Highest known Sterling L34A1 - Mk5 ?

[Peter Laidler]

I've lost track of where this thread is but the factory 'shortie' was nothing more than a short, 1" or so long forward expansion chamber tube that fitted over the front part of the alloy foresight block band in place of the longer standard forward section. 3x shortened rods replaced the standard rods and the standard end cap fitted into the short forward expansion chamber. Locked in place by the notoriously fickle hex recessed locking nuts.

In short, the standard gun did away with the forward expansion or plenum chamber. Not a good move as the plenum chamber acted as a vehicle for another well thought out design to operate properly.

The production guns commenced at S-1001

The foil wrapping was simply commercial oven insulation material cut to size and rolled. It was said to be easy to unroll, clean and re-wrap......... Don't even bother. It is a total pain ITA to do. Just replace every 100 or so rounds. To be honest, if you are shooting sub-sonic ammo then don't even bother to use the vented barrel and all that that entails. Just use a standard modified barrel threaded at the front and machined inside the rear flange. The rear section of the gun is all about not letting the bullet reach the speed of sound - which it won't if it is already sub-sonic! Maybe that will help understand why.......... Won't complicate matters.........