Sterling Mk4 "Mystery Housing"

[Peter Laidler]

I mentioned the return spring cap retaining ring at the back of the casing. They were not permitted to re-use this part as it was the 'proofed' part of the casing. How on earth the powers that be arrived at this conclusion was and is simply beyond me looking at things from a simple engineering point of view.

Maybe it was simply because the ring part was the place where the proof mark was stamped. It was of no consequence though because it was pretty well impossible to remove the ring undamaged as it was with, say, the mag housing or foresight protectors.

You could tell them that when the number on Fazakerley guns became illegible, usually because it was etched too shallow, followed by fair wear and tear, we were permitted to bar through the old number and then engrave a new allocated registered number to a similar size to the old number along the top of the magazine housing, longitudinally along it, near to where the housing is brazed to the casing. These numbers followed the usual format but were coded differently thus: SA 76 A- 1234. New code of SA, year figures, a number prefix followed by a sequential allocated missing replacement number that was recorded '....somewhere'. We did a big batch of re-numbering which were totally rebuilt to new just prior to them being withdrawn. Then they scrapped them!