Sten SMG: Pinnacle of Simplicity

[Lee Enfield]

Harold Turpin only had £5 to spent to make the two prototype guns, No.T/1 and No.T/2. There was no money - or time - left for a new design of magazine. The Lanchester magazine was already in production. It was 9mm and so said, it was Major Shepherd who dictated that the Stens would be submitted for trials using the shortened* Lanchester magazines - from Sterling at nearby Dagenham!

Like I say many times. Get 6 magazines that work flawlessly with your gun and you're home and dry. That said, again, there were plenty of Bren magazines that were scrapped, not because they were damaged as such, but simply because they failed to function properly

* shortened to 32 rounds to fit the new short pouches/

Somewhere in my junque I have a copy of the MP28/II sales brochure (reprint unfortunately).

The brochure shows 50rd, 32rd and I believe 20rd as standard for the MP28/II so rather than shorten the 50rd mag, it seems they just produced one of the other standard patterns.