Lanchester

[Sentryduty]

Not many people are familiar with the Lanchester here.

I think that is in general, I only know of it from Jane's Firearms Recognition Guides and it's association with the MP18/MP28 series. It hasn't gotten a lot of glamorous showing in war films or other popular media, if it were the choice of "Chicago Gangsters" we would like see much more historical interest and knowledge.

Many firearms fall into this category and only with the exposure of youtube, video games, and internet collections has recent awareness increased.

[Lee Enfield]

Is the trigger mech you mention welded up Vince? Is it worth un-sticking it and maybe making a selector? Nice to see it out in real life.

The reason for the early change was that the trigger mech parts were all sub contracted out. The system for that sort of production wasn't streamlined and caused severe bottlenecks. The CISA told Cheshunt (the relocated DD(E) office) to get it simplified which they did.

There's clearly not a lot of collector interest in the Lanchester. Certainly not as much as I thought there'd be.

during the period it took to build 95,000 Lanchesters, about 4,000,000 Stens were manufactured and the Lanchester had a bit of a head start...

[Vincent]

I like the experimental Navy tactical light.



Pretty advanced for the day.

[Peter Laidler]

And the curved cocking handle too. The latter 'standardised' ones the Navy retained were simplified to the Nth degree

[Vincent]

Thanks Peter. I hadn’t thought about the cocking handle. I have the simplified one. I will see if I can get my hands on an MP28 cocking handle.

[Flying10uk]

I have a MK1 de-ac (old spec) Lanchester with the adjustable rear sight. There is an "S" on the mag housing for possibly Sterling manufacture??? It is in reasonable used condition apart from the fact that it has had the rear sight base welded to the receiver, even the fixing screws!!! It has obviously been like this for many years and I am not sure whether to leave well alone or try to remove the welds on the sight base. I notice that, below the woodwork, the trigger housing has also been welded to the receiver in place of the rivets or screws. Has any-one else seen Lanchesters "done-up" in this manner with a welding torch or knows if a particular organisation had a policy of doing this?

[Peter Laidler]

I think that the welds were done at Sterling. The A suffix on the serial number of Lanchesters that they are not fully strippable due to 'welded detail' which I take to mean the backsight and trigger mech housing. You could weld to a Lanchester casing - within reason - due to the wall thickness of the tube. It's massive! Not so with a Sten and Sterling as they distort too easily unless you make jigs to prevent it. Sterling perfected these heat-sink jigs during their production

[peregrinvs]

There's clearly not a lot of collector interest in the Lanchester. Certainly not as much as I thought there'd be.

As the custodian of a 1943 Sterling made MkI* I'm certainly interested. Amongst other things, I've accessorised it with a WWII RN Lanchester webbing set and WWII RN contract P1907 bayonet. It was the 21st birthday present from my father, so it's of significant sentimental value as well. Many years ago I borrowed a copy of 'The Guns of Dagenham' via inter-library loan and photocopied the Lanchester chapter. Yes, I'd love a copy of the actual book - but have you seen what they fetch these days..?

[Flying10uk]

Was there a problem with the sight base working loose/falling off? The person who welded my Lanchester sight base to the receiver has certainly not skimped on the quantity of weld in fact it looks like the welder is more use to welding ships or tanks together rather than small arms. It was this that made me wonder if the welding was carried out outside of the U.K..

[Peter Laidler]

It was probably the same welder who welded most of the Sten gun magazine housings. Could have been done abroad - or by a semi skilled woman o0n the night shift called-up for war work and set the amps too high on her stick welder