Bren Magazine Fillers

[Flying10uk]

Thanks for the information chaps which explains things and I like the bit about the lawn mower, Peter, which made me laugh. My only experience of Brens has been with D.P.s in the cadets years ago and in more recent years deacs. I seem to recall being instructed by sergeants in the cadets, after filling the S.L.R. mag, to give the back of the mag a sharp tap into the palm of the other hand in order to ensure all the rounds were up against the rear of the mag and this was suggested because it was felt that it helped with the feed??? If this is correct was similar action taken after filling the L4 7.62 mags?

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[browningautorifle]

give the back of the mag a sharp tap into the palm of the other hand in order to ensure all the rounds were up against the rear of the mag and this was suggested because it was felt that it helped with the feed???

The book specifically forbade striking the magazines. End of text...

[Peter Laidler]

Don't suppose tapping the back of the mag in the hand would do any harm at all but feel sure that NOT tapping it wouldn't cause a feed fault either. But after a 600 to 100 yard run-down and mag changes, barrel changes and stopping to pick up dropped mags, mags getting battered about in your pouches etc etc and being chased and shouted at by well meaning DS like Muffer and BAR the mags still seemed to work properly.

[tombear]

What about removing crown bottle tops with the lips of the mag? I read somewhere that it was such a problem that when the South Africans designed the R4 they incorporated a bottle opener in the design....

It will be a real shame if that's just a myth!

ATB

Tom

[TactAdv]

I read somewhere that it was such a problem that when the South Africans designed the R4 they incorporated a bottle opener in the design....

It will be a real shame if that's just a myth!

Tom

Nope.....SA had no part in it originally......the bottle opener was -ALWAYS- part of the IDF requirement from the beginning days of the Galil program, but it ended up ONLY becoming a production part of the ARM model (its actually used to hold the bi-pod legs in place)....OFFICIALLY. Evidently, long after the only remaining production model Galil became a late run of the short 'SAR'/"Glilon" model, they were using up already on hand parts, and many SAR's were fitted with the the ARM rear handguard plate, against proper model designation. Most of the ones that Action Arms imported here in the late 80's came in this way, but as time went on they were either cut down, or replaced for the normal AR/SAR pattern. Here is my factory original SAR; you can clearly see the cut-down ARM rear plate as it is different from a normal AR one.

Attachment 66900Attachment 66901

They even appeared on the very first rear LMG hand guard mount ring even when they (IMI, at the time) was still using imported VALMET receivers to experiment with before they started to spin up at Ramat Ha Sharon plant to make their own indigenous receivers. It is clearly visible in even the most primitive assembled pre-production prototypes, long before IDF settled on any final configuration.

I actually was able meet in person Uziel Gal shortly before his death here, and that was part of a specific series of questions that came up in a lengthy discussion from a historical perspective of just what part did VALMET actually play in all this.

-TomH

[skiprat]

Well the ORIGINAL SA80 bayonet had a bottle opener on the cross piece.... ( not fitted to the later ones despite what the Skill at Arms say)

[Peter Laidler]

There was a LOT of discussion about the then 'new' SA80 Bayonet that hopefully researchers in the future will write about. In short, it got out of hand with different suggestiong being ried and implemented - and rejected by the different people involved in it. Eventually common sense prevailed after Major Tony Bxxxxx (a truly great bloke to work for.....) wrote a long blurb to the effect that it would be cheaper to give everyone in the Army a Leatherman multi-knife than pursue some of what everyone was expecting of a bayonet.

His piece of stunning commonsense that sealed the fate of the bottle opener thing was that there was no record of any soldier ever suffering from thirst or drought or dehydration caused by not being able to open a bottle. You don't need a magazine......... you can hook a bottle top off with virtually anything

[Peter Laidler]

Why does anyone in the known universe need a bottle opener when it's so simple to open a bottle. It's not that a bottle opener is a multi-use item! Didn't everyone watch their dad open a beer or lemonade bottle with the blunt end of a spoon handle! I would have thought that a tin-opener would have been a more useful bit of kit. In fact we supplied a basic tin opener in out compo rations - but not a bottle opener!

Common sense prevailed in the UK Military and the Director of Infantry put an immediate stop to such nonsense

[TactAdv]

Why does anyone in the known universe need a bottle opener when it's so simple to open a bottle.

It keeps engineers employed.

Attachment 66904

[Flying10uk]

Is the SA80 bayonet with the bottle opener still on it of something of a rarity on the collectors/surplus market? Although there seems to be plenty of SA80 bayonets for sale I have never seen one with the bottle opener still attached on the surplus market. Was the bottle opener part ground off on all examples in service/storage?