Bren MKIm restoration

[stencollector]

The lower is from a Lithgow gun rather than a Inglis gun and with that type of DP marking and the white paint I'd guesstimate this gun has seen some service in Australia and was rejected and DPd in the 1950s FTR programme.

I believe the lower is an early Canadian lower. The extra fins at the back seem to have been deleted earlier in production than the mk1M. I will have to watch the few remaining guns I have left to confirm the serial numbers of that style a lower. I have seen a number of these lowers, and all Cdn marked.

This gun came from a local source, and was released out of Canadian service as a cut up. A local machinist reassembled a number of them back in the early 90s as dewats. He intentionally made the bodies shorter so the hammer on the piston group would not make it to the firing pin. He retained about 15 or 20 in his collection. These were recently released for sale.



I have had more than a few of these pass over my workbench for clean-up over the last decade or so. The source for the kits has now dried up.Many of the cut ups in this area were of the early mk1 and mk1m guns. I have found some very early examples from these kits, including a mk1m transitional gun as well as several in the first few hundred of production. Of all these Brens I have seen only 1 BSA marked lower and two BSA mk1 bipods. Everything else has been purely JI Canadian.

The white bands on the guns shown on Clark's gun are fairly typical of the Cdn DP brens, although the guy who did the rewelding on these often would repaint the band to disguise some of the welding and to visually re-align some of the shortened parts like the forward section/barrels.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Brit plumber]

I believe the lower is an early Canadian lower. The extra fins at the back seem to have been deleted earlier in production than the mk1M. I will have to watch the few remaining guns I have left to confirm the serial numbers of that style a lower. I have seen a number of these lowers, and all Cdn marked.

I'm about 99% sure its a aussie lower, I know of a late intermediate gun with matching lower which is the same as the early Enfield and Inglis type, and I know of a Mk1m in the M5100 range which has a matching Mk1m type leaving only a few hundred to have another variation. Lithgow is the only producer i've seen of this type, which has the lightning cuts but dosn't have the shaped portion around the selector etc. as per early Enfield and inglis guns.