FWIW, check out the beautiful Bren setup on GB if you are into them. NICE.....

[Peter Laidler]

It's a Mk2 gas cylinder made by Climax Rock Drill at Redruth in Cornwall and still in business too. It's a press fit in the gun and notorious(?) for working loose. You'll see a single row of gas vent holes. Inglis commenced production of the Mk2 gas cylinder but carried on with the double row of gas vents. Why, nobody seems to know but I underestand Inglis changed to the far superior single row shortly afterwards, in line with Monotype - and the drawings!

[TactAdv]

Thanks for the I.D., Peter!

How easy is it to find loose, un-attached, BREn gas cylinders now?? Over here......I swear I have never seen one by itself, the only "spare" ones are all installed still in torch-cut DEMIL-ed receiver chunks. Not really what I was looking for.....

Are they, of any Mark, reasonable to try and remove??

Do proper drawings still exist somewhere? Is there enough demand to try and go make a short run of any of them??

-TomH

[Vincent]

I have a few gas cylinders, if anybody needs one.

Attachment 56785

This is the serial number of the 1942 Daimler Mk2 parts kit my friend got.

Attachment 56786

[Peter Laidler]

They are fairly easy to get in the UK. Loose Mk2 gas cylinders were tightened up by slightly over-reaming the taper pin hole a tad more and replacing the taper pin with a new one but driving it in harder. Don't confuse a loose gas cylinder with a loose gas blast plate. (that's the blast plate immediately to the rear of the cylinder shown on the bottom left cylinder in Vince's photo). As for removing a worn one, as opposed to a loose one, then they can be a real pig. Accept that it is scrap and weld a xxxxxxg great nut to it, clamp the body, get it red hot and unscrew the cylinder.

[Brit plumber]

The bottom Mk1 cylinder in that photo is US, its all twisted and the top 2 have been damaged also putting them US.

[Lee Enfield]

...snip.... Inglis commenced production of the Mk2 gas cylinder but carried on with the double row of gas vents. Why, nobody seems to know but I underestand Inglis changed to the far superior single row shortly afterwards, in line with Monotype - and the drawings!

So far as I'm aware, Inglis never manufactured the single row gas vent cylinder. Once Inglis completed production in 1945/46 they turned over all left over work, tooling and government paid/owned machinery to Canadian Arsenals Limited (created from Small Arms Limited- Long Branch on Dec 31, 1945).

If you look at Dugalby's book, the .280/30 experimental calibre Bren built on a 1945 dated Inglis body shows the double vented cylinder.

I've physically looked at several 1945 dated Inglis .303 Bren MkII's and each one had a double vented cylinder.

Canadian Arsenals Limited (CAL) probably/certainly did manufacture MkII single vented gas cylinders - - I am told that the war-time dated 8mm MkI Brens show double vented cylinders, while the post-war "clandestine" 8mm Bren MkI's (manufactured/assembled by CAL) are found with single row cylinders.