Bren Mk1 & Lee Enfield No4

[phoenix]

Lee,
no I'm sure this is a wartime gun, I put your picture into photoshop and I can just make out a faint '43 after the serial number.The 48 was just that inspectors identity, they knew who to blame when it all went wrong! Pete.

[Johnny-D]

Lee,
no I'm sure this is a wartime gun, I put your picture into photoshop and I can just make out a faint '43 after the serial number.The 48 was just that inspectors identity, they knew who to blame when it all went wrong! Pete.

Ahhh brilliant mate! I'm a happy chappy now!

Thanks for all your help Pete!

[Davidh]

great looking guns rgds Dave

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Hi Lee,
The Bren is nice, a double letter starts the code. I sold that - along with a Mk2 to Gary Stearn at the arms-fair you got it from. I assume you got it off the table 1st on right through the door. You should have seen the state it was in when I originally got it! I still have a Mk1 double dovetail (1940 Enfield) to its original specs. That Mauser would clean up well. There were some original Mauser cleaning rods at the fair for £5 each. Have a look when you go in January.

Harry.

[m3bobby]

Have you got a serial No for the Bren, I could pin the manufature date to the nearest month. The stock is a Mk2 stock, it would have had a Mk1 humped stock originally.

[Johnny-D]

Hi,

The serial number is BB8045

Cheers,
Lee

[m3bobby]

Your Bren is from Mid November 1943, I own BB1962 which is mid Oct 1943.

Cheers, Chris.

[HARRY THE MOLE]

Have you got a serial No for the Bren, I could pin the manufature date to the nearest month. The stock is a Mk2 stock, it would have had a Mk1 humped stock originally.

The stock on the gun is correct for this mark of gun. The gun is a modified Mk1. The Canadians marked theirs as the Mk1M, but the British just marked them as the Mk1. The butt on this weapon is the transitional butt (Mk1/2). the Mk1 (M) was an attempt by Enfield to speed up production of the gun and cut costs, it was also a stop-gap before the Mk2 went into production. The Mk1/2 butt was one way of cutting costs.

The Mk2 gun-butt has a different butt-plate, the top section of the butt-plate protrudes backwards and away from the butt in a slight overhang. It was on the Mk3 gun that the butt-plate reverted back to the Mk1/2 style.

The anchor-point for the carry strap was also modified on the Mk3gun to a rigid bar-type fixing point with the butt being cut out to accomodate the sling. This type of butt was retained on all future marks of the Bren and was the type on the Mk4 which I used in the army in the 1970's.

Regards,

Harry.

[m3bobby]

Almost right Harry, The Enfield made Mk1m Bren was a simplification of the double decal Bren but it wasn't a stop gap. Enfield produced the Bren Mk1m right into mid 1944 before changing to the MkIII, they never produced a Mk2.

The Daimler monotype group started producing the Mk2 in 1941 and Inglis of Canada started producing the Mk2 in 1943. The different plates are interchangable, but it would appear Inglis used the overhang type and Monotype used the flat type mostly.

Theres no evidence to suggest that the Enfield Mk1 ever had Monotype Mk2 butts fitted. Many Mk1s were retrofitted with Mk2 butts when the butt split but this was only when the Mk1 stock wasnt available.

The Mk3 Bren gun was fitted with the Mk4 butt which was carried over to the L4 series of 7.62mm guns. The .303"Mk4 Bren also had the same Mk4 butt.

Heres my L4A2

This is my Inglis Mk2

My Enfield MkIII

My '38 mk1 double decal

This ones a Lithgow Mk1 upgraded model.

This ones a 2nd stage intermediate gun.

And this ones a 4th stage intermediate on a Mk2 tripod.

This last one is of a Nazi stamp on my Inglis Intermediate gun. This is one of only about 600 produced, it has the Second dovetail but is marked Mk1m. It has a very intresting past seeing service with the Canadians (St Nazaire), German, Brits, Chinese and then the Indians.


I hope this proves intresting to some, If anyone would like pictures of anything, let me know. I have a Plesey FLS for the double dovetail too.

Cheers, Chris.

[MarkV]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing them with us!