Magazine cover and barrel nut locking assy

[smlemk111]

Hi All I see things are slow here on the forum. I am in the process of building A Mk1 and a Mk11 semi auto matic brens.I started last spring however my wife had a large remodeling project that wasted the entire summer. I am just now getting back to the project. I have the back portion and the front portion welded back together on the Mk11 leaving the weld in the magwell. I left .015 slop where the barrel nut goes but It has shrunk a few thtousands more than I thought I will shorten the barrel nut by using very fine emery paper on a peice of glass to keep it flat. I would like to remove the barrel nut keeper along with the mag cover dedent can someone please explain how. Thanks Alan Abramson

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[Peter Laidler]

You are going to have a REAL job of slimming down the barrel nut because they are literally diamond hard, believe me. That's the reason why we didn't discard them when we changed them because believe me, the nut would never wear out, it would be the interrupted barrel threads OR the front of the front area of the barrel nut recess (as the nut pushed the barrel rearwards to tighten it up OR the barrel bearing part of the body called the barrel collar. Might I suggest instead of fine emery paper, you use valve grinding paste on a sheet of plate glass or even a machine shop to grind the few .000"'s off.

To remove the plunger and retainer barrel nut......... Using a suitable punch, press the plunger down from the top. At the same time, from the front, press in the retainer, barrel nut against its spring load. Go on, and a bit more........... Now release the top plunger and it'll be free to drop out of the top. If it doesn't, just push it from underneath. Once it's out, allow the retainer barrel nut to come out of the front under the spring pressure. They'll be covered in thick dirty grease so you might need to wiggle them a bit.

As a little aside here, when the barrel seating face used to wear away, this would condemn a gun as ZF as it was a repair that could only be done at a Base workshop with factory facilities or at the Factory. So it is an example of a gun that would be sentenced ZF but would come back, eventually repaired as opposed to scrapped. The old barrel seating would be bored out and a new one pressed into place and made off
Might I suggest that you get the Skennerton SAIS booklet on the Bren, from BDL in SC. It's a good ready reckoner type book

[smlemk111]

Hi Peter Thanks for the help ,I was able to remove the plunger and retainer barrel nut using your instructions. I spent the afternoon removing a few thousands and I mean a just a few from the barrel nut , I used a fine emory paper with cutting oil on it on a sheet of glass to keep it flat as that is what I had on hand on a Sunday, I also rotated it in my hand a bit at a time a full 360 so i wouldn't get it out of shape. It fits fine now. You are certainly correct about them being hard, I am surprised being that hard that they arnt brittle. Again thanks, I hope to put up pictures as I get closer to the finish. I do have the big Bren book but not Ians, when is youir coming out. Alan Abramson

[Peter Laidler]

Further to this thread............. Does anyone out there in forumland own a Bren where the barrel seating in the body has been re-bushed. We used to see them as DP and in standard Mk2 and 3 .303" guise but I don't recall ever seeing a bushed 7.62mm L4 ex-Mk3 gun.

You can easily identify a bushed gun by the tell-tale ring where the new bush has been pressed into place. Show us a photo if you've got one.............

I dare say that some of the biggest Base workshops (but not the Command workshops.....) will have had the facilities to bore out and re-bush the bodies but in the EMER this was a ZF job

[Brit plumber]

Peter, Found this while going through some of my Bren stuff