‘Scotty’ from Star Trek Took Part in D-Day and was Shot 6 Times

Not me neither. Not a high velocity round, but it follows the old British dictum of "heavy and slow" and will put the hurt on anything . . . just like the .455 Webley. You get funny looks at the range . . .

I just can't imagine anybody hitting even a stationary target five times with a "Stench Gun". Stamped out of sheet metal, fires from an open bolt . .. there's a reason they called it the Woolworth Gun. Maybe five grazing shots, nothing center of mass . .. ?

The No. 5 had the shortest in-service time of any British rifle. There was a reason for that.

They cut down the weight of the rifle significantly by reducing the stock, eliminating most of the fore-end, and shortening the barrel, without reducing the muzzle energy of the round. Bad idea!

I loaded lighter bullets (150s i.o. 180s or 174s) with a reduced powder charge, and that helped some. But not much. An unpleasant rifle to shoot.

Same thing happened with the Walther PPK - which is a nice shooting gun in .32 auto, but .380 kicks like a doggone mule. I had a nice pre-68 one, but I sold it because I didn't like spraining my wrist. The modern compact .380s are designed for the round and are a pleasure to shoot.

"I just can't imagine anybody hitting even a stationary target five times with a "Stench Gun". Stamped out of sheet metal, fires from an open bolt . .. there's a reason they called it the Woolworth Gun. Maybe five grazing shots, nothing center of mass . .. ?"

I know what you mean - I haven't ever fired a Sten but I did carry an M3A1 Greasegun for a short while because, well, it looked cool when Steve McQueen carried one. I found out that:

1. It's heavy: fully loaded with 30 rounds, it weighs the same as the M14 that I should have been carrying.

2. The heavy bolt slammed the thing back and forth and hitting anything on purpose was unlikely.

3.It's a pistol caliber, so hitting anything at all past 50 meters (or really 25 meters) would be like getting the enemy to be struck by lightning.

4.The enemy always either showed up and 10 meters or 200m - the 10 meters required the lucky happenstance of being pointed in the right direction when we spotted each other and there was enough time for that slow bolt hit the cartridge before he hit you.

5. Lastly, loading the dang magazines took a thumb of steel - or having a rare loading tool - and reloading a magazine in the middle of a firefight was impossible. However many magazines you had loaded on you was all that you had for a fight.

Needless to say, I ditched the Greasegun for my M14 toute suite!

If it wasn't a Sten, what got Scotty? I can't imagine any weapon that would hit someone six times without the victim dropping immediately after the first round hit.

I'm with you on the PPK: I had several of the .380s and they were all miserable to shoot (but very accurate). Pulling the slide took a lot of effort against that recoil spring and the recoil caused my hand to roll up and to the right, making the follow-up shot take a while. Worse, the edge of the rear of the slide would cut the top of my hand, spraying blood all over my glasses (which also makes that follow-up shot harder).

Funny story about my (also) pre-68 PPK while I had it. For a short while I was on a Marine Corps shooting team and while I was at Camp Lejeune to compete in the Marine Corps Matches, I was assigned a Master Gunnery Sergeant to be a member of my team.

The Master Gunnery Sergeant was one of the top shooters in the Corps, which was great, but he was disdainful of officers (I was a captain back then) and he delighted in trying to embarrass me at every chance he had. For instance, one morning while I was taking my junior team members for a run - to build up their blood flow/oxygenation for the long matches - I called out to the Master Gunnery Sergeant to come run with us. He answered, nice and loud for everyone to hear him "Oh, no Sir - you go ahead and run. I learned to shoot well so I'd never have to run, but you go ahead". Of course, the troops laughed.

I couldn't stand the guy.

One afternoon during pistol practice (one hand, .45, 25 and 50 meters) he spotted my PPK and my shooting bench and said (loudly) "Of look, the Captain has a Saturday Night Special". I said, "OK, Master Guns, 25 meters, best of five round, loser buys beer"

He said "Oh Captain, I hate to take your beer but OK".

I shot the hardest I ever have and beat him with the PPK. He never bought any beer but it shut him up.

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