Viva Sten MkII

Thanks for the reply Uberwaller. I think I will wait a little while and see how the agm sten will turn out before commiting to the viva. I still have reservations about lipo batteries at the moment (their tendancy to burst into flames being one), maybe time and experiance will sway my view on them (lipo's).

I wish you luck, and happy hunting with your sten.

My Viva sten has now been to several skirmishes and has worked perfectly at every single one.

Yes, my batteries haven't caught fire, nor my house burned down yet, which is nice.

Well i'll be stopping by airsoft armories tomorrow, so i'll have a look first hand what it's like. Gahhhh! curse my indecisiveness!

Right then, the sten developed a small "issue" on monday evening,...
the motor stopped engaging the gears correctly and so I stripped the gun down to investigate.
The motor cage does not have any method of adjusting the motor to the gear, so I removed the cage/frame and disassembled it. I was a little disappointed to find a piece of thin curved aluminium that is used as a rudimentary shim around the plastic stud at the rear of the motor where it locates in a hole machined in the ally frame. Why not make the hole the correct size in the first place?
To counter the motor engagement problem I placed a thin washer around the rear stud on the motor between it and the cage. re-assembled the cage and gearbox and it now works absolutely fine.
The sten strips down really easily with just the removal of the screw and allen bolt on each side and the allen bolt at the bottom of the front of the main receiver tube. the gearbox is a bog standard chinese cheapsoft version 7 type without the relevant fire selection parts.
the body of the sten is quite crudely fabricated (just like the real ones!) and the gearbox is held in place by the machined aluminium hop/barrel section and a wire part that locates in through the body and in to the motor cage.
My sten now works fine, it chrono's from 297-304fps, has great range and good accuracy and was used to good effect skirmishing on tuesday evening. I do not think it offers value for money if you consider that the most expensive parts to develop and manufacture are the motor cage, the hop unit and the hop/outer barrel block. the gearbox is cheap and the rest is pretty easy to manufacture compared to other airsoft gun models on the market. (maybe it is a blessing that it has a cheap gearbox as I am plagued by gearbox faults by "high end" manufacturers like classic army, G&G and G&P!)
Viva's sten is not without its faults but it does work pretty well and I would suggest to all owners that they loctite all the screw/bolts before taking out to play.

I don't know if I'll be able to attend the 12th as I will be recovering from the Chap Olympiad in bloomsbury, it is all dependent on the weather versus the martini cocktail intake

Well lads, I've taken the plunge and brought Pauls (username AIM) sten. As it was one of the first batch I will have to do the grub screw mod, but that shouldn't take to long to take care of. I am looking forward to using it with my brit gear, hell, I may use it for my german loadout too!

Hoho, here's a problem. Just packing kit away tonight and as I picked up the Sten to remove the lipo I thought 'hmmm, the stock feels wobbly'. The screw was tight but on disassembly I discovered the slotted back plate has broken free. Four small spot welds were all that fixed it and have snapped. I didn't actually use the gun much yesterday, it being slung over my shoulder most of the day - I suspect this might be the Viva equivalent of the TM Thompson barrel snap, stressing caused by the sling!

Any ideas how to fix it back - I don't have access to a welder!

Any ideas how to fix it back - I don't have access to a welder

Very nasty....What about your local garage ? Would only take 2 minutes to mig that on although you might have to strip it down, heat might melt the gearbox casing. I don`t think there`s another method which would be strong or reliable enough in the long term.

I'm not sure I could pop into a garage with a sub machine gun unless I knew them very well! Speaking to Warren currently!

I have no idea but would strength of weld be weaker if done on blued metal and if so should blueing be done post-welding?

i,l have to paper the blue off and then weld,

The bluing isn't particularly "thick" anyway. It's come off in places on my Sten as I've cleaned it after games.

Stick a strip of Gaffa Tape to the area, then pull it off again. Gaffa Tape'll pull off most paint very cleanly and easily from any area of a Viva STEN!

Stick a strip of Gaffa Tape to the area, then pull it off again. Gaffa Tape'll pull off most paint very cleanly and easily from any area of a Viva STEN!

But, they're not painted, are they? They are BLUED not crusted with black paint like a cheap chinese knock off.

I don't know, but whatever it is, it comes off in large flakes with Gaffa Tape adhesive. I have found this out on a second run/batch STEN, with the new hop type. Unless the first run/batch STEN was chemically blued unlike the later ones, it's say it's just a form of paint (abeit, very well applied*).

[*Then again, the one i was working on this weekend just gone, did also have what looked like a large paint run on the top on the stock tube. I'm pretty sure the second batch one i held is just painted. Are the first batch one too?]

EDIT: Looking closely at Chommers picture, the finish is ever-so slightly dappled and hasn't got a sheen in the light, which looks like a paint finish to me. Bluing is a staining of the metal, so the finish should be as smooth and feel pretty much the same as bare metal.

C-W's Sten and mine, for that matter, which is how I know, are chemically blued as they were the first batch.

Blimey! Looks like for the grasias of a new hop, you get a painted finish instead of a blued one with the second batch then!

Aye, definitely blued.
Does your second run has the four tiny spot welds securing the slotted plate as well?

Unfortunately, 'twas not mine, so I couldn't say. It belongs to forum member mikeyra who acquired it from GMA at last weekends Battle for Caen Ops'. We found a penny-washer stops the wobble in the stock and a cut-down nut off of a picnic bench (sorry Gunman! ) is a far better fixing for the steel bolt handle than the original tapped ali' sheet. Now it's half made from scrap - just like the originals. The gun itself, once tweaked, operated beautifully. With it's short barrel still giving as good a range as my Thompson!

took the plunge and pimped my sten, the existing T stock seemed far too short to shoulder comfortably so,...-- attachment is not available --