[ Sterling SMG at the Range ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I've never really shot a Sterling submachine gun.
And courtesy of Morphy's here, well they have a Sterling submachine gun to take a look at,
and I figured this would be a fantastic opportunity for me to try it out.
Because these things have a fantastic reputation.
Now, eventually I will do some desktop videos on a variety of different iterations of the Sterling.
We're not doing it with this one because this actually has a tri-lug,
basically a suppressor mount on the barrel, which is not original.
It was added by an owner who wanted to make it easier to mount a suppressor.
Which is a really great idea, and it's not obtrusive, it doesn't really make the gun look weird,
but it's not quite correct, strictly speaking.
So we're going to save the desktop video for a later date
with a completely 100% authentic, original Sterling.
But today we're going to do some shooting with this one,
because this ought to be really nice.
That is in fact really quite nice.
A little bit of tendency to climb up
because the stock drops a little bit below the gun, but quite controllable.
I'm shooting it right-handed here to get a good camera angle on it,
... I'm left-handed, so if I can shoot it right-handed we're generally doing pretty well.
I like the aperture sights.
Pretty sweet gun, let's try a little bit more.
OK, we're going to switch to left-handed,
and I'm going to try and actually hit those bowling pins, and see if I can.
See it wobbling?
OK, well I got it on the first try.
Now the Sterling actually does have a semi-auto setting for the trigger.
Let's try semi-auto and see if that gives me any better chances.
There we go.
I think I'm shooting slightly off to the left,
which we can compensate for by switching to automatic again.
Alright, I will say, unlike some other submachine guns,
this, to my mind, tends to bounce a little bit at the front.
It's a quite light gun, it doesn't have the straight line recoil.
And I find it ... a little bouncy.
Not quite as absolutely flat and unmoving as some of the other sub guns that I've tried.
Primarily older ones that have more mass in them.
Like some of the first generation designs tend to, at least for me, be the most easily controllable.
Now of course, back when these were being made,
standard doctrine did involve quite a lot of hip shooting.
Which ... let's see. ...
Actually that kind of rests pretty well with the magazine on top of your wrist,
tuck the stock into the hip.
Put the selector off of safe.
Takes a lot of practice to be able to do that effectively.
Oop, and I'm out.
There's definitely a reason why the Sterling was such a long-standing
and well thought of British service submachine gun.
It's really an excellent submachine gun, it may not be perfect in every respect.
But man, it's certainly got compactness, portability, good handling.
The pistol grip is a fantastic shape, fantastic placement.
The front shroud is good to hang on to.
The gun's inexpensive to make. The magazines are fantastic by the way.
This is of course 9mm Parabellum, it uses a 34 round magazine.
... Like the development work that went into this from Pratchett,
Patchett, not Terry Pratchett, Patchett (the submachine gun designer),
was substantial and really has turned out well.
It's one of the best submachine gun magazines out there,
easy to load, and very reliable to shoot.
So, you guys have got me sort of stuck on doing magazine dumps at the end of the videos.
Which was fine until our current ammo prices,
so hold on to your pocketbooks, I'm going to dump 34 rounds.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video. [Don't step out of frame...]
Thanks to Morphey's for the opportunity (and for the ammo). [Don't step out of frame...]
[Oh no!]
[You fool! Step back!]
[Well, so much for that...]
Easy peasy.