SKN Brens

[mrclark303]

Morning chaps,

A question to those in the know, how rare are SKN (marked as such or not) Bren guns, did the British Australians and Canadians all convert them?

From never seeing any, I have seen the odd one floating about in the trade of late, if I lived in another country I would be suspicious someone was turning them out, but as I live in the UK this can't be the case, due to the stringent end use legal requirements on automatic Firearms.

The last one I saw was a Lithgow, also were they all cut to a standard pattern, or a National pattern, specific workshop pattern......or indeed whatever the armourer doing the job thought was required ?


Curious to know, I might just have to buy one of these interesting curios !

Cheers, John

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]

|The official SKN Brens supplied by Ordnance were all converted to a set drawing, by List and Co in Dagenham who did them on contract. Bert List, the owner of the Co also co designed the L34 silenced Sterling gun with Patchett. But I digress.

That the odd Armourer would skeletonise one was a bit of a myth really as he'd have to OBTAIN one to start with and that wasn't that easy.......

However, at Base Workshops where trade testing took place and at Training centres and Apprentice schools such as Carlisle, then it was a different matter and then a small group would section/skeletonise a part such as, say, a bipod assembly or a butt slide to illustrate this that and the other and so on. Same as L1A1's, No8's No4's etc etc etc. So, by default, these wouldn't conform to the original set, standardised pattern.

While it'd be fairly 'easy' to skeletonised the body, the same cannot be said for the breech block, piston, piston extension and piston post plus some other parts (the barrel nut is another.....) which are REALLY tough material. The barrel nut is both tough AND diamond hard. So is the bipod sleeve now that I think about it........ I say 'easy' to machine the othjer parts but I mean 'easy' if you have a large milling table and equipment to hold down the akward shape of the parts. Easy for training schools etc where time, breakages, equipment the gun etc doesn't cost anything but not if you are a dealer trying to make a profit.

Yhe difference between the standard model and what we call the classroom model is that the standard model just shows what you need to see to learn the gun - as a soldier would in training. A classroom model, as done by apprentices is that this would be done to show EVERY last movement of the action, the action of springs, where they anchor, the loading points, the action of mysterious items, such as the extractor stay in the cam groove and how it affects the rocking primary extraction and the bufferering of the unlocking phase.

Maybe someone could put up a picture of the bog standard skeletoinised gun. Incidentally, I gave an opinion on a SKN gun and Gloucester (?) Police weren't interested in taking it on a a 'firearm' capable of this that and the other.... Usdually have a SKN serial numbver but that isn't always the case as some have a later SKN SA63A 1234 number

Added a bit later....... Just been told by a PM that the place to see picture, albeit a bit old, B&W and blurred of a List/Ordnance SKN Bren gun is in the old LMG Infantry Training booklet.

[mrclark303]

Not a bog standard example perhaps, this one passed through my place the other week, belongs to a Reading based dealer (Dave Clift), he dropped it in briefly, so I could photograph it (I bought my superb L1A1 cutaway from him, nice guy).

Peter knows the background to this stunning piece, one of two prepared for the 1948 Empire exhibition I believe, it was SKN marked, so cutouts to spec I should think, unless further adjusted for display purposes??

[Peter Laidler]

Noooooooooo. That one is definately NOT to the SKN spec....... That started its life as a totally unfinished Mk3 Bren and didn't even come with a serial number as I understand it! It was one of a pair that were completed by apprentices at Enfield for the Empire Exhibition of 1948. The other is at Warminster. The 'Lockies' of the era (what the apprentices were known as) remember doing them. No chrome there either, just polished steel.

That spec even exceeds the usual apprentices classroom spec. That's what I would call a boardroom display cabinet job! In fact, the other one (the one at Warminster), was in the factory managers office at Engield when the place closed and it came to Warminster along with a load of other stuff. But guess what....... You know how I go on about some that some wouldn't see the obvious even if it was flushed on them.....? Some wouldn't even accept that this fell outside the category of a firearm. I mean........., bleedin obvious or what!

That Mk1 barrel related to something else and it should have a shortie Mk5 barrel

[mrclark303]

Hi Peter,

Interesting stuff, this really is an historically important piece then, by rights it should be reunited with the other example for museum display. The barrel was definitely SKN marked (SKN 8422), so the apprentices must have appropriated an example from List I would guess and further modified it, can you remember if the other one also has a Mk1 barrel fitted?

Interesting to see a picture of the other one, whos in charge of the collection these days Peter, is there a point of contact for the public?

[Peter Laidler]

I would suspect that the original barrel for that gun has been lost and the barrel you have has come from a bog standard skeletonised gun. Just my thoughts as by the time these guns were done, the Mk1's were already obsolescent in service and no longer in production at Enfield

[Brit plumber]

Just to add, I don't think the SKN guns were made until after 1948 so it must be a retro fit barrel.

These are the examples I know of, mostly in the UK. One of mine has a 1950's conversion date on it.

SKN338
SKN487
SKN1251
SKN1761
SKN2442
SKN4438
SKN4510
SKN4666
SKN4671
SKN4977
SKN5404
SKN5532

I can get some photos tomorrow but here is one I have on the computer at the moment.

Attachment 55504

This one is a Canadian Skeleton model but not the same as the UK type.

Attachment 55505

[Peter Laidler]

Bert List said it was during the 50's so what you say will be just about dead right.

I'm sure that I mentioned this in anothher thread but there wasn't a 'time schedule' for these SKN and DP guns when they went through the big workshops in the later post civilianisation years. They went through as 'GUNS Machine L4 type - other'! But the policy was that they still had to be done and the finishing time, with painting was well off the allowable richter scale! You could just about manage something with the DP's but making up time with the red painted SKN's was impossible.

I say 'impossible', that is 'impossible' without some fancy time management accounting. Or simply cooking the books to you and me.............. Alls well that ends well was the saying, just so long as it never got back to the old PC&A office!

[Brit plumber]

This gun will probably go up and down in price a lot before it's sold.

£2800 at http://www.classicfirearms.co.uk/viewphoto.php?x=0

Same guy on gun star £3100 Enfield BREN MK111 Machine Guns For Sale in Berkshire - GS4328906 :: GunStar

£1995 on DandB deactivated deact weapon gun replica militaria

That's £1100 between top and bottom price!

[Peter Laidler]

Shame they haven't got the skeletonised magazine that goes with it as well. I put some inert rounds in ours at Warminster. Against the rules really because anything except dummy or drill rounds were really a no-no. But R.H.I.P. as they say............