Sten Competition Line or Sten 87 Model

Here are some brochure photos of the USA models of the "Sten" family with their different name stickers.

Note the metal triggers in the above guns. The Long Tom is wearing its plastic muzzle cap which is only there for storage.

The "Sawed Off" is a "Ministen" and was available as a power regulated gun in some markets, but often guns in these small sizres do not require one and they certainly do not need the easy loading feature that comes with the use of a power regulator.

The Sten "Competition Line" guns were all fitted with a soft fluoro-green handle cover and had fluoro-green accents contrasting with a charcoal grey body. The fluoro-green color tended to fade into a yellow when exposed to sunlight over a long period.

The guns had a fore-aft adjustable trigger that could be moved into three positions via a small tab that clicked into one of three vertical slots, but most users found the rearmost position worked best and later versions ditched the adjustment with a one-piece molded trigger.

Later Competition Line models had a clip molded into the bottom of the front line wrap hook and a hole in the front of the trigger finger guard so that a spear could be transported slung underneath the gun. This was a good idea, but Mares dropped it for the next Sten 2001 series even though the hole in the trigger finger guard remained, however it was carried through onto the original "Cyrano".

Mares made some longer "Pipin" models that were over 100 cm in length using the Sten 2001 handle and nose cone. They were only sold for a relatively short period and from memory they were 110 cm, 130 cm and 150 cm, but I never kept any records of them. They were relatively expensive and muzzle loading them was probably a turn off. They seem to have disappeared as bar them being sold on eBay at the end of their production run I never saw them again.

Just looking to see if I could find references to those Pipin models I found the Mares Technical Manual from 2001 that was published in extract form (and which anyone can download) has a Pipin Spark model listed in the pumping table seen below. No trace of the Sten models unfortunately.

Note that without the "Cyrano snout" the "Spark" has a longer tank and hence requires more pump strokes to achieve the same pressure in the gun.