Barrie's Guide to the Shoot n Scoot Bren Gun

[Barrie and Anne]

I get a lot of people pm'ing and e-mailing about this so hopefully they should find the info below useful.

Here is what you get.

EXTERNALS
Original bits are the bipod, pistol grip, stock, front and rear sights and magazine. The rest is all metal (aluminium) except for the lower receiver.

The resin section is shown highlighted in the picture below. Note parts of it are hidden behind the metal body.

The rear sight is also shown and moves up and down as you twiddle the knob. Obviously you'll never have to adjust the sights in a game but it's nice that it works and gives you something to fiddle with whilst you're waiting for the germans to appear. The whole sight assembly is detachable and simply slides into a slot fixed to the receiver. NOTE - it's probably a good idea to glue it in as it fell out of mine whilst getting thrown around in combat.

The pictures above were taken just after this gun was skirmished so the paintwork looks a bit knackered. I give it a touch up with black spray paint every so often to keep it looking nice.

Also, the woodwork looked a bit tired when I got it but that comes with being 60-odd years old I suppose. I used some elbow grease sanding it all down and then Colron Woodstain (walnut I think) and a coat of finishing oil.
Woodwork improvements -

[Barrie and Anne]

Finally I spray painted the barrel, flash-hider and gas regulator bit silver (pewter actually) because if you look at any pictures of MKI Brens they had silvery barrels.
It now looks like this -

[Barrie and Anne]

INTERNALS

Warren uses a TM P90 gearbox inside. I asked for mine to be upgraded to 330fps (to match some the chinese guns coming out at that time) and it's been shooting for 18 months now with no problems whatsoever.

It can be stripped down by removing one big bolt at the back and everything comes apart. Note the spring forward of the hop up - this is to ensure the hop chamber sits nice and tight against the gearbox nozzle.

The inner barrel and hop chamber just slide out too.

[Barrie and Anne]

GENERAL

The battery is concealed under the barrel just forward of the magazine. You just push it tight in between the two metal sides of the body and it stays there by friction. I've never had any trouble with the battery sliding about or moving - it's very secure. An 8.4v 2200mah (one of these from Component Shop - http://www.component-shop.co.uk/html/7vp2200sc-h.html) fits perfectly. I added some black tape to the bottom of mine to make sure there's no day-glo yellow showing. I've never yet run out of battery power.

The hop is adjustable from the magazine well.

The magazines are AK mid-caps in a bren mag shell. They take about 150bbs each so you will need a few to do a support fire role, or alternatively get a volunteer to frantically re-load mags next to you. Better still, do both.

Mine was the first mid-cap version (Warren used to do them with hi-caps but not any more) and it did have feed problems. I have now identified what the problem was and will get some pictures up shortly to explain it and the solution. Warren knows how I've solved it so new ones should not exhibit the same issues.

It's pretty heavy at about 6kg without battery and magazine and you really will need to be prone or braced to shoot it effectively. Having said that the carry handle does have two positions, one for carrying and one for firing-from-the-hip-mode-like-in-Lock-Stock-and-Two-Smoking-Barrels.

SUMMARY

It shoots real straight, rate of fire is real fast, kind of brrrrrrrrrrrrr (sorry can't be any more scientific), it's big and scary, and attracts photographers.
Shoot 'n' Scoot website: http://www.shootnscoot.co.uk/index.php
Current costs MkI -£685, MkII - £695, L4A1 - £735

Here it is in action.

[Barrie and Anne]

SHOOTING

It's fully automatic only.

I have now chrono'd it and on average the FPS is about 330 to 340 with 0.2g bbs. Please note mine has an M100 spring and metal bushings.

If you don't upgrade it would be a standard TM P90 which I'm guessing would be more around 280fps. However there is now a chinese P90 available so that might be another option. I have no idea how good that might be.

Regarding accuracy, well it's pretty consistent, compared to other airsoft guns I would say very good, probably helped by the length of the barrel.

[Barrie and Anne]

TROUBLESHOOTING

As mentioned above mine was the first model with mid-cap top feed magazines and had feed problems which I have now sorted out.

There were two things causing this.

1. The centreline of the gearbox - hop unit - barrel was not quite lined up with the centre of the male bb feed hole in the magazine well. This is easily fixed by stuffing a bit of foam in between the gearbox and the receiver wall. You need to shine a torch down the feed hole and see if there is any lip that the bbs are catching on. If there is, push the foam in to move the gearbox over until there's no lip. It sounds Heath-Robinson but works a treat. To be fair to Warren mine came with this mod already installed, but the first thing I did was take it all apart and, not realising the signifance of the bit of foam I never put it back in - until I worked out I'd cocked it up. The Picture below makes this clear.

2. The magazine feed hole doesn't quite line up with the feed hole in the gun's magazine well (because it's next to impossible to get the AK mid-caps to set in exactly the right place inside the bren mag shells). If the outer feed hole has to be enlarged to fit over the male feed hole in the gun, then the inner feed hole needs to be likewise enlarged. Only the smallest amount of filing is needed, but the smallest tiny lip between the top of the male bb feed and the inner hole in the mag is enough to cause a stoppage. As shown in the picture below.

As stated previously, I've made Warren aware of the above so it should be taken care of in future.

[bugman]

The T/M P90 mechbox that is in the Bren ,i assume can be semied.A standard p90 mechbox has a semi/full auto capable switch.So to get one in NZ i also assume that all that need to be done is switch to semi,cut off the lever and thats that{i hope}