Bren L4 / .308 build

[Peter Laidler]

Just another thing about the L4 Brens and the remaining 303 Brens with Mk3 gun butts fitted Cal-50 and others that might be restoring them. A late modification was to put a sling loop on the top curvature of the butt plate. A GOOD idea but it was a good example of the office bound senior people not getting the whole picture. That's because when the guns were returned to workshops to have the butt plates modified (usually the big workshops would send a quantity of modified ones over for the unit Armourers to fit as and when), they'd be returned but the new deeper butt plate - with the looped extension on the top - wouldn't fit in the rifle and machine gun racks! Well, they WOULD, but it bent the new sling loop over and it broke!

Nobody was game to authorise the modification to the bolted-in gun racks. Another bit of Bren history. Has anyone got the EMER that shows the modification?