hole for the magazine catch retaining screw drilled.

Now if any of you have bought your kits from Stencollector, you will notice that your mags are likely "demilled" by beng struck at around the 5 round mark with an axe. Don't blame stencollector!!! The Canadian Forces did that! LOL

We can fix it... we have the technology... those mags can be made to function like new again, though you WILL haveto limit them to 5 rounds again by other means.

You need to build a swage... it will look something like this:



It is sized to fit tightly inside the body, and has a tapered leading end. In use, it is tapped under the dent, while the dent is ironed out by light hammer blows. It works not unlike a shotgun barrel dent raiser.

Maks sure you "concave" the back edge to account for the magazine spine.



This item can be made from cheap low-carbon steel and fashioned with hand files if you don't have a bunch of shop machinery.

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