This thread will describe the
Stormtrooper E-11 blasters as seen in SW. It will also try to show you the variants of these blasters and teach you about some of the greeblies/parts used to make them a genuine Star Wars Stormtrooper blaster.
This is about the REAL Star Wars, the Original Trilogy, the point of origin from where everything started,, and where the props, armors and helmets were not perfect and idealized like they were in the Prequels, but in fact they were wonky and rough, and had dents, scratches and rubs, and were made by talented ILM artists in work-shops, and not by CGI.
The fantastic Stormtrooper blaster remains one of the most iconic sci-fi weapons of all times.
Below a pic of an original screen used Stormtrooper blaster from ANH & ESB (helmet is ESB only, but most likely it was an ANH used helmet with black repainted frown) - see its scope:
In SW in many cases including Stormtroopers they used real working weapons. Thus if not deactivated it would be a REAL weapon which could shoot bullets, which is not allowed on many countries.
That is why in ESB and especially on ROTJ Lucas didn't even use real Sterling sub-machine guns anymore, but went instead in many cases with resin copies of Sterlings upgraded as E-11 Stormtrooper blaster. In the end this is the closest thing to what was used in A New Hope. It is a replica only because it replicates what was used in the movies, but otherwise it uses exactly the same components used by ILM.
You could read more about the weapons of Star Wars here:
http://www.partsofsw.com/index.htm. Or you can look here in the
Behind the Scenes section:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/E-11_blaster_rifleQuote: "The E-11 blaster rifle prop was built from a British-made Sterling L2A3 sub-machine gun. To give the actors something to react to and to give rotoscoping artists timing reference when animating blaster bolts, the E-11 rifle props in the original trilogy—which were still fully operational firearms—were loaded with blank cartridges that were then fired to provide a practical effect. Because of this, expended 9mm casings can be seen ejecting from the props in several scenes in A New Hope, particularly during the assault on the Death Star's detention level. This can also be seen briefly in a closeup of Lando firing one in The Empire Strikes Back."
The pic below shows a real Sterling (used for ANH and ESB E-11) and an ROTJ E-11 blaster which is a Model Gun Corporation conversion - thus they are not quite the same (read below this thread and understand the differences between ANH, ESB and ROTJ Stormtrooper blasters):
And a comparison of the blasters I have: Sterling SMG (without Hengstler at the time I took the photo), MR (I used to have 2 MR blasters, one complete with everything, and one loose which I sold), SDS, and Hasbro (unmodified).
The Master Replicas version is quite cool, but is about 90-95% accurate. The cocking mechanism (handle) and the spring on the right side of the real SMG is completely missing on the MR, that part is just a bit dented as a shape to what it should have been there, but no real hole. I know there were 501st customizing it and cutting that out, but is a hell of a job to do it since MR is metal too.
The weight is almost identical on both SMG and MR, thus quite impractical for 501st for trooping - heavy and not very comfortable. Trigger on MR is not working, neither is the A/S selector switch. The folding stock is one of the cool things MR could have done to make it work - I've seen people upgrading MR E-11 to have folding stock and seems it was not very difficult. It is a bit tricky to completely unfold the stock on SMG, but once you get the trick it is really fantastic - you need to push the end cap of the blaster in and also push the underside button (they both have springs) and only then the stock will open up completely and fit in the back perfectly.
My T-tracks are more accurate than the MR ones, so is the scope (original M38 and M40). But MR scope seems to be an exact copy after M38/M40 tank scope anyway (so quite accurate), and not after M19 (which also were used on E-11 blasters, mostly on ESB though), of course the MR blaster scope has that red computer targeting grid, which is very cool on its own. The MR blaster is cleaned up, looking very pristine, also having all the specific gun numbers and codes removed (maybe because of the gun laws).
The SDS E-11 is copied after a similar real Sterling which belongs to CfO, and thus is very accurate, on some components even better than MR (SDS does have partial cocking mechanism and even a spring like tube inside, plus a Hengstler counter copy and metal cylinders), on others it looses some sharpness, but being made of plastic is kind of understandable. After all the SDS blaster, as being made of PVC tubing and plastic/resin, is excellent for trooping, but will look cool on display as well.
The Hasbro Stormtrooper blaster is what you see LOL, unmodified it looks very inaccurate, but with some upgrading kits it may look cool too. Of course there are other fan made blasters or kits like Hyperfirm or Doopydoos which are very accurate, but more expensive than Hasbro version.
In the end both MR and the SDS are quite accurate on their own, some work may be done on both to make them even more accurate, but they are very cool nevertheless. But none is even close to holding a piece like the real SMG. The seller told me I won't let it off my hands and he was totally right.
I also got the cool stand for it which I totally prefer to the regular MR mirrored stand since I always like stands that look like a real weapons rack for blasters and environment stands for studio scale vehicles, and mirror bases for elegant lightsabers or space fighters.
It seems there as many as 6 or even 8 different versions of E-11 in ANH (according to different scources), some with all greeblies (Hengstler counter and cylinders on the magazine - like SDS), some with just the Hengstler, some with just the cylinders (like Han's - and mine) and others with nothing (like MR).
I think this is
an interesting read about how deactivated guns are allowed but not replicas LOL. Really stupid...
