Australian L4's

Hi all, does anyone know the history of 7.62 Bren conversions for Australia? As I understand Lithgow only made barrels and mag's as Enfield wouldn't give them the rights to the conversion process. So what did they do? Did they buy complete guns or did they just buy the converted bodies from Enfield and build them using other MA components? How many were there? Any info on the subject appreciated.

Cheers

DOD

Any other info on the subject............ THere is MUCH info on the subject, hundreds of pages but time and space is short.

Aust purchased almost 1100 L4 guns complete plus some stockpiles bought back from Malaya/South Vietnam(?).
They made barrels as there was no patent protection on them as they were already licenced to make them and it was just a calibre change
Magazines were the same but Oz was careful not to copy the Enfield patented design. Sterling allowed Lithgow to make mags for the F1 free of charge on condition that there were no foreign sales of magazines. Foreign buyers of F1's had to get magazines from Sterling
Oz COULD do the conversion to L4 but there was a huge royalty payment to make. This was to prevent Lithgow undercutting Enfield - as she did with the L1A1's - on foreign sales.
Enfield did formulate the conversion of a Mk1 gun (the experimental L4A7) just for Australia but by then......

Hold your horses because this long sorry saga is about to be published shortly

Thanks Peter,

Good to here the books not far away, I'll get the full story when it goes to print no doubt, thank you for the info in the meantime. Was / Is there a serial number range for the 1100 complete guns supplied?

Regards

Daniel

Not that I know of. They were a mix throughout the range because some were 'new' conversions, some old stocks and some from the 60's

I know the L4's where a cherished piece of kit for the guys at shooting comps. They won nearly every MG shoot until they finally withdew them form service an dthe last I saw was late 90's early 2000. In a reserve unit. Kept up to then as an enemy weapon with Blank fire barrel. the only disadvantage was the number of mags to be carried. they where issued with a box of 10 but with front line ammo issue being 800 on the gun and about 400 interspersed in the section it became a hassle to carry the mags. Thats why the belt fed was easier to carry and disperse the ammo load. IMHE
Cheers
Ned

I didn't realise that they'd lasted that long in Oz. All the Infantry Companies had them in Malaya for jungle warfare as the M60 and GPMG/L7 belts made movement really difficult. You could sort-of fit a 44 pattern water bottle pouch onto the L7 to take a 60 round belt but you culdn't do the same to the M60's.

Yep, the Bren was certainly the thing for the jungle

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

I didn't realise that they'd lasted that long in Oz. All the Infantry Companies had them in Malaya for jungle warfare as the M60 and GPMG/L7 belts made movement really difficult. You could sort-of fit a 44 pattern water bottle pouch onto the L7 to take a 60 round belt but you culdn't do the same to the M60's.

Yep, the Bren was certainly the thing for the jungle

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yeah for sure they kept the ammo clean and dry and where certainly used or issued as a second gun in the section in the tropics. 2/4RAR definately used them in the late 80's for this purpose. Thye where not disliked by any stretch of the imagination it was just that the frontline ammo issue changed and was a bit hard to cope in mags. definately did not detract from a beautiful weapon and besides the mag 58 would be my LMG of choice.

cheers
Ned

And as far as I know. Apart from Museums in Oz being offered a few free of charge.
NO guns were allowed to be sold off to the Public for deactivating & the like.
All went for the chop under the guillotine.....:crying:

The cleaning kit's webbing equipment & some mags were sold off though.
Not as nice as a complete gun though!......:(

Since I've got a de-ac one did the NZ L4s come from the same sources as the Australian ones. Or where they all new made?

ATB

Tom

I've picked up a few Aussie Bren bits, Tool roll, straight 30 rd mag, L2A1 type long sling, pouches, manual.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...labelled-1.jpg

Are you saying that you've got a deactivated L4 or a deactivated NZ L4 Tombear? I operated with NZ troops during the same era and outside NZ, they were sourced from pooled Ordnance stocks but internally, they were a one-off purchase with spare parts presumably being supplied by Australia in the same way as spare parts for the L1A1's. Don't forget that there were only a few parts that were specific to the L4 series so it didn't cause a logistical problem