Experimental Second Model .32 ACP Owen Submachine Gun
Developed by Australian Evelyn Owen, the Owen Machine Carbine became one of the most reliable and effective submachine guns of the Second World War. The prototype pictured above is an early factory prototype chambered in .32 ACP, rather than the final 9x19mm.
Owen began work on his design in 1938, hand building a .22 calibre prototype with an unusual drum magazine (see below). As he further developed his weapon at the Lysaght factory in Port Kembla the design evolved. The placement of the magazine changed a number of times and Owen built prototypes chambered in .32 ACP, .38-200 .45 ACP and 9x19mm.
The .32 ACP prototype pictured above loaded from the side, unlike the final Owen Gun which had a top-mounted magazine (see image #4). The 30-round magazine fitted into the left side of the receiver and was angled slightly down and to the rear. Presumably this was in an effort to aid reliable feeding.
Owen’s prototype .22 calibre Submachine Gun (source)
The Australian army requested a centrefire prototype chambered in .38-200, a rimmed cartridge. The engineers at Lysaght recognised this would pose problems with reliable feeding. Instead they sidestepped the .38-200 stipulation and in just three weeks developed a prototype chambered in the rimless .32ACP cartridge instead. Ingeniously the Lysaght engineers utilised a section of .303 SMLE barrel. The .32 ACP prototype was tested for the first time on the 30 th January, 1940.
The prototype has some of the later features of the production model with two finger-grooved pistol grips and a tubular receiver. The butt and trigger mechanism could be released by a spring clip on the right of the receiver. Similarly the barrel was also held by a spring clip but could be held in place by a threaded sleeve. These spring clips were later eliminated from the design. The Owen gun's receiver was later shortened but retained the distinctive compensator.
A later prototype Owen Gun chambering 9x19 (see image #4) was successfully trialed in 1942 and adopted by the Australian military. Between 1942 and 1945 Lysaght produced approximately 45,000 Owen Guns. They proved extremely reliable and remained in service into the 1960s. They saw action with Australian and New Zealand troops during World War Two and later in Korea and during the Malayan Emergency, Indonesian Confrontation and the Vietnam War.
Sources:
Images: 1 2 3 4
Owen’s Australian Patent for his Machine Carbine, #115,974, 19/02/43, (source)
The Australian Owen SMG, Forgotten Weapons, (source)
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