Bren MK2 Butt repair

[Vincent]

My whole working life has been spent in the metal working/engineering industry and so I'm interested to see how metal objects are designed and made and also the differences between manufacturers. Even poor designs such as the overhung butt plate are of interest to me and worth saving.

I am the same way. I like to see the design evolution of guns, what worked and what didn’t. The overhung Mk2 butt plate is a good example of one of those things that didn’t work out.

I am guessing the overhang was intended to be a simplified replacement for the troublesome Mk1 folding shoulder plate?

[Peter Laidler]

Yes, it was Vince. But it's also an example of 'the bigger picture'. When it was sanctioned nobody thought to ask whether the new Mk2 Bren would fit into the chest. And the overhang meant that it didn't. Well, it did, after a fashion. The end of the chest had to be modified to create a shallow cam so that the gun body compressed the butt slide buffer in order that the gun would fit. If you have a chest without the chamfer to allow the overhanging butt plate to slide in, then it's probably a pre Mk2 gun chest.

I bet there's hundreds of Mk1 Bren nerds/fiends secretly checking to see whether their Bren chest is the correct one now. LISTEN...... THEY'RE ALL CORRECT.........!

[browningautorifle]

The end of the chest had to be modified

One more thing you needed to be doing in the shop...

[tankhunter]

[QUOTE=Yet more tales for the future and I am sure Tanky and Peter know of several.............bloody PARA's ![/QUOTE]

Gil, Mine come under the heading of 'Horror Stories'!...... I made many good Friends with Airborne Collegues, & thanks to Facebook. I am still able to keep in touch with most of them!

[Flying10uk]

One of my chests has the felt lining hacked out at each end I would guess as an "improvised modification" to accept a MK2 Bren. I haven't actually got round to trying it yet but it makes the interior of the chest look a bit of an eyesore.

[Peter Laidler]

There was a miscellaneous instruction for this but I wouldn't imaging anyone bothered too much with the niceties of it all. As a rule, stuff that came in a chest was usually put into the armoury and the chests were stored somewhere, out of sight in case they were ever needed again - which was usually never!! At Tidworth, the whole miniature 25 yard range firing point was raised up on all sorts of chests of one sort or another. Bren, Browning, No4T........ If a, say, Bren had to be back-loaded to Ordnance for some reason or another then the operation was usually preceded by a phone call between RQMS's and thereafter, instead of returning the whole CES, just the gun would go back and a new one would come in return. So long as the paperwork/trail all tied up everyone was happy