Sterling Sterling

[Wildalaska]

Ive always liked the Sterling subgun, thought it looked cool with the side mag and ventilated tube. I used to have a closed bolt one with the funky long barrel and it shot good, but I alwys prefered the true sub gun.

So one of my good customers, older British guy, was just leafing through shotgun news a few months ago and spied an ad for a Sterling parts kit, which led to war stories about sailing in the Pacific after WW2, blasting pirates with the trusty Sterling, and of course how they had to toss em in the ocean when the ships went unarmed, yadda yadda, so I said, hey...lets make you one.

OK, he replied. So off he orders a transferable tube from DLO holdings. So off I order some parts kits from CATCO (excellent quality and service!) and since Im gonna CHARGE this guy a good buck to take his tube and make him an authentic down to the last crinkle in the paint Sterling, I grab a post 86 blank tube and some blue prints and away we go.

Now keep in mind that Stens, with their short unventilated tubes and ugly welds are totally classless next to Sterlings with their careful soldering and fine finish. And let me tell you, those things were soldered together real well.!!!!And luckily I could aimlessless spend an hour deburring the ventilation holes after machining (great sales tool, hey what ya got there, "Sterling subgun receiver".wow way cool dude)

Do our research, trial and error, a few invisible engineering changes and today, a 5:00 AK time, after measuring and cutting and unsoldering and resoldering and pinning and stamping numbers and fillin out the paperwork.....

Presto! She works! Spitting out lead at 600 rpm, nice and controllable. It still does not have sights or stocks (its actually a pistol now!), the solders not cleaned up and it hasnt been parked and painted (and we are even gonna roll the edge on the front cap!) but darn its a real military Sterling! Once we do the final full auto range test on Sunday, we'll finish it up, shoot for a group, and build some transferables (or heck even some more dealer samples!) Anybody want one?

Today was a nice day!


WildcontrolledburstAlaska

 

[Triad]

How much would a transferable version cost?

 

[Wildalaska]

How much would a transferable version cost?

Im still working that out...DLO tubes are $2500, parts kits are $300. A lot of the machining is done on the DLO tubes, but funny thing is the maching is the easiest part...its the dissaembly of the old guns and the resoldering/finishing that is labor intensive. Also it seems we are gonna have to make at least one part oursleves since the torch kut kits destroy an important element/

I am estimating about $1250-1500 or so in labour, so the entire gun will run max at $4300 plus tax. Id live to try to bring em in at $3900 total, but the onkly way to do that would be to d about 10 or so at once. If we are gonna do it, as usual we will due it right and we will duplicate them right down to the finish..

WildfirepowerAlaska

 

[JG]

These are all full auto and amazingly......they all belong to one guy.

I just want one

 

[cdbeaver]

Nice photo

What's the purpose of the toilet paper in the picture? Other than the obvious answer.

 

[Wildalaska]

Nice ones! Who did them? Some of the tubes appear a little short (the end caps are protruding)..are they transferable or post 86s?

WildlovesterlingsAlaska

 

[JG]

cdbeaver..........how the hell would I know why there is toilet paper in the photo? Its obvious this is the shop where the converstions were done.


WildAlaska......from what I understand, the guns were not yet completed in the photos (whether that has anything to do with them being short I don't know). I'm not sure of the name of the place that does them. He does specialize in Sterlings though, its a big part of his business. The guy who owns all of the guns above is a big wig in the gun business.

Indeed, they are transferable (from what I was told)