Got a barrel in. Looks like the mark 2 and 5 sten barrel is thicker than a 30-30 barrel at least where it counts.
Got the tactical innovations threaded barrel. Really all I'm waiting for is some of those semiauto kits to come back in stock. I went ahead and got a "too small for a full auto bolt" tube and barrel bushing. I'll get the tube cut out and welded to the lower reciever and all it will need is the semi auto bolt and striker.
The mark 2 and mark 5 semiauto build kits are back a Indianapolis ordnance. I got some. Last time they only stayed in stock for 2 or 3 days.
Back to hot 9mm ammo. Traditionally the powder to use for hot 9mm is AA9. But I dont have a lot of AA9 I need to save it to rebuild my 5.7x28mm ammo. 5.7x28 is very unforgiving and I have AA9 loads that I know work. But I got a keg of A410, it's a lot like 2400, but appears to burn a little faster. Which means it's some where between AA7 and AA9 in a pistol round. AA9 and AA7 are both great for 9mm yeet loads. Another contender would be HS-6, got plenty of that. HS-6 also has a long history of 9mm loads. Stuff like unique, universal, tite-(anything), bullseye, W231/HP38, AA5 are too fast burning for hot 9mm.
Fixed it. Brownells has kegs of AA9 so I got one and some other stuff. I don't really need a keg so I'll probably refill the empty 1lb container when I empty it out and sell it to help pay for the keg. Sell 1lb pay for 2lb. Between AA9 and A410 the AA9 is probably better at least on paper to load hot and heavy 9mm with.
@oil pan 4 Go carefully with reselling powder, there might be some liability you'd rather not deal with.
Especially repackaged Powder where the Lot Number, of the Powder, is NOT what is is printed on the new package... makes Liability a really iffy proposition if something goes wrong...
Well yeah I would include the new lot number, show the moma container. I noticed a lot of people are scared of "old powder". That's how I got a keg of unique for $40 few years ago, it was from 1994. It shoots great, I'm still loading with it.
Midway USA dot com has 147gr hornady xtp hollow points in stock and has free shipping. I got my fill of them.
Made a little progress on yeet old sten. I cut the tube out, drilled all the holes, completed the M16 pistol grip conversion part, just needs a little bit of tig welding to finish it about 90% of its mig welded. The Indianapolis semi auto tube is pretty thick, using a regular dremal would suck to use to cut the bolt slot, hogged that out with a dremal tile cutting tool. The M4 tube conversation is close to being done. The old timer stock weighs like 3 or 4lb, I need to weigh it. The M4 conversion will get rid of most of that weight. Only might need that mass if I was mag dumping 30 rounds of hot 147gr ammo at a time. Oh and I got a 9mm bore sight that goes in the chamber of a 9mm. I'll use that to weld the sight on.
I got it to fire. The springs were a bit tricky. They give you a separate recoil and hammer springs and you are supposed to cut them to length. I think I'm going to stick with 2 recoil springs, cut to the same length. That will make putting it back together easily and will give me a real strong firing pin strike, as I may be using reloaded rifle primers in some post apocalyptic scenario. Shit it doesn't even have to be the end of the world for all the pistol ammo and small primers to be gone.
I have a question for the experts... and you guys too. If you built your Sten with the skeleton pistol grip, and no way to attach a rifle stock, could you use the original length barrel? I'm thinking that it would then be a pistol build.
Yeah mine is a pistol build. You just have to make it so a stock won't easily attach. Mine has been altered to where a mark 2 or mark 5 stock cant attach to it.
I'm thinking about doing a mark 3 vertical feed with a 71 round ppsh-41 drum. Don't know if I would do it in 9mm or 30 mauser. But that's after I get this one completely finished, runs good, hit the primer hard, feeds, finished up all pretty. For a sighting system I found a steel pic rail for an FN mauser. I'll weld one of them on there and mount some kind of red dot. There are better 9mm carbine things out there but they are all unavailable or listed for 3 or 4 times msrp.
I got the striker modified, the striker spring and firing pin retainer where they now all work together and deliver hard deep hits to the primer. This is to set off fallout/madmax scenario reused primer cups with homemade priming compound. The firing pin is or was one of those full floating jobs where the primer firing pin and striker never all touch each other at the same time. Well I fixed that. With the firing pin pushed in by the striker as far as it will go it sticks out about 10 thousands, it will wear down some over time. It has a firing pin retainer spring which I also cut down so it's just a few ounces force holding it to the rear. I beat my sten with a plastic hammer like it owed me money and it wouldn't fire.
I'm back to developing hot 9mm sub gun ammo again. Everything about this reload exceeds published data. I tested some 124gr bullets over 11gr of AA9. The COAL is 1.075. I'm pretty sure the COAL exceeds recommend and won't fit in most 9mm mags. The max recommend load for AA9 under a 124gr bullet is 10.5gr. My velocity spread out of a 9.5 inch barrel was 1,576 to 1,597, one of the tightest pistol spreads I have ever seen. If accuracy is decent I could easily shoot a deer with this thing. Looks like some one deleted their post about stens being dangerous... It's a fucking machine gun with out a safety selector. Of course it's dangerous. That's what I'm looking for in a "personal defense weapon", ideally no safety, bolt stays locked back, do the "HK slap" and it's ready to rock and roll.
Got a nice little sig carbine/revolver red dot to put on the sten so I might be able to hit something. The sight comes mechanically zeroed. I'll put my 9mm bore site in the gun, move the dot around till they line up, weld in place and that should get me close.
I welded the pic rail on there played with the barrel indexing and got the red dot and the bore sight laser perfectly on top of each other at 40 yards. The dot was mechanically zeroed. The barrel and gun were not indexed till now. I didn't think it would work out as well as it did.
