Owen Sub-machine Gun

[Neil Ashley]

Over the last 15 years large numbers of Vickers and Bren Machine Guns have been released on to the collectors market by the Australian goverment.

Is there a reason why no Owen Sub-machine have been released? Have they all been cut up or will they one day be released.

[alleramilitaria]

gold coast has some

Heres one good thing The Aussies Did use the forward Handgrip on the owen SMG and attached for a forward Grip on the Bren gun , This was done in the 50's in Korea. Big Mike

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by Neil Ashley
Over the last 15 years large numbers of Vickers and Bren Machine Guns have been released on to the collectors market by the Australian goverment.

Is there a reason why no Owen Sub-machine have been released? Have they all been cut up or will they one day be released.

Note that they weren't "Released on to the collector market", rather they were sold en mass to arms dealers, who then discovered that there was a significant UK market for deactivated WW2 weapons. Some of the Vickers and Brens were actually sold to the UK DOD. All of these were held as reserve stock at 21 Supply Battalion at Moorebank, and were finally declared of no further use in the early 90's.
The Owen was designed in the middle of WW2 and saw service in New Guinea and the Islands, and later in Korea and Vietnam. It was replaced by the F1 SMG in the 60's and was declared obsolecent with stocks disposed of in the 70's. At that time there was no international purchaser, so most were destroyed. I don't know of any F1's in collections yet, so perhaps they are still in storage?
However, some Owen's managed to escape and are in private collections:

[sapper740]

Originally posted by Tony Smith

The Owen was designed in the middle of WW2 and saw service in New Guinea and the Islands, and later in Korea and Vietnam.

Tony, have you or anyone else that we know ever seen a Charlton in the flesh? It's always been an interest of mine; emergency derivatives of existing weapons in order to supply an army with otherwise unattainable weapons. The Austen is another.
It's a little known fact that Canada had it's own "Charlton." During WW I Canada found that it had a large surplus of Ross rifles after it was discovered that they were unsuitable for trench warfare. The Ross' straight pull action easily lent itself to conversion to an autoloader so several were converted to make the Huot machine gun. I have a pic of myself holding one and if there's interest I'll scan the pic and post it.


CHIMO!

[Tony Smith]

The Lithgow SAF museum has a couple of "Homebuilt" models of autoloading SMLE rifles that were given it during the war as suggestions for manufacture. These were designed and made by backyard gunsmiths and some were more sucessful than others!

The Owen gun was designed by an enthusiast, Evelyn Owen, and his prototype samples were first made in .22RF and production samples made .32S&W and .45ACP, before final series production in 9mm. The Owen wasn't made at Lithgow, so they don't have much in the way of prototype examples of the Owen, but surely some museum must! I wonder where? AWM perhaps?

[alleramilitaria]

if anyone would like to have a replica owins gun let me know and i cna have some made up. minimum is 5 to get the ball rolling, cost would be $250 ea+shipping