Gateshead Firearms Dealer 1980s

[waterford103]

The first position as a director we have on file for Mr James Patrick Stokel-Walker was in 2012 at M G Arms (Arms Brokers) Limited. His most recent directorship was with M G Arms (Arms Brokers) Limited where he held the position of "Director". This company has been around since 29 Oct 2012.

[Death2Ticks]

Pat Walker Guns ... yep, that's the guy. Thanks to those who supplied his name. By the way, those Uzis and Galils WERE fully auto ('select fire') versions and not the 'crippled' versions; perhaps he imported them in to convert to semis, or not!

Zanes ... yep, you missed out on all the fun back in the day.

[25Pdr]

Pat Walker, he used to sell Brens/Stens Vickers etc. They were converted to semi auto and legally sold.

Guy in our club had a Bren and a Sten. The Bren seemed to just have the change lever prevented going full auto.

He even sold Tanks.

[HALODIN]

Wow... Sounds awesome, but you'd need a bloody big cabinet to get a Vickers in it. I would of had 2 Lewis guns on an AA tripod, just for kicks.

[Death2Ticks]

25Pdr's post above jogged my memory about how Pat did his conversion from full auto to semi. A small socket screw (allen screw), maybe 4mm dia, was let into the side plate at the 'select fire' position, the screw head prevented the selector lever from travelling across to the 'full auto' position. Yep, an allen key would have soon fixed that!!! I suppose there mustn't have been any guidance/standards for converting these before they were sold on the open market. I was offered one of the Mini Uzis but at the time I couldn't afford it. Happy days.

[Laurie]

No, the law of the time said 'permanently converted to semi-automatic operation'. Anything 'converted' in this way would have been 'unconverted' by a forensics technician in two minutes and been shown as anything but permanently

I used to occasionally shoot with a guy many years back who was into converted full-auto or selective fire stuff in a big way including what was described on his FAC entry as a '7.92mm rifle' which it was in the law of the time, but was a converted belt fed MG42 in actuality. The ordinary copper who inspected his stuff on a renewal (pre proper FEOs) had half a dozen fits and was straight off to the station to see what his inspector thought. Well, the armed response guys turned up with a van the same day and confiscated everything on suspicion of him owning an S5 and of course sent the MG42 off to some workshop somewhere where no doubt some technician used every trick in the book to get a burst out of it.

The laugh was that the owner had never managed to get it to fire at all, and the forensics guys soon found themselves in the same fix so they couldn't test it. Our laddy's father was a prominent local lawyer and was soon threatening the Chief Constable with all sorts of legal baseball bats if his son didn't get his stuff back which he soon did bar the MG42. Meanwhile whoever was testing it contacted the Royal Armouries and Imperial War Museum for assistance who put him onto Mauser which still has all the original drawings. To cut a long story short, they eventually got it firing having found some component had been incorrectly fitted, but obviously failed to get it to do anything naughty and after further threatening letters from lawyer-Dad very very reluctantly returned it with very ill grace indeed. The delighted owner then wrote a personal letter to the Chief Constable thanking him for his team having fixed the 'rifle'.

[HALODIN]

Good story, but I'm surprised they struggled to get it to work, the MG42 is quite a simple design.

[phaedra1106]

My first rifle was a Dutch AR10 sold to me by Pat and his friend John.

As I'd never shot one before they showed my how it functioned and how to open it for cleaning. I remember very clearly being told that it had been "converted" from full to semi-auto and that if I removed a screw holding a small metal bar in place I could turn the fire select lever to full auto!, he even pointed out the gas adjuster and told me to turn it if it wouldn't fire in bursts!.

While Pat was a bit of a character he had nothing on another local dealer named Rudi, anyone remember him? Great place to shop but only if he knew and liked you!

Happy days!! :)

[Gazoo]

And if you had short hair. He would not sell guns to anyone with long hair.
He was a barber....Rudi Sieber (not sure of spelling) told everyone he was in the luftwaffe during WW2 but was actually Dutch.
Having said that I now work with the dutch and any amount of them could be in the SS...in fact one dutch company just had to re-name a huge ship as it was thought to be in bad taste to name it after the SS officer as was originally planned !!!

[GarethM]

Ah, Rudi Seiber... "Would you like something for the weekend sir?"

Remember him well. I was very young, naive and waiting to get my hair cut. He came out with the most racist comments about the continuing use of gas chambers. Everyone else was nodding, saying "aye, you are right there Rudi, gassing is too good for them". I never went back.