Well, well........Plastic carry handles & Uzi front sights!!

[TactAdv]

Just got in a few more South African/DENEL/Lyttleton Engineering .308/7.62mm barrels today, and they came with a couple neat surprises. The chrome lining is greatly appreciated, but these little tidbits are even more fun.

Have a gander at the attached pictures. All of them came with black colored plastic molded carry handles....strangely enough considering the time-frame they were made....in the original Mk I pattern form. Would've guessed they would have copied the Mk II pattern for the mold by then, especially since most other S.A. 7.62mm barrels I have seen on both sides of the water have wooden Mk II style grips.

Other neat thing, REALLY surprising for a Bren, is that somewhere along the way they ditched the standard blade front sight arrangement for a standard Uzi adjustable post (azimuth & elevation) taken in total right from the early Uzi SMG.......which they were making there too......kind of a neat mix of parts/guns, etc. And, why not.......

Enjoy.
-TomH

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[tankhunter]

The S/Africa armed forces had embargo's levied against them by the UK. During that latter part of the Appartide regime. Meaning one of many areas of 'Warlike Stores' would not be supplied by Us.
They are ingenious engineers in SA. & obviously this is one of many ways they chose to overcome the problem of spares supply.
It makes sense to Me, if you are manufacturing a certain component. To continue running off a few more thousand of them & THEN tear down the production line jigs & moulds. To Reset up for a production run of a different part.

I would assume that Barrels that needed 'Normal' original pattern sight blades. When the unit Armourer ran out of spares. Were back loaded to main workshops. To have the new pattern of front sight bracket & sight fitted. So the barrel was still perfectly usable.

They carrying handle type, is a logical progression of manufacturing. Plastic/Bakerlite would have been far quicker & indeed cheaper to produce!

I admire the way they got around a lot of problems due to Embargo's. Just shows, 'Necesscity is the Mother of invention'!.........

[Peter Laidler]

The UK were looking into going down the plastic route as per the GPMG Butt and L1A1 rifle idea for a couple of years in the early 80's and the Co that produced the L1A1 furniture (I seem to think that they were from Manchester but feel free to correct me) had already produced some suitable samples to be trialed by the Marines at Lympstone(?) who retained some L4 guns for tactical reasons well after they were obsolete.

The cost for those remaining L4's against the quantities required for the contract to be worth-while against the impending 'new' (and ill fated.....) LSW L86 made it uneconomic. But the last laugh so to speak was that a new order of pistol grips had to be re-ordered to maintain thjose guns in reserve and in service.......... Yep....... made from wood by Harrison from York

[scoobsean]

Interesting. Do they have the FAL flash hider with the serrated mouth? I would like to change mine for a GPMG/L1A1 style, but a see that the ATF rules mean that they have to be permanently fixed in place.

[WallyG.]

FYI... The SA 7.62 barrels also have been seen with plastic MkII carry handles. I have one and passed another along to KEV. The really hard items to source for these guns are the brown plastic pistol grips and MkII butt stocks.

[TactAdv]

FYI... The SA 7.62 barrels also have been seen with plastic MkII carry handles. I have one and passed another along to KEV. The really hard items to source for these guns are the brown plastic pistol grips and MkII butt stocks.

Kev sent some pictures of the grip & stock. Wild!

Question.....since we've seen some of these plastic barrel carry handles here (USA), has anyone also ever seen either the SA plastic stocks or grips?? I'd love to acquire a set...... (Hint).

(Also, if anyone wants any of the SA 7,62mm Mk II barrels, pls PM me. A few more are available I believe.)

-TomH

[WallyG.]

PM sent.