Interesting what was tried and failed in firearms development-

[hso]

https://www.americanrifleman.org/ar...wsletter&utm_medium=insider&utm_campaign=0318



In 1939, with war in Europe looking likely, the British government began to prepare for the worst, starting with acknowledging its need to re-arm. The British manufacturing industry swung into action, upping production of the British Army’s standard-issue Lee-Enfield rifle. The government established the British Purchasing Commission, headed by industrialist Arthur Purvis, to ask American arms manufacturers to procure enough weapons to arm Britain’s military as it rapidly expanded to a wartime footing. ...

 

[Carl N. Brown]

9mm. That housing holds the downward ejection chute for empties and the 9mm magazine making the housing as deep front to back as a .30-06 BAR magazine. Maybe they wanted to shock and awe the Germans?

I can't laugh too hard. The ejection chute idea seems to work in some bullpup designs.

 

[Scooter22]

I'm going with the Gyrojet idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet

 

[Mizar]

Well, someone at S&W must have been thinking: "I will do it better than that bloody John Browning!". Fail. They realized the vulnerability of open bolt design, but chose a quite awkward solution for it. With all that said I do find that rifle rather interesting as I have a "soft spot" for such bizarre firearm abominations - definitely would like to play with it!

 

[22250Rem]

The entire story of those is interesting and I'm guessing the problems came from the design being rushed into production too quickly due to war time pressures. I've read about those before but don't recall that part about a small batch of unshipped ones being discovered at Smith & Wesson in the 1970's...... It's amazing they sat around "undiscovered" that long. It's also amazing that decent examples fetch from 5 to 12 thousand dollars, but they are still a piece of history and if most of them hadn't wound up at the bottom of the English Channel they would be more common, = less expensive, and folks would still collect them but surely not as shooters.

 

[Jim Watson]

A collector here got one of each Mark, I and II, before the realization of their low survival rate sank in. They were well made to a peculiar design.
As said, the British took out their advance payment in revolvers and a good thing they did, the loss might have ruined S&W.

 

[Madcap_Magician]

"While its design was defective, the carbine was extremely well-manufactured from high-quality materials."

Oh man, I busted a gut at that line! Some things don't change!

 

[RedlegRick]

I always wondered what might have been if the Dardick had gained any traction.

 

[Mk VII]

Somewhere in the papers I looked through in the Public Records Office here for a project, I came across a comment from British officials along these lines, "Don't go to the New England gunmakers. There's too much of the 'old world craftsmanship' in them. Go to the automobile industry, they understand mass production and interchangeability."

 

[Mr. Standfast]

I think the concept of a light semi-automatic carbine was a good one, at least for sentries etc., who in wartime can easily end up apologising profusely and taking someone to hospital, and for technical staff. In that application the long magazine, preventing the user from lying as low as he would like, might not have mattered too much. But you would want it to actually be light, which the Light Rifle wasn't. The situation didn't permit waiting for the M1 Carbine, already under design, which did better all that it would do.

It could have been built just as easily (are we talking cost-plus contract here?) from drawn tubing, as the Lanchester copy of the Schmeisser-designed MP28 and its lighter and simpler progeny the Sten were. . Both of these were accurate (in good specimens, as far as the Sten is concerned), and had horizontal magazines. The semi-automatic feature isn't that important, and got dropped from the massive Lanchester (which at least didn't pretend to be light). For the essence of submachine-gun use, outside the movies,, is usually to trip as brief a burst as you can. The Sten was prone to accidental firing, and severe damage to fingers if they got into the mainspring slot. But it always went off, could be built by just about any engineering firm, and I have seen extremely good groups fired by lady testers in the factories. The modern Sterling is an improvement, much better made but with a heart of Sten, and about as good as submachine-guns get, unless you want one small enough to be concealable. The Lanchester minimises the tendency to climb in firing, and was issued to the Royal Navy. Boarding parties don't have to march.

It is actually quite difficult to make a light firearm fire single shots with a closed bolt (for precision of aim) and full-auto from an open one (to avoid cook-offs of a chambered and unfired round.) They generally fire just before the bolt has come to rest, so the resistance to blowing back a stationary bolt would be much less. Just try kicking a door open while it is swinging closed.