About time i put my Bren up.

nice job

Very nice

looking good

that looks really efective well done ,its amazing what con be done on the kitchen table when the wifes out ,more brit support weapons are a must,just be prepared to be run raged.

Very nice job

How did you make the 'heavy mods' to the hop ? (Obviously it's fed from the top but did you rotate the whole unit, 'cut and shut', etc. ... ?)

How did you construct/strengthen the front end ?

What length of inner barrel did you use ?

Any build pics, particularly of the hop area, please ?

Thanks for the positive feedback guys.

Joker, unfortunately i have no build photos but will pass over any insights i can give.

The hop unit is a bit of a frankenstien unit now. it went through a few phases of trial and error before its got dialled in. Yes the whole unit has been rotated. the hop adjustment is now done via a grub screw that is screwed in and out to get the desired effect. The other it of butchery was because the main body is two lower recievers, one inverted on the other, the feed tube had to be elongated to be able to make the required connection to the mag feed catch and it needed a good deal of strengthening to stop it from breaking apart again under numerous mag changes.

The front end was built up using a section of copper tube that is fixed to the box section metalwork that doubles as the gas block look alike and also fastens the two recievers together. This is one of the areas i am not totally happy with and will look at re doing it in the future.

Anything else you want to know get in touch.

Cheers again fellas.

its verry easy to say well you have to modify the hop but its a supriseingly hard job to get working sweetly,in all honesty its pretty dificoult to scratch build any gun espetially a first attempt,my first was a sten ,far simpler.its also difficoult to say its finished because there's allways something thats not 100 percent but only you know about it.to take on a bren firt attempt is daunting so i'll say again well done its really efective ,i think its because youve nailed the proportions so well

Thanks matey.
Yes I would say that I was maybe a bit too ambitious for the first build.
But with all the trials, fustrations, hours of tinkering, dissapointment when it goes on an outing only to throw up another niggle, would I do it again? Hell yes but maybe get a better area to work and some more tools! Lol.

yup suppriseing what works at home completly fails out in the field within seconds only to be fixed within seconds once its at home again

I assume that the receivers are metal to take the weight/stress of the gas block & front end assembly ?

What length inner barrel did you use - 650mm ?

Cheers.

The reciever that's still the lower one is metal, the other is plastic as only serves as mag well and it was easier to cut down to get in place where it needed to be.
The barrel in there at the moment is a tight bore standard AK length. It goes for a mile as that so in the old saying of if it ain't broken I have not needed to replace it. I did have a measure though and a 590mm barrel will be what I will put in if ever I feel the need to change it up.

I remember this from the Senny game, it was a beast until it seized up! Hope it's sorted, it's a brilliant way of doing it.

Yes indeed Evo. All running again after the breacon dirt somehow managed to work is way in and sieze all the gears up solid. In fact if i remember you took that bottom photo above. roll on march when i get to use it again. Think we should have a support gunners ection up here somewhere? so we can give each other cudos and sympaphise with the de hydration we suffer from carting these beasts about at games..

i must say mate...simple and very affective! and considering you had no gun building experience before hand gives me confidence i cud do the same....(one day)

Thanks mate.
A lot of it is just having a bit of bravery and stupidity to go for it.
Plus I picked up the rpk doner second hand cheap on another forum so if o had of fucked it up I wouldn't of been masses out of pocket.
Good luck if you do decide to have a go, and remember there is a load of knowledge here between the forum users for you to draw on.

Great idea! This type of build could also be utilized for a Japanese type 99, i think.

Yes indeed Evo. All running again after the breacon dirt somehow managed to work is way in and sieze all the gears up solid. In fact if i remember you took that bottom photo above. roll on march when i get to use it again. Think we should have a support gunners ection up here somewhere? so we can give each other cudos and sympaphise with the de hydration we suffer from carting these beasts about at games..

im with you on the de hydration problems,i allmost died at ill giogo pass,i made the desision after that that a bren gun team must be at least 2 men or im not doing it because i want to enjoy myself more an imerse myself a little less pluss the amount of ammo you get through as a suppost gunner is obscene

Thanks for the info.

I've been thinking of something like this as a project for a while and yours shows how successful it could be

Hope you can post some disassembly pics some time in the future. I'd like to have a go at this and maybe a Type99.