And now, the submachine guns

What I was really excited to see at the Royal Armories were the SMGs. Because they are very poorly discussed, even by Star back when it existed. It's not clear how the guns work, or how their features are better or worse than the competition.

I inspected three different series of guns, and a couple examples of all of them. We're going to work oldest to newest, as I did it while in the Armories, to try to get a sense of how Star evolved their designs over time.

The Si35, RU35 & TN35 sub-machine guns page is now about 25 times longer than it was before, and a lot has been made clear. So, if interested, go read it.

Far too much to summarize here, except to say: it's not even a straight blowback. This is the bolt assembly on this 1930s SMG!

Some questions remain unanswered, so I hope to sometime hear from some reader who has an SI 35 in their cabinet, or to make it to Spain and inspect the records or additional models of the gun and find the rest of the story.

Organizing my notes and cleaning up the photos takes a while, but over the next few weeks, or months, I will have more about the Z45 (which is not an MP40 at all), the Z62/63/70 series, and the Z84 which is a lot more interesting than we expected and I didn't even take it apart.

Stay tuned.