Owen and Austen - The WW 2 ‘Aussie’ Machine Carbine Story

[Badger]

With thanks to member Graeme "broadarrow303" Barber, an excellent article reflecting on the development of the Owen and Austen (WW 2 ‘Aussie’ Machine Carbine) has been added to the Australia - Milsurps Knowledge Library (click here).

Owen and Austen - The WW 2 ‘Aussie’ Machine Carbine Story (by Graeme "broadarrow303" Barber) (click here)

Article Extract .....

The story began in September 1940 and involved two neighbours who had never met. The first a young Australian inventor Evelyn Owen from Wollongong had been working on a .22 small automatic gun for nine years. He had even shown it to a Colonel at the Victorian Barracks in Sydney to be told that the army had no use for sub-machine guns and if they ever did it would be on British advice and be British made. Although he had little engineering experience and no technical qualifications, Owen was fascinated by firearms and experimented with them recklessly. Home from final leave before posting overseas Owen had been at the beach firing some final bursts out to sea. As he approached his home, carrying the gun in a cloth bag, his mates suggested he join them for a drink at the local ‘drinking hole’. He agreed and in his haste left the bag leaning up against a retaining wall separating his father’s house from a neighbouring block of flats. (article continues) .....

Owen Mk I field stripped showing front loading bolt, load bearing piston and return spring. (Author)

(Click PIC to Enlarge)

Regards,
Doug

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[newcastle]

Fascinating stuff. If you had a dollar for every time the military of the commonweath has obstructed the progress and implementation of new equipment.........

[Peter Laidler]

I had an Owen as my personal weapon in 1967. Got a photo using it on a river crossing somewhere. But not yellow/green as I'd read about but black. I'll put my head above the parapet and say that I don't think that it was any better than a Mk5 Sten and definately not an L2A3. The Owens went soon after that and we got some F1's but these soon went too and AR15's became the norm - then M-16's

There didn't ever seem to be a shortage of Owen spares

[browningautorifle]

I've handled the Owen and was issued the F1, but I stlll think the L2A3 or varient like our Submachine Gun C1 was the right direction to take things.

[Peter Laidler]

The L2A3 magazine was a mechanical marvel........... a true work of the engineers art or thinking outside the box in modern parlance.

[browningautorifle]

True, rollers(I assume that's what you refer to)assist and don't hinder. I can't imagine how you'd jam one... We settled for a very loose follower which worked "OK".

[Bruce_in_Oz]

I think the only fair comparisons are when you look at contemporaries.

The Owen was a very reliable piece of kit in general. Much of that is down to the magazine and the "over-thinking" in the internal design. It is quite heavy for what it is and that, more than the "compensator", probably helped a lot. The "assemble from the front" idea is interesting, though the constant dismounting of the barrel would have to result in wear of the seating surfaces eventually.

In my earlier days I managed to fire a couple of different marks of Owen, an Austen and the F-1. The F-1 seems to have been meant as a "bullet hose" as the sighting equipment was obviously an afterthought. They were, however, capable of some nice shooting. Once you got the feel of the two-stage trigger and could confidently fire single-shot, it was a neat tool for close quarter snap-shooting. The M-16 gives you a lot more wallop in the same role, however; ditto Mr. Steyrs "Tupperware Rifle". The Austen worked OK, but the magazines were a pig to load, unless you had the nifty tool that was supposed to be part of the kit. Quite pleasant to shoot and the "Chicago Piano" dual grips made "off-the-hip" quite controllable. Interesting thing is the grip panels on an Austen are almost identical to those on the German MP-40. There is something about the internals, too....hmmm........ The die-cast alloy housing for the magazine and foregrip is a neat solution to an engineering challenge, though I have no idea how it would cope with electrolytic corrosion in a wet / salty environment.

Any chaps with field experience on these?

One of the most interesting books on the subject of Owen Guns is, "The Own Gun" (surprise) by Wayne Wardman.

[Peter Laidler]

Not just the rollers but tapered ones at that - rolling on brass pins. And the corrugations rolled into the sides that form a column for a round spring in an oblong magazine plus give the sides added strength............. I could go on and on.

[browningautorifle]

We too took the longitudinal(!) grooves for the spring. I didn't know the rollers were tapered. They must have been strip proof or the infantry would have fixed them for you...The F1, I remember the rear sight now. Simple fold up-down stamped steel. The rest for all intents reminded me of the SMG C1 except the mag was on top, it ejected down, and the firing mech and grip seemed to resemble the FN...

The thing is here, If you have men that can use each of these weapons like an extension, the trial and demonstrations would be very close. I know that doesn't prove which is best, but it would prove they were all at least very effective. Given the chance, I'd take just about any of them(and a fire-pail full of ammo) to defend myself through dark days.

[Peter Laidler]

I have the gravest doubts about any sort of muzzle compensator on a 9mm weapon or SMG in general. The Brits said that the Cutts was an unnecessary frill in 1928 while they said that Sten spoon-billed effort was worthless and should be deleted from production at the first possible opportunity. Which it was!

I remember letting my son, then aged 9 or 10 shooting thousands of rounds from various Sten guns with a tethered Sten, hand held of course, but within a 9" diameter steel loop for safety reasons. It was all on high speed video and even he could control it without this fallacy of it going wild and spraying bullets everywhere. They still use the video to show the counteracting efforts of Newtons 3rd law using stored energy.

If it's allowable BAR, I'll send you a Sterling magazine (or just the follower/platform part) to feast your eyes on this mechanical marvel. The spring steel and poundage was also perfect for 34 rounds, albeit double stacked, while tightly compressed to the last, to holding the last round firmly with hardly any weight................ It never fails to amaze me. Just say and I'll put a 'cabinet roller' in the post

When I used to take the designers around the weapons collectiuon at Warminster I used to pass a few sectioned Sterling magazines around and tell them that when they designed things for the Army, this is how they ought to be thinking