British Sten Desert Rat Magazine

Original Item: The fabled Desert Rats of the British 8th Army in North Africa had to contend with sand getting into and jamming up their guns, especially their machine guns and submachine guns. To reduce the amount of sand that could get into their Sten magazines, they soldered closed the viewing holes on the back of the magazine and certain other manufacturing holes. The viewing holes were originally provided to allow the gunner to see how many cartridges were left. The Sten magazine was particularly sensitive to dirt. Eventually, many Sten magazines were manufactured without the viewing holes, but before that was done the holes were soldered shut when used in the desert. IMA has only a few of these historical magazines.