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Part Duex: the missadventures of XDMAN the STEN collection

xdman

xdman

Self appointed Chief Armorer
Staff member
Since I got the receiver, 99% of the way where it needs to be, it’s time to try to fit it to the lower. The problem is when you buy parts kits, everything is still together and caked with cosmoline.


Ok, here we have the lower receiver which is in great condition considering this is from World War II.
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My problem is that part of the original receiver tube that has been de-milled is still welded to the lower/trigger housing. I need to figure out how to take them apart.
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Well, it looks like the proper tool for this job is gonna be a Dremel or I like to call it the Drem-all because it’s usually the solution for everything gunsmithing wise.


Ahhh I see you hidden weld. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get at it from the outside, so I had to get creative and grind it out from the inside
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The next issue is, I have to remove the welds from the lower receiver tabs. Now here’s where you kind of gotta be careful because I need to reuse those tabs and then put another weld bead where the originals are to attach my new receiver tube to the lower, just like it was done in World War II
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Then I’ve gotta remove the welds on the back end of the tube. So let’s just grind/cut those out.
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All right, I’m making progress and all the welds are broke, but it is stubbornly stuck in place
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There we go, a little brute strength and ignorance. the ball peen hammer like the dreml overcomes everything

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Oh, here’s the part where we discovered there was another secret weld on the bottom of the tube that we couldn’t get to but since it was a small tack spot weld it eventually broke as well
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There you go. I am the master of everything. This STEN receiver finally tapped out and she gave up her secrets.
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Now, while this looks bad, it actually isn’t. The Cosmoline protected all the metal really well. And other than being really dirty, she is in fantastic condition considering her age and use.
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I didn’t get any pictures of me cleaning it. Basically a can of brake cleaner and some alcohol, some brushes, and I would say we got 99% of the cosmoline removed. Now I need to do this with all the rest of the small parts. And then what I think I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go beyond just putting this back together. I’m going to take the time to abrasive blast every single part sand and make it look pretty, make sure everything fits together, and then I’m gonna parkarize it. After that, I may go ahead and gunkote it inside and out, every single piece. Now that may be controversial, but the way I see it is, I can do the coating in such a way that like it could have been a factory World War II finish. You’ll never know because gun coat has a couple colors and depending on your spraying technique, you could make it look like a factory parkerizing but you get the benefit that it protects the metal really well.

Now I take my receiver tube that I machined, and I must shove it in the lower receiver/trigger housing and see how she fits.
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Wow, it’s amazing how quickly it almost looks like a STEN again. And see here, you kind of see why I am talking about that the trigger housing, the texture of the metal doesn’t really match the texture of the receiver tube. So after I fit everything, I might as well just blast everything and make everything match and look like it came out of the factory that way.
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I know some of you in this group like pictures of rear ends, so this one’s for you. Now the question: should I keep going and is the group interested in following along some more? Let me know by commenting below.
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