The one that started it all

[Warren]

A picture is worth a thousand words.....
Forgot I had this.
Attachment 34685

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Peter Laidler]

Interesting for a couple of reasons Warren. Note that the butt and hardware plus the pistol grips and carrying handle assemblies has the piled arms BSA logo (see the PLATE, nut, swivel.... sorry if I've mistaken the name but haven't had to use Mk1 gun names for many years now!). This was because Major Reginald Shepherd of Sten Gun fame was instrumental in getting it quickly slotted into the Lewis trials that had already begun. He was due to leave the Army and already had found work at BSA so ensured that some of this work would follow him to BSA.

Also, it's an unnumbered gun of an unknown quantity. But they were unnumbered in order to escape the legal niceities of having to pay royalties on the first pre-production guns, used to test that the new production machinery was up and running.

Many of the first 400 production guns were used for loads of ongoing trials including some at the Ordnance Depot at Weedon to formulate the spares supply situation and subsequent Instr for Armourers, the deletion of the pistol grip oil bottle (that's the reason for the hollow hole in the middle) and a modified Catch, ejection opening cover that wouldn't slide back and cause a jam when the gun was in the AA position. It's just a shame that they didn't notice the Mk1 faulty gas cylinder or at least make it a spare and make different size locking shoulders available too. But lesons were learned and it eventually became................ well, mere words will never do it justice

[Warren]

And you mean to tell me there is no Santa Claus and the tooth fairy is not real ???????

[Peter Laidler]

Oh, it's definately the real McCoy Warren, have absolutely no doubt about that and the great grandpa of them all. I genuflect in awe at the very sight of it. I brings on a smile and an inner glow....... But it is one of the un-numbered pre production guns to test the production machinery. CZ allowed* a 'quantity' free of royalties just for such purposes. *Quite who 'allowed' this small run is unclear. As a result the number of this small quantity is unclear. These unnumbered guns and (I believe...) a few of the first production guns were mnarked BREN GUN Mk1 instead of the more common BREN Mk1
The finest light machine gun ever to grace the battlefield
From little acorns, mighty oaks grow

[Surpmil]

Where is the gun now? I assume the original post refers to the photo, not the gun?

Two years to the day before WWII began. No time to waste.

[Peter Laidler]

It's now housed in the what is sometimes erroniously referred to as the National Firearms Collection - what you'd think of as the old Pattern Room