Sterling HR rifles

[Hsing-ee]

I love his bio on the book, saying he “considers himself a product of the so-called working class - whatever that may mean”. He went to prep school at the Dragon (£10,000 per term now), big school at Rugby (£12,000+ a term), where his father had been a pupil, and then Oxford University. He was a junior officer in the HAC, and bought both a house in Chelsea and Sterling Armaments in his 20s.

So take your choice. Was he a dynamic individualistic entrepreneur thwarted by the lethargy and plotting of the Establishment, or a rich kid who thought it would be fun to own a machine-gun factory, without realising that its core product was obsolescent? Or a bit of both?

The Dragon? I know that school from growing up in Oxford, its an elite school for little Lords. One cannot claim to be a member of the common people if you have been through there. The rest of it, even the HAC (mentioned in The Sloane Rangers Guidebook as one of the Sloane regiments), all match the same pattern of top class chappery. Typical of that type of person to be complacent and not invest or innovate. Tant pis toffo!

[Muskett]

I’ll disagree with you on the MP5. It’s a really good SMG, especially in the CQB/HR role that became the SMG’s niche after the introduction of assault rifles. Like all HKs of its variety, it has some issues, but it gets the job done.

(As you mentioned 10mm, the short-lived MP5/10 was particularly impressive when I shot it.)

I will completely agree with you on the Sterling “Small Metal Gun”. Slightly over-engineered (stock, mag follower), but an absolutely excellent SMG for the WW2/pre-assault rifle Cold War era. Up there with the Uzi (which, like you, I think is overrated), the Beretta M12, the Swedish M45, the PPS43, and the much-overlooked Star Z62 and successors.

Thing is, once you have assault rifles and take the SMG out of the infantry section, the requirements for SMGs change. You end up, depending on role/requirement, with a combination of some or all of short assault rifles (very good for overt CP duties), accurate SMGs for CT/HR, and compact to small SMGs for non-infantry personal defence, and covert stuff, some of which are actually replacements for pistols rather than for long guns (eg PM63, Skorpions).

I also completely agree with you on the HR air rifle, as you may have gathered. My only nuance was that while they clearly didn’t listen to real enthusiasts (all HW/FWB users at the time), the wider market might actually have thought that a combination of fixed barrel, British-made, new, etc sounded just right - you know, the kind of people who bought Airsporters.

I did nice groups with the MP5, but didn't like the plastic parts, the forend rattles; best with the fixed stock. If I owned one I'd be getting the spanner out for some gunsmithing.
MP5/10 was impressive.
I did liked my SA80 and the AR16's.

They are issuing handguns in the military now, and though I was good with one (had my own HP, Sig 228, and Glock 17) I'd prefer a SMG if needs must.
MP5/10 was impressive.

The kind of people who bought the Webley Eclipse

[Geezer]

The Dragon? I know that school from growing up in Oxford, its an elite school for little Lords. One cannot claim to be a member of the common people if you have been through there. The rest of it, even the HAC (mentioned in The Sloane Rangers Guidebook as one of the Sloane regiments), all match the same pattern of top class chappery. Typical of that type of person to be complacent and not invest or innovate. Tant pis toffo!

My point entirely. I have known a number of Alumni of the Dragon and of Rugby, and members of the HAC (I think one was all three), the last thing they are is “working class”.

This isn’t class warfare (I am middle class by all indicators), but what kind of tit puts that stuff in their bio and simultaneously claims to be “working class”?

Small point, it was the SR “Handbook”, not “Guidebook”. I know because we had a much-thumbed copy passed around our house-room, to help most of us hate our parents and fantasise about being Travis in “If”.

[Muskett]

The Dragon? I know that school from growing up in Oxford, its an elite school for little Lords. One cannot claim to be a member of the common people if you have been through there. The rest of it, even the HAC (mentioned in The Sloane Rangers Guidebook as one of the Sloane regiments), all match the same pattern of top class chappery. Typical of that type of person to be complacent and not invest or innovate. Tant pis toffo!

You are quite right. I don't know the chap but a good education doesn't automatically mean business savvy. You may well be right on this one!??
The high business taxes of those times stopped anyone chancing much. It was all risk aversion. Why take a chance? If it was a success then the government just taxed it all away anyhow, so no one did anything but down scale.

[Hsing-ee]

You are quite right. I don't know the chap but a good education doesn't automatically mean business savvy. You may well be right on this one!??
The high business taxes of those times stopped anyone chancing much. It was all risk aversion. Why take a chance? If it was a success then the government just taxed it all away anyhow, so no one did anything but down scale.

It’s always the government, the unions or Brussels that ruin things for a chap starting out on life with only his wits and a few hundred thousand in his pocket. Land of shattered dreams ..

[Hsing-ee]

Small point, it was the SR “Handbook”, not “Guidebook”. I know because we had a much-thumbed copy passed around our house-room, to help most of us hate our parents and fantasise about being Travis in “If”.

Might have been a handbook to you, it was a guidebook to me! Travis was last seen with Bren and Sten, maybe that’s what inspired little Lord Fontleroy ...

[Muskett]

It’s always the government, the unions or Brussels that ruin things for a chap starting out on life with only his wits and a few hundred thousand in his pocket. Land of shattered dreams ..

The politics and taxes of the 1970's were a grenade going off on dreams. Didn't matter what you had in your pocket. Thousands of long established companies went bust. Double whammy if the head honcho wasn't business savvy, but even good businesses went down the pan. My father's went from employing 400 to 6, and he was a great salesman. Never went bust, but couldn't make the numbers pay wages with such taxes. Heck, even the Beatles left.

[Lakey]

So Sterling Air Rifles seem to be a bit of a marmite gun. However from the point of view of COLLECTING, they do tick a number of boxes.

1) Relative scarcity
2) Great Build Quality
3) Quirky eccentric design
4) Bolt Action and underlever
5) Designed by an airgun legend
6) British design and manufacture
7) Firearms quality materials and workmanship

But, judging by all the comments more of a collecting gun, than a shooting gun. And YES, Not the most efficient design.

But neither was the Parker Crank pistol, or the Cogswell and Harrison Certus, and yet they are really sought after. Definitely one for the collectors!

Lakey

[les allam]

I got my HR81 because it was different and was made locally to me in Dagenham Essex.
I also have a Park Rh91 another Roy Hutchinson design .
Both guns worth their position in my collection.
Les..

[Geezer]

So Sterling Air Rifles seem to be a bit of a marmite gun. However from the point of view of COLLECTING, they do tick a number of boxes.

1) Relative scarcity
2) Great Build Quality
3) Quirky eccentric design
4) Bolt Action and underlever
5) Designed by an airgun legend
6) British design and manufacture
7) Firearms quality materials and workmanship

But, judging by all the comments more of a collecting gun, than a shooting gun. And YES, Not the most efficient design.

But neither was the Parker Crank pistol, of the Certus, and yet they are really sought after. Definitely one for the collectors!

Lakey

1) Yes, but not that rare.
2) Up to a point.
3) Yes. But so is a Reliant Robin.
4) Yes. But that isn’t a great idea.
5) Yes. But not his best work.
6) Yes. But so is the Webley Hawk.
7) Yes, but more Sten Gun than Purdey.

I really should stop slagging these off, as I’m probably damaging the value of the one I own. (Which is really lovely and special and nice and good and not normal and rubbish at all, and, although I have no actual proof, might have been owned by a genuine celebrity like Lemmy out of Motörhead, or maybe Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin.)

I guess it’s just nice that this thread is no longer, following a derail that I think I started, a conversation about the English class system and the military use of SMGs and has now returned to the actual topic. Sorry.

[Hsing-ee]

I think the one of the most interesting things about the HR81 is how it is a brilliant example of starting with a clean sheet of paper and producing a novel design to solve the problem of making a high performance sporting spring rifle that could be used for competition and hunting. They just don't seem to have tested the prototype against any other top end rifle.

From 1979 there were numerous attempts - which we will cover in another thread - to compete with the expensive but vastly superior HW35, Feinwerkbau Sport and Original Diana 45. All of which ultimately failed. There were lots of innovative designs as well as re-hashed old ones.

But the one which worked was the perfected copy of the HW77, the Air Arms TX200, arguably the best production springer air-rifle ever made. The Chinese are criticised for copying designs, but clearly this method works really well in some cases!

Instead of all the innovation, if say BSA had just copied and long-stroked an HW50S it have set the British airgun industry back on its feet.

I think the flurry of innovation was impressive but it didn't do the job. If the Stirling prototype had been tested against a Feinwerkbau Sport they must have seen how it would fail. British quirkiness sells no pies.

[ogilkes]

You are quite right. I don't know the chap but a good education doesn't automatically mean business savvy. You may well be right on this one!??
The high business taxes of those times stopped anyone chancing much. It was all risk aversion. Why take a chance? If it was a success then the government just taxed it all away anyhow, so no one did anything but down scale.

Think we are being a bit unfair. He took over Sterling and ran it fairly successfully, introduced new products, AR18, a revolver, developed the SAR80 for Singapore, HR81 series as well as being a reputable small engineering company. He and Sterling were royally shafted by Royal Small Arms Enfield, a monopolistic MOD procurement policy and finally, being prosecuted for being involved in the 'arms to Iraq' affair, in which Sterling was operating as a quite legit exporter, apparently with UK blessing by selling some Sterling SMGs. The then government lied, nobbled witnesses, and hid the fact that they had involved themselves in a huge cover up to keep their own (illegal and morally indefensible) policy hidden. Even one of the government witnesses noted at the inevitable following inquiry that he had been 'economical with the truth'. It was a scandal.

I suspect that the day of small arms companies (especially int e UK) was ell over by then. Even once mighty BSA had got out of everything bar sporting guns.

Be that as it may, the HR81 was a very dated design and more research into what users wanted might have been undertaken. Roy Hutchinson maintained that one of the issues was that he came up with a design which his manufacturers then altered having applied 'value economics' to keep costs down. Its one of the reasons he stopped designing guns.

Nevertheless, I ma happy with my three HR81/83s, and if I could find a UK built HR8 I would have it like a shot .

[Powderfinger]

This interesting thread has taken some diversions but I tend to now think several things are indisputably true:

(1) Sterling HJR81 is interesting but flawed. It could not compete with stuff from the Germans in the 1980s.
(2) SA80 was a bullpupped AR18 and despite the concept having been in development since the 1950s, it was not as good as the FAMAS or Steyr-AUG,
(3) Sterling Arms was making effective but dated firearms that were being made obsolete by changing military doctrines and emerging default options such as ARs, Uzis and MP5s.
(4) James Edmiston is posh.

And the following are my opinions after reading the books, reading the thread, reading old Guns Review and remembering the Scott Enquiry:

(1)Sterling Arms were something of a scapegoat/fall-guy considering much deadlier weapons were supplied by other people/companies/governments to Saddam than potentially a few SMGs.
(2) HW77 set the new standard for springer air rifles in the 1980s.
(3) Britain should have licence built FAMAS, AUGs or ARs for our armed forces.
(4) James Edmiston made an effort to breathe some life back into the UK arms industry by diversifying Sterling and trying to develop BSA.
(5) Being posh did not preclude him being a competent sales and presentations man which is important in technical fields: e.g. John Darling did a lot for airgun hunting and Henry Cole does a lot for motorcycling. Royce would have got nowhere without Rolls.

Now, I will get my HR81 out and lube it.

[Hsing-ee]

Now, I will get my HR81 out and lube it.

The top face of the rear of the piston needs a good stripe of grease as the cocking arrangement puts alit if pressure on this point and it can gall the cylinder badly. Just say in’.

The HW77 was a big jump from the FWB Sport HW80 Diana 45 ... accuracy could not be matched by any of them. Not an opinion!