Picked up a few Bren Chests

The title is a little bit misleading. It's not really a few but a few hundred. I had been watching the pile, which had been de-composing for the last 40 years, start to fall into itself, so I made the owner an offer which he hapily accepted. I bought them for the hardware, as it is used on other chests like the snipers, mortars, bren drums etc etc. Turns out many of the ones in the center of the pile were in OK condition. Even found a few surprises inside those that we opened. Many had the twisted wire cleaning rod with a return spring on it located in the holders in the lid. One chest even had a spent case with DA 43 PROOF marked on it.....something you don't see everyday.

Anyway, here are a couple photos of the pile now at home and partially covered.

wow cool chest love to have one of those good deal for you

If the weather stays reasonable for the next little while I'll take some shots of the insides. There were slight differences between the marks in order to accommodate the different lengths of barrel and butts. I know there was discussion on this previously in an earlier thread.

I'll be parting with some of the better ones, but unless i am making a trip to the US for parcels, shipping from Canada to the US would be a killer.

Well done!!...nice to see they were not all burned for the scrap metal [one of John St.Amour's many appalling tales of the milsurp business]. We could use one for our Mk 2 but it pains me to think what the shipping to PEI would be...would definitely be interested in a couple of cleaning rods and any other useful bits you find however. The box we do have is likely the only one left on the Island...it sat [ with Mk 1 and complete AA rig] in the Charlottetown Hotel for the duration of WW 2 into the 60s when it was obtained by a local collector [ RIP Louie ] Sadly the contents and all the AA bits [drums ,etc.] are long gone. The story goes that it was issued for local AA defence ,stored in the hotel which was the highest flat roof in town at the time ,then forgotten until rescued.

Postage to PEI would appear to be around the $50 mark.
I still have to sort out the small stuff from the crates. I did get 48 filled Bren wallets in the deal.

well if you ever make the trip over the boarded please remmeber me would love one for display in my shop. good luck.

They look really impressive with the front cut out and replaced with perspex/oroglass so that you can see the gun and kit inside especially if the magazine down the front face is sectioned to show it loaded with inert ammo. We had one like that at the Small Arms School.

I hope that you make a killing on them Stencollector

Not out to make a killing, but got tired of seeing the pile getting worse and worse over the decades.

Interesting to note that of the whole pile, I only spotted one British chest, which was identifiable by the extra wooden trim/guard along the side with the the hasps.

That guard thing wasn't one of our moidifications. I think it was an Australian thing.

There was a high degree of uniformity during the manufacture of the chest because the internal walls of the front and rear are painted a dull/matt orange colour preservative paint while the lid and base are painted with a mid-grey paint. The screw-in fittings are not painted and this indicates to the layman that the chests were sub-assembled as sides, ends, lids and bases then finally fully assembled probably/possible elsewhere. This is certainly the view of Des Newport, a former wartime Elliots of Newbury (Ends marked EoN) worker who informed the author that the chests were sent elsewhere in ‘knocked down’ form for final assembly. He remarked ‘… …There was no skimping on them. The wood was good quality pine or birch with mitred edges, cut to an exact pattern on a multiple band saw contraption. … … we actually made thousands of them in ‘knocked-down’ form but being a young lad, I didn’t really know what they were until I saw them fully assembled during my National Service. Then I wished that we’d made them a bit lighter! Not all the chests are identical. Some later Canadian chests have several minor differences and those brought to the authors attention are the absence of the squared off section used to accommodate the grease tin, the insertion of a hinged spacer at the butt end that may be raised or lowered to suit a shorter or normal sized gun. Quite what the ‘shorter’ gun was is a mystery because both the Canadian Mk1 and 2 guns were the same length while the Mk2 with an overhung butt plate was 1” LONGER.

There were also the early and longer mk1 flash hiders. Combine that flash hider with the mk2 hanging butt and I don't think it would fit the chest.

One variation I have noted on these boxes was that one manufacturer seemed to use #2 Robertson drive screws as opposed to the slot drive screws on the vast majority of the chests. These chests also featured an extra set of corner braces near the bottom of the boxes. It would seem like the wood on these may have been a little higher quality than on the others, as they seem to have had a higher rate of survivability.

If I can find that one box with the guard in the pile, I'll have a better look at it and see if there are any signs of it's origin.

seams like a thats why they are still around an good shape. guess that is one good thing about military stuff it was made to last.

I seem to recall that while the earlier Mk1 type flash hiders appeared to be longer, the overall length of the guns remained the same. The overhanging butt plates did affect the chest and as a result there was a miscellaneous instruction to peel back the horsehair felt packing and add a tapered chamfer at the point where the overhand went into the chest. The lead-in chamfer would compress the gun buffer sufficient to allow the gun to be inserted tightly into the chest.

I have the exact wording somewhere............ just a minute............. Here goes

A minor problem presented itself with the introduction of the Mk2 gun in that the gun, being 1” longer due to the additional overhang of the butt plate, would not fit into the chest! The answer was that after May 1941 Bren chests were manufactured with a 1” wide x 1 ½” long (measurements vary somewhat… …) tapered/chamfered recess cut into the inside of the right hand end of the chest, opposite to where the butt is positioned. This chamfer is quite difficult to see as it is usually covered with horsehair matting. The overhang of the butt plate, which is itself chamfered, acts on the chamfer cut into the chest and the action of one on the other forces the butt slide to compress the piston buffer spring. With the gun now slightly compressed, it fits snugly into the chest. There it is, a slight manufacturing modification that will help to date a ‘true’ chest. This slight manufacturing variation was notified in ACI’s and described thus; ‘… …these modified guns should be inserted muzzle first into the left side of the chest. The gun should then be seated into the two crutches in the normal manner and in so doing, the rear butt strap will meet against the chamfer… … This will compress the recoil spring (Authors note: No it won’t, it’ll compress the SPRING, buffer, piston!) to afford the gun its correct seating position within the chest… …’

To date only three UK manufacturers of Bren chests have been identified. These are; Papworth Industries from Cambridgeshire, Bolton and Paul from Essex (the same parent company who manufactured the Defiant fighter) and Elliots of Newbury, bespoke furniture manufacturers who also manufactured Horsa gliders.

Just goes to show these "Gold mines" do appear from time to time;)

I have been mining this gold pit especially hard this year. If I were to list the items I purchased from there this fall along with some of the quantities, it would make a decent paragraph or two. Still a bit more to get yet.

Nice find SC.
Only ever seen Robertson screws on Canadian chests.
Any pics of anything unusual/interesting would be much appreciated.

I went through a pile of about 60-70 in the UK a couple of years ago and only came away with about 15 that were decent.The big problem I had was drying them out very slowly so they don't split and crack to buggery.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

To date only three UK manufacturers of Bren chests have been identified. These are; Papworth Industries from Cambridgeshire, Bolton and Paul from Essex (the same parent company who manufactured the Defiant fighter) and Elliots of Newbury, bespoke furniture manufacturers who also manufactured Horsa gliders.

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Make that 4 Peter - Beautility Furniture Ltd,London

ATB Kevin

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

.... the insertion of a hinged spacer at the butt end that may be raised or lowered to suit a shorter or normal sized gun. Quite what the ‘shorter’ gun was is a mystery because both the Canadian Mk1 and 2 guns were the same length while the Mk2 with an overhung butt plate was 1” LONGER.

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I had a bunch through my shop in the last week or two for stripping, and have two that are marked for the mkII Bren. They both have the little folding plate, but as well the chests are 1" longer than the standard chests, so it would appear the folding plate was folded up for standard length Brens, and folded out of the way for the extra length Brens, which would be those with the overhang on the buttplate.

There were some other minor changes to the interior of the box including the deletion of the oil can holder as Peter mentioned.

That seems to have solved another mystery S/C! When seen against the chests, the wording of the miscellaneous instruction isn't ambiguous at all. But it shows that what we occasionally think of as some manufacturers or Armourers shop 'odd-balls' are in fact made to suit a current need.

I bet there will be a load of other odd balls among the lot you have.

I had the chance to go through hundreds and hundreds of mostly full Bren magazine boxes. I hoped to find loads of variations. There were plenty of variations-on-a-theme, all very slight manufacturing variations - you know the sort of thing, such as different handles, steel wrapped, folded and punched, webbing, the odd early(?) leather. More Mk1's than I thought still existed of course but in the great scheme of things, very few early magazines. BUT a lot of Enfield 1954/5 wrapped ones.......... All going straight to the crusher as what we call 'classified scrap' and then to the scrap yard!

I hope that you get the opportunity to cut the front out of one and fit a perspex/oroglas front to it. Really does show the gun and contents off especially with the front fittings screwed into the glass and the front facing magazine sectioned to show some inert rounds

I believe I saw this stack of Bren Chests at Westborne (spelling) Surplus in Manitoba about 1970. I am delighted that stencollector has saved them.