Bren 3/1

[Lee Enfield]

All the above info is really great, but is there any evidence that either the Englis factory or the Enfield factory took MKI receivers and machined them to become MK3 receivers? This is what the discussion was about. Thanks for everybody's help and input.

The simple answer is "No, it cannot be done".

You cannot machine a MkI into a Mk3.

India machined MkI receivers into a lightweight variant which they termed the Mk3/I - but which we could more properly call a MkI/3, perhaps this is what has caused your confusion?

[sundance8]

The simple answer is "No, it cannot be done".

You cannot machine a MkI into a Mk3.

India machined MkI receivers into a lightweight variant which they termed the Mk3/I - but which we could more properly call a MkI/3, perhaps this is what has caused your confusion?

Thanks Lee, that answers the question.

[Brit plumber]

To answer that you need to ask “when does a steel billet become a receiver/body?” A finished Mk1 can’t be converted to Mk3 unless like the Indians, you tack bits on with welds. If it’s just a raw lump that was going to be a Mk1 body today but you want it to be a Mk3 tomorrow then yes you could. I very much doubt there were any Mk1 bodies on the production line that ever became Mk3s. More than likely the last Mk1 rolled of the line as the beginning of the line were re-jigging to the Mk3. And Inglis never made a Mk3 so would never have that issue to consider.

[Lee Enfield]

To answer that you need to ask “when does a steel billet become a receiver/body?” A finished Mk1 can’t be converted to Mk3 unless like the Indians, you tack bits on with welds. If it’s just a raw lump that was going to be a Mk1 body today but you want it to be a Mk3 tomorrow then yes you could. I very much doubt there were any Mk1 bodies on the production line that ever became Mk3s. More than likely the last Mk1 rolled of the line as the beginning of the line were re-jigging to the Mk3. And Inglis never made a Mk3 so would never have that issue to consider.

With the Indian IC they had to rivet a block containing the rear sight ears onto a MkI receiver and milled the original dovetails off the side.

Therefore a MkI receiver back portion is lower than a Mk3, so you would have to stop MkI contour machining to have rear sight ears left to become a Mk3... so a forging or blank could be re-purposed, but once machining was advanced, the MkI path was set.

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread....ghlight=indian

Therefore, no a MkI could not be machined into a Mk3...

[Brit plumber]

That’s it exactly.

The 1Cs sight ears were riveted on but had additional welds on the brackets. I’ve only seen one in the U.K. and that was for sale about 10 years ago. KG also saw it and got a few photos.

[TactAdv]

Apropo of nothing other than mentioning the Indians.....thought I'd throw this tidbit out here.

My sister is a Senior Partner for the largest Indian M&A firm there is; while USA based she does get summoned back to the home world periodically so has been to it and worked projects in India several times. One of these was a job for what is now effectively the Indian state run ordnance factory. In the course of consulting for them she worked with the top level management guys. I had her ask some questions, but to get to the point of this post, amazingly they will still, in 2018, gladly fire up production of any of their versions of the Bren ever produced, for a minimum scale order. If they get a customer they will still go back into production of anything they formerly made. Aparentjy they never discard tooling or fixtures.

So, in a highly technical sense, you could still go order brand new Brens assuming you are a "qualified end user".

[ActionYobbo]

The simple answer is "No, it cannot be done".

You cannot machine a MkI into a Mk3.

India machined MkI receivers into a lightweight variant which they termed the Mk3/I - but which we could more properly call a MkI/3, perhaps this is what has caused your confusion?

The confusion came directly from me insisting that Mk1’s were converted soley based on me seeing the hole for the Mk1 rear sight in a Mk3 that I got to play with 27 years ago. The hole was visable from the inside of the receiver. This is the only Mk3 I have ever handled and based on my observations I assumed that all Mk3’s were the same.
I currently own a Mk1, a Mk2 and a Mk3/1 and want to add a Mk4/2 and a L4a3 to my collection

Edit to add. On the other forum I asked if anyone could post up a picture the inside of a mk3 body with out the hole for the Mk1 sight and its been a few weeks and still no picture.

[AmEngRifles]

Oops, thought I had hit the reply button on Peter's observation on Norwegians and Italian efforts in converting Brens to 30.06. This questions is in regards to that statement.

OK, let's get REALLY esoteric! On the 30.06 conversion, when a country does that sort of thing, do they get help from the original manufacturer? Do they get advice from the Czechoslovakians, or do they forge ahead on their own? And what magazine did they use? a conversion of something existing, like a 1918 BAR mag or did they start from scratch? Thanks for that bit of unknown to me firearms history.