Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at the National Firearms Centre,
part of the British Royal Armouries in Leeds,
and we are taking a look at an Australian gun today,
this is an Austen Mark II submachine gun. Extremely rare.
The Austen, actually we have a previous video on the Austen Mark I, as well as a video on the Owen gun.
So if you're interested in the submachine guns that the Australians were actually using during World War Two,
definitely check out those.
However, the Austen was riddled with problems from it's very inception,
but that didn't prevent them from attempting to make an updated model,
and that would be the Mark II. And on the Mark II they kind of doubled down on some
of the things that had been tentatively tried in the Mark I, namely die casting.
Where the Mark I had a single die cast part, the front grip and magazine well, the Mark II doubles down on it.
They made a bigger and more complex die casting for the front, and they also turn the whole
back half of the gun and trigger assembly housing into another die cast part.
... Well, I'll tell you what, we'll talk about production and when these were around in a minute,
but first let's dive right into this, because it comes apart totally differently than the original Austen.
And we'll show you the inside and compare it to a Mark I.
I'll point out, first off, that this paint job is actually pretty typical of Australian submachine guns,
you'll find it in particular on Owen guns - and here on this Mark II Austen.
Now, let's compare that to our Mark I Austen (there we go).
So what you see on the Mark I is we have a die cast front grip and magazine well,
but the back end here is pretty much analogous to a regular Sten.
On the Mark II they have incorporated the ... barrel nut into this front die cast section,
and then they have made the entire back end of the gun a second die cast section.
Looking at it from this angle, it looks like the stock on the Mark II is much longer,
which would be remarkable given that the Mark I stock was often considered to be too long.
However, this is kind of an optical illusion. The difference is on the Mark II the stock is mounted,
as ... makes sense, it's mounted in this die casting. So it's actually moved forward here.
Which means in order to have the same length of pull, the bars have to be longer.
And this does in fact have the exact same length of pull
as the Mark I, despite the stock rods being really remarkably long.
On the Mark I we have a button located here on the rotary mechanism to unlock the stock.
On the Mark II that button has been again added into the die cast assembly,
and it's depressed right now and it will stay that way until
we open the stock up, and then that's going to lock into position and the button pops out.
So then to close the stock, you push that in and fold it down.
Sling swivel also in the back of the die casting.
We have a two position aperture sight here. It can flip back and forth, 100 and 200 yards, that's a nice improvement.
You know, it may or may not be actually all that useful, but on paper at least,
it's an improvement over the single fixed sight of the standard Sten and the Austen Mark I.
The Mark II was fitted with a plug style of bayonet lug for its own unique bayonet that would fit on there.
Unfortunately, I don't have the bayonet to show you.
Our receiver markings are on the left side of this cover plate over the trigger mechanism.
We have Austen, SMG, Mark II and XP. This is an experimental model.
Same manufacturer as the Mark I that we did a video on, DC.
We do still have the semi-auto selector, so single fire and auto on the other side.
Front sight is the same sort of just large, simple triangle that you get on all of the other Sten guns.
And this still uses the same 30 round (but we tend to load it to 28), Austen magazine.
Interchangeable with Sten magazines and this one's really tight, but there it goes.
Magazine release button right here.
So, handling wise this is basically the same as the Mark I Austen.
Disassembly, however, is completely different. So start by taking the magazine out,
there we go,
it's normally not that stiff, it's just the condition of this particular one.
Now we have a disassembly button right here,
that is going to push out this lug and allow us to take the entire front diecast assembly off.
So I push that in and then that
slides off the front end of the gun and gives you a comic-book laser pistol.
Or just the front end of an Austen.
Now to get the receiver tube off (this is actually sort of vaguely MP40 like,
which makes sense because a lot of elements of this are MP40 like),
what we're going to do is pull the trigger and then we can...
With the trigger pulled means that the sear drops down,
right there,
and then that allows us to slide this off without it catching there.
Once the upper assembly is off, we can then pull out the bolt assembly,
so we have our receiver tube and barrel. And the barrel's fixed in place here.
And then just like the Mark I, and just like the MP38 / MP40
this has a self-contained recoil spring nested inside the bolt head.
Now the die casting changes were probably not really a step forward for the Austen.
The die casting had never really been super-successful in the first place.
However, they did make one definite step forward with the Mark II Austen, and that is
they got rid of the firing pin on ... this self- contained recoil spring. So this is a Mark I bolt
assembly, and this is the Mark II.
And on the Mark II the firing pin is now milled integrally into the front of the bolt face,
And the recoil spring still nests inside, but you no longer have any sort of tolerancing issues.
You can now interchange these recoil springs between guns
without having to worry about making sure that the firing-pin protrusion is just right.
So that is definitely an improvement, but
it's pretty much the only improvement between the Mark I and the Mark II.
The die casting here is kind of cool, it's neat how they...
you know, you were able to get one very complicated ... part all in one go,
assuming that your quality control stands up.
That does, of course, mean you have to have some sort of access to the internals in order to,
you know, put in fire control parts and work on them if anything goes wrong.
So they have this screwed on plate on the side here,
which, thanks to the magic of time-lapse and editing, I can go ahead and remove.
Other side of the plate there.
And you can see all of the actual fire control internals, which aren't much, given that this is a Sten gun.
So.
So that's pretty much all you've got in there. It is still just the same basic Sten gun fire control system.
In total only 200 of these were ever made, because they were not really a success.
They were introduced in August of 1946. So part of that limited production is almost certainly from the fact that
by this time the war is over, and they really don't have the need for more submachine guns,
especially more relatively crummy submachine guns like the Austen.
And they were then declared obsolete in August of 1946.
Yeah, the exact same August of '46 that they were introduced,
they were also declared obsolete and put into storage, the few that they had.
So with that few of them produced very few exist today,
and it's really cool to have a chance to actually take a look at one here.
A big thanks to the Royal Armouries for giving me the opportunity to do that.
Short of going to Australia, I'm not sure where else I would be able to easily find a Mark II Austen, so.
The Royal Armouries does have a big public museum, open pretty much every day of the year
with a bunch of stuff on display. They also have the National Firearms Centre collection, which is
an extensive firearms collection, which is not strictly open to the public,
but it is available by appointment to researchers and other serious investigators.
So if that sounds like you, get in touch with them by way of their website in the description text below,
and set up an appointment and come take a look at what they have down here.
Thanks for watching.