Rarity of Mk3 Brens

[peregrinvs]

Hi,

According to my copy of 'The Bren Gun Saga', Enfield made 57,600 Mk3 Brens. (Were any made elsewhere?) That being the case, why are they so rare as deacts in the UK? For example, only 17,400 Lithgow Brens were made, (all types) but there's no shortage of those for sale.

Were the majority converted to L4's? If so, why are L4's also comparitively rare? Are the majority still in reserve or have they been sold on to other governments as live weapons?

Thanks,
Mark

[tom]

Yup a load were coverted to L4s, we also sold them to places like Southern Ireland who, at least to not long since, I'm not up to date on this, still have them in store but mostly I suspect that since we standardised on the mark as soon as we could post war we used a hell of a lot of them to death! The T.A. had them long after the regulars went over to 7.62 completely.

Some of them must have seen 20 years use with the odd bout of FTR

The Indians made a bastardised Mk 3, Kevs the best one to talk about those abominations!

I've a matching serials (except barrel I think) 1945 Mk 3 waiting cosmetic refurb, I've all the bits you can legally replace, minty, waiting to go on it :-{D) That one I'm keeping!

ATB

Tom

[britplumber]

Dec 18, 2009 23:35:47 GMT 1 peregrinvs said:

Hi,

According to my copy of 'The Bren Gun Saga', Enfield made 57,600 Mk3 Brens. (Were any made elsewhere?) That being the case, why are they so rare as deacts in the UK? For example, only 17,400 Lithgow Brens were made, (all types) but there's no shortage of those for sale.

Were the majority converted to L4's? If so, why are L4's also comparitively rare? Are the majority still in reserve or have they been sold on to other governments as live weapons?

Thanks,
Mark

There were more than 57600 made, the last LB number in the register is LB58136 and the last Mk3 number I have is UE59A6614 so thats almost 65,000 made.

Recently our Government has had a change in direction about selling their reserve weapons and nearly all are being destroyed at Donnington. Shame!!

I've got one of the early MkIII marked brens from 1944 but the Indians renumbered it, I've also got a Mk3 marked version from 1947 (One of Mikes), a 1952 Mk3 which has been hacked up and a 1945 Mk3 ('44 proofed, Ex Falkland Island defence force) which was converted to L4A2 in 1960 and then converted to L4A4 later. There arn't many L4 A2 numbers in the register and all but 2 have been destroyed by Thatchams at Donnington.

[peregrinvs]

Dec 19, 2009 14:19:50 GMT 1 britplumber said:

There were more than 57600 made, the last LB number in the register is LB58136 and the last Mk3 number I have is UE59A6614 so thats almost 65,000 made.

Recently our Government has had a change in direction about selling their reserve weapons and nearly all are being destroyed at Donnington. Shame!!

A shame indeed. I had fondly hoped that eventually they'd be sold off en masse and they'd become a lot more affordable as deacts. I suppose destroying them is a relatively easy way of being seen to be doing something about international arms control. And anyway, it's only the UK taxpayers property they're destroying...

Mark

[Kev]

India also made a batch of MK3's


These can be identified by the Indian Ashoka emblem on the side of the body.



As Tom mentioned the Indians also lightened MKI guns to their MK1/3 spec.

There was also the A prefix serial numbered MK3 Brens that came after the LB series.1950's export MK3 Brens can be found in the UK market that originaly went to the Singapore Police Force and are marked SPF.

ATB Kevin

[peregrinvs]

Thanks for all the input.

Whilst we're on the subject of 'where are they all?' can anyone hazard a guess as to why deact Daimler / Monotype MkII Brens seem to be significantly scarcer than Inglis ones when there isn't a large difference in their respective production totals?

This is based on my own experience of looking for a MkII at Beltring this year. There were plenty of Inglis examples, but I only remember seeing one Monotype. There seems to be a similar imbalance in those MkII's advertised on Milweb etc.

Cheers,
Mark

[britplumber]

Heres a rough approximation 77,500 mono type (Approx first 25,000 marked D for daimler, rest M67 marked for monotype group) and 90,000 Inglis.

[c310pilot]

Here is a pic of my MKIII reweld

Attachments:

[britplumber]

Dec 20, 2009 16:42:18 GMT 1 c310pilot said:

Here is a pic of my MKIII reweld

Nice mate, has it still got a LB serial number?