Enfield made MkII Bren magazine well cover

[peregrinvs]

Hi,

I acquired one of the above yesterday and I'm a bit confused - why would RSAF Enfield be making this particular MkII Bren component? Did they start making them when they changed over to producing the Mk3 Bren?

Thanks,

Mark

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[Brit plumber]

AFAIK The Mk3 Bren used the Mk1 cover, what mark is shown for Enfield? Is it the ED logo? It could be that Enfield marked the component after a refurb but I dont know why they would on such a small component. I think KG or PL will have a better idea on this one.

[peregrinvs]

Yes, it has the ED logo and appears to be unissued.

[Peter Laidler]

That's a pretty philosphical question Peregrine! I always thought/assumed that The Mk2 Bren was totally outsourced and didn't use Enfields production capacity. Since both covers are fully interchangeable, I can't imaging the Enfield production supervisor agreeing to tool up for the simplified Mk2 type when the tooling for the original Mk1 was already up and running. But clearly, he must have!

But just one thought, are you sure that you have a Mk2 cover and not a slghtly shorter L4A 1 or 2 cover? These are actually slightly modified originals, converted during the gun conversion programme and marked with the DE logo. Both types were used during the conversion. We often used to find JI and DE marked L4A2 'shrouded' gas cylinder sleeves too. (You know, the thing that swings on the gas cylinder that the bipod hangs from.....). But these were just bog standard Mk1 production parts, machined away and converted to L4 spec, still carrying the old original marks PLUS the later DE mark too

On a 'same meat, different gravy' tangent, the magazine opening cover was one of the only pressed/fabricated parts of the Bren. Can anyone tell me the others? I think that there's only two or three across the whole Mk1 to L4A9 series.

First prize is an evening out with our newly 'outed' member of parliament. And a very nice boy he is too

[Brit plumber]

Mk1 Butt plate (Little bit of welding),
Magazine body and top plate (Again, a bit of welding)

[Peter Laidler]

Ah, I knew you'd be in there BP...... Nearly all there but I wasn't going to include the magazines. Just a couple of bits to go. Come on, someone MUST want an evening out with Crispin..........

Any views on the DE Mk2 parts by the way?

[Kev G]

Cocking handle slide cover,return spring tube nut spring,MKI butt bufer plate,MK2/3 sight leaf spring ?,fabricated pressed mag catch,carry handle plate and front sight protectors.
........hope I have forgotten something !

ATB Kevin

[peregrinvs]

But just one thought, are you sure that you have a Mk2 cover and not a slghtly shorter L4A 1 or 2 cover? These are actually slightly modified originals, converted during the gun conversion programme and marked with the DE logo. Both types were used during the conversion. We often used to find JI and DE marked L4A2 'shrouded' gas cylinder sleeves too. (You know, the thing that swings on the gas cylinder that the bipod hangs from.....). But these were just bog standard Mk1 production parts, machined away and converted to L4 spec, still carrying the old original marks PLUS the later DE mark too

I'm pretty sure - it's the same length and width as a MkI cover I compared it to.

I've had a closer look and it has both an ED logo and a broadarrow marking. I think it has been on a gun at some point, but only lightly used.

I'm still struggling to think of a reason why Enfield would have made this part.

Cheers,
Mark

[WallyG.]

Total conjecture on my part... but there was a war on... bombing and such...

What if Enfield's stamping dies were damaged... Daimler/Monotype might have had spares available that could have been put into production until new MkI dies could be created at Enfield... not too far fetched unless the stamping machines used entirely different (incompatable) stamping dies.

Could have been something as simple as a test run...

Unless Enfield or other archives have documentation... we'll probably never know.... Monotypes archives were destroyed post war.

[Brit plumber]

Nice one Kev, forgot about those bits, I just remembred the Mk2 butt sling attachment.

I think if Enfield were given dies by the monotype group, they would have stayed with them instead of creating new ones. I wonder if it could have been the other way around, (As mentioned by WallyG) Enfield tool room made a trial die for the Mk2 or project B (I guess they would have trialed many Mk2 parts to prove the design) and when the monotype group were created, all the pooving tooling was handed over to the Monotype group for production use.