George Lucas, taking a well educated gamble, decided to finance his much anticipated Star Wars sequel, with his own money. It is safe to say that the gamble handsomely paid off. The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980 to huge excitement and enormous box office. It remains many peoples favourite movie of the franchise.

Along with the New Hope Blaster, the Prop Store collection also contains a Storm Trooper blaster from Empire. Although the basic overall look is the same the construction and detail is different. Firstly, this is a real gun that has been de-activated, a Sterling MkV sub machine gun. The majority of the New Hope blasters were cast and were never practical. (there were just a very few live fire guns) Like the ANH blaster this gun has a specially cut down magazine from 32 rounds to approximately 10. Perhaps most notably the Hengstler counter box is missing, changing the profile to a more elegant look. Also missing are the various buttons and add-ons which were put on the original gun to help disguise it. The ESB blaster is a much more robust prop. This gun does show evidence of some of those buttons suggesting this is a recycled live fire gun from the first movie The sight rail has been replaced by a sturdy box and the rubber draw runner “fins” on the original are now metal U shaped sections which have been screwed to the Sterling barrel.