Bren Gun talk this Morning

[Simon P]

I thought I would share these pictures from the Talk this morning at The Herts & Essex Shooting Association (Historical Section). We have Monthly talks / lectures on Historic weapons, and this month was the turn of the Bren Gun.

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[browningautorifle]

Question, are these guns all dewat? What's the routine on that over in the UK?

[Simon P]

Unfortunately they are, we do not normally have lectures with displays of deactivated weapons, but this is the only way we can own bren guns, last months talk was on the Boys Anti Tank rifle which concluded with shooting one on our 30M indoor range using the .22 adaptor. Several of our members have these including one chambered in .50 BMG.

Very basically: The barrel is slottted, pinned to the receiver with the pin through the front of the chamber so that it can not chamber a round & welded in place, plus the breach block face is ground approx 45 deg. The barrel can not be removed.

[browningautorifle]

Other than that, can the weapon be stripped and manipulated? And the last Bren with the forward grip, is it the lightweight "airborne" gun?

[Simon P]

They can be stripped down except any thing reliant on the barrel removal, ie the breach block assembly can be fully removed, they can also be cocked & dry fired. The one on the AA mount is a pre 1995 deact cut away version which has a removable barrel, which allowed fitting of the 100 round drum magazine.

Yes the bren with the forward grip is the airborne version, all but three of the Brens were from one mans collection, he said that he had around 30 in the collection.

[browningautorifle]

I've used most of the marks and models in my time. I guess the one I liked best was the Inglis 7.92 that we had fitted an Enfield 7.62 barrel and used the original mags. Worked perfectly. That was during the time of F.N.s and the CDN army was just changing to .556. I did 35 years Infantry so I got to try most of the weapons of the world at one time or another. Unfortunately the only Bren I owned was a dewat MK1 with a MK2 gas deflector welded on during the put together phase. It was OK in the long run, I sold it to a friend who still loves it today.

[Simon P]

We had around 25-30 people in the audience, and quite a few were ex national seviceman from the 1950s era, they were all having competions who could remember how to strip & assemble using the skeleton actioned bren. Even though it had been 50 years since one or two had handled a bren, it is something you do not forget, some were well in their 70`s and were doing it blindfolded like they were young soldiers again, you should have seen the grins on their faces.

[Longshaor]

Question, after the .303 was replaced by the L4 in 7.62mm did soldiers issued Brens continue to use the WWII spare barrel bag?

[Peter Laidler]

Quick answer, yes. And the Bren barrel bag, slightly modified, was being used unofficially as a holdall for SA80's until a few years ago.