The long road of my Bren gun, which is nearly home...

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Ian

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FedEx says it will be arriving at the FFL tomorrow... :D

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It's a semiauto rebuilt Bren. It started life as a an 8mm Mauser Bren built at Inglis under Chinese contract - the receiver is dated 1943 and still has the original Chinese markings:

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It was shipped to China, and used by the Nationalist forces, until being captured by Communists at some point. They eventually converted it to 7.62x39mm, in order to use the same ammo and magazines as their recently-acquired AK rifles. The 8mm barrel was bored out and sleeved to 7.62mm, the mag catch, ejector, and dust cover were modified, and back into service it went.

Eventually it became obsolete and was put into storage until an American importer purchased it in a batch of guns, brought it into the US, and chopped the receiver into a parts kit.

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After who knows how many owners, I got my hands on it, and sent it to Texas to be resurrected as a newly built semiauto. And now it's almost back to me! With any luck, I will be able to pick it up in time to run it in the local 2-gun match this weekend...
 

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That is so beautiful. I carried one in combat in the late 70's. Of interest was the fact that they were chambered for .303 but the South African forces rechambered for the standard NATO 7.62 round which we fired in the Brens. The breech block was never altered but believe it or not it still picked up the round and ejected it perfectly. There was an occasional stoppage. We did not have the high capacity curved mags and used the standard FAL mag. This was great as the ammo was interchageable. One tracer every 5 bullets so we could sweep fire in front of the attacking force.

No to bore you but our war theatre was in desert conditions, hot and dry. I cleaned ALL the oil from my slides and moving parts and used talcum powder exclusively as a lubricant, it was wonderful, while other brenners were having issues I never did, I then did my FAL the same and would shoot on Gas mark 5.5.

The Bren will always have a soft spot in my heart.

Another quick story. The S.A forces had a standard fitness test and that was to run a 1.5 mile distance in gear with rifle, steel helmut etc. but what we called skeleton webbing which was our battle webbing. We had to do this in under 12 min. I was always in the late 11's, right at the back getting sworn at and abused.

When we went into ops and I swapped my 3kg rifle for a 10kg Bren. All patrols were like walking on the beach. Unbeknown to me I was building huge strngth and stamina as I was also carrying a disproportionate number of magazines due to the ineptitude of my bren No.2.

Well we get back States side as you would say and we get to run a 1.5m race. Gone is the 10kg Bren, the mags and in place I have this featherlite FAL. First race back complete in 08:13 min and third place, only two provincial athletes would beat me, I could never beat them.
 
Can't wait to see that in a 2 gun video.

Was it crazy expensive like the Ohio Ordnance 1918A3?
 
The Royal Marines were using the 7.62 NATO-chambered Brens in combat (L4 series, in British service) as late as the Falklands War.

The Canadian Army trained me on the Bren back in the '50s. Shortly afterwards, the Bren was replaced by the heavy-barreled FN C2 squad automatic, which was a poor substitute in my opinion.

I was fortunate to own a full-auto .303 Bren in Canada from'1975 to 1997, when we moved to the USA. I was not allowed to bring the Bren with me, of course. That gun was eventually seized by the police because my $^%#*&^%$ brother-in-law REMOVED it from its legal "home of record", which was my mother-in-law's home in Edmonton AB.

He has criminal associates and shady dealings, and we didn't want the gun in such hands.... so WE turned him in to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The gun was later melted-down in a police disposal of seized guns. A sad end to a great gun, but better than having it mis-used by some damned druggie.

We have had no contact with the BIL for at least ten years.

"You can pick your friends, but not your relatives."
 
I remember handling one some two decades ago, thinking since it was a "Light" Machine Gun, it would be well, lighter, than the issue GPMG (C6/FN MAG 58). Was swiftly disabused of that notion, and gained new respect for an uncle who was a Bren gunner in Korea.
 
The sights are mounted precisely one inch to the left of line-of-bore.

Even for us left-handers, this presents no particular difficulty.

There was a special zeroing target for the gun, used at close range (25 yards?) It had the bold-printed aiming mark, with an off-set "shadow"-printed set of rings to determine the actual point of impact. This was to ensure that the gun was zeroed with the bore and sights parallel to each other, so that line-of-sight and line-of-bore never intersected. The two 'lines' stayed exactly one inch apart all the way downrange (at least in theory).

The Bren could be field-stripped BLINDFOLDED in thirty seconds, and re-assembled blindfolded just as quickly. Firing pin or extractor could be changed in 45 seconds. Mag change? Maybe two seconds or less with a good #2 man. Barrel change in five seconds, gas-regulator adjustment under ten seconds.

I never saw a broken part in a Bren, but we intensively practiced changing them .

Truly a wonderful weapon, but extremely expensive to build today. The machining requirements were incredible. Perhaps investment-casting could change that, but latter-day production methods may not be adaptable to the design.
 
Very nice! Same folks in Texas who are building up my semi auto FG-42 now? Glad they are done with yours... more time to complete mine! ;-)

Have shot a full auto ZB-26, the original Czech version and the "BR" (Brno) in "BREN" (Brno-Enfield). Very nice bit of kit in every way. Good enough for Enfield to enter into an agreement to copy with improvements as the BREN (all Capitals in correct spelling, as it's BR and EN, as above). Germans used the ZB-26 in WW-II as the MG-26(t). The last real BREN's I saw in service was in Belieze (former British Honduras) a ways back, local constabulary still had them and carried them on maneuvers. Made friends and handled them, but never got a chance to shoot them. Don't think the local constabulary ever shot them either, to tell you the truth,



Willie


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MAN, they did pretty work putting that back together! Great score Ian! We'll be watching for the vid.
 
To add to my previous anecdotes.

The Bren was a rather noisy gun to cock, if you encountered enemy forces while on patrol and had the element of surprise you would not want to give that up with a noisy cocking action.

What I would do was to cock the gun and then partially insert the 20 round magazine, this mean that it tilted forward slightly. The minute you made contact you merely hit the magazine into place, this immediately released the slide / breechblock which in turn picked up a round and you were firing immediately. Not the safest practice but it was war and not training.

Such great memories, man I put rounds down those barrels. They were remarkably accurate and had no recoil to speak of. Firing at long distances you simple watched the tracers and corrected, no need for dialing in sights etc. When used as the support fire in platoon attacks you could comfortable lead the attacking sections by no more than 6 to 10 yards and both parties would be happy with the safety aspect. They would trust us implicitly and had to as the combat was always close range.
 
One feature of the .303 Brens that I REALLY liked was this:

The gun fires from the open bolt, so.....

When the magazine ran empty, the "piston group" (gas piston, breechblock etc) was stopped in the rearward position BY THE MAGAZINE FOLLOWER.

As soon as the empty magazine was removed, the piston group moved a fraction of an inch forward and was stopped by the SEAR.

Therefore, when the loaded mag was installed, all it took to resume firing was a trigger squeeze.

Andrew, a question.... I read "somewhere" ( that's a BIG place) that the 7.62 NATO Brens did not have this feature, due to the vastly-different magazines involved. The .303 mags had a VERY heavy and sturdy machined-steel follower with big "ears" (?) on the rear to catch the piston group when the mag went empty, and the L1A1 (FAL) magazines certainly lack this provision. Do you remember?

The comment on spelling the name with all capitals is correct.... I'm just too old and habituated to change now. The same applies to the 9mm Sten submachine gun.... it should be "STEN", indicating its origin from designers Shepherd and Turpin, along with the ENfield Small Arms armory... hence, "STEN".

I do believe that over a loooong lifetime and owning hundreds of firearms.... my all-time favorite is the Bren light machine gun. (It is indeed "light" compared to its companion in service, the Vickers watercooled "medium" machinegun..... hence the terminology)

The Marks 3 and 4 in the Bren series were several pounds lighter than than the Mark 1 or Mark 2 versions, but I never found the 1/2 guns unduly heavy. Of course, when one is eighteen, things can seem a wee bit different....
 
Just got back from the 2-gun match...video is coming! For now here's an action shot (caught right in mid-shot - note the gas venting out the piston assembly)

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A couple initial thoughts...

First off, the front grip is a repro experimental piece form IMA - it would not originally have been on the gun, but I needed a way to hold/shoot it offhand.

It's HEAVY. According to the book, it's ony a pound or two heavier than the Madsen LMG I shot in one of these matches a few months ago, but it's longer and not as well balanced. Great off the tripod, but I had serious trouble shooting it standing (not that it was designed to be shot that way, of course).

Recoil in 7.62x39 is trivial. It's possible to fire 3-5 round bursts that are actually fairly effective, because the muzzle hardly moves. Try that in a .303 semiauto Bren (or any other full-power semi) and you'll have a much larger group. The big rear aperture stay nicely in view when you shoot, and overall it's one of the most effective and shootable "semiauto machine guns" I've had a chance to play with.

Overall, I came in dead last place in the match. :p That was due in part to my problems shooting offhand, and partly to a malf in three of the four stages. I had one dud round, one round that didn't feed properly (I was using big softpoints), and one round that got stuck in the receiver during ejection (probably traceable to a 39mm casing in a receiver designed for a 57mm cartridge). SMG's workmanship on the gun is outstanding.
 

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So is that "Iron Man" class, or "Heavy Metal" class, or is there some division even more ponderous? Like, "aught ta have wheels" class? :D
 
Sadly, the bipod put me into Open...they didn't anticipate LMGs when they wrote the rules. :evil:
 
Andrew, a question.... I read "somewhere" ( that's a BIG place) that the 7.62 NATO Brens did not have this feature, due to the vastly-different magazines involved. The .303 mags had a VERY heavy and sturdy machined-steel follower with big "ears" (?) on the rear to catch the piston group when the mag went empty, and the L1A1 (FAL) magazines certainly lack this provision. Do you remember?

If I remember correctly on the return stroke (mag now empty) the piston group would hold in the cocked position and then on insetion of a new mag activation of the trigger was required to get going again. It was rather precarious however (not being original design), the hard downward smack that I would use to fully insert the magazine would appear to have been enough kinetic energy to release the sear without squeezing the trigger.

34 years ago, you are being cruel to me :D.

Not to hijack the OP but I think that stories and pic's are essential to the history of the Bren.

Another recollection, assumimg my memory could be trusted. When we walked patrol I had a had a total of 60ea 20 round magazines between us. The Bren no 2 was responsible to carry his own personal 10 mags for his FAL and then the spare barrel and additional mags such that the load was spread evenly. The Bren no 1 could commandeer these personal mags if required.

My no 2 was pretty useless and I ended up with 38 mags. One perched in the Bren and 36 in 18 pouches and one in a pocket. I had to specially fashion my webbing to achieve this. A pair of mags weighed about 1.5kg's and the Bren about 10.4kg's giving a combined weight of 39kg's plus we had to carry ALL our own water (5l) as there was precious little. So my pack without food was in the order of 44kg's (97lbs) perhaps now my fitness and stamina levels reported earlier make sense.

Any way the story is that due to this mass and space that I could not carry ration packs or any bulky heavy food so the work around for this was to take "Wheetbix" which is a wheat based breakfast cerial. To crush this into a plastic bag, sprinkle with sugar and powdered milk, just add water and hey presto. All I ever ate on patrol was this concoction, it was terrible. Sometimes someone would have mercy on me and give me unwanted items from the ration packs.

A photo of my actual Bren I carried with the mags I personally carried. It is a photo of from my album, time has ravaged the pics.

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A typical waterhole in the soft sand, you had to strain the protein life forms out and you were left with disgusting brackish water, but is was water none the less.

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Our 10 man patrol (Section) me in the middle bottom with my baby. Note the rifle grenades as well.

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Forward defense trenches.

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Apologies for the poor quality.
 
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