Bren 10!

[Peahi2]

Our awesome Southbay FFL, RMB Enterprises, has a Bren 10 on sale if anyone is looking to add to their 10mm collection. It looks hella sweet!
My safe is stuffed to the gills sadly.

[Tango_Down]

[Romeo_alpha01]

How much are we talking here? Asking for a friend.

[Peahi2]

How much are we talking here? Asking for a friend.

Not sure man...my gun funds are tapped out, so I didn't inquire. It was a sweet two tone though. The Gunsite raven logo caught my eye. Sweet AF. Luv 2 tone guns.




Tango_Down, you truncated Sonny's gorgeous hair man!

[Romeo_alpha01]

^^ wonder if it's one of those Jeff Cooper special editions? If so those command a ton of money.

[Mute]

Good luck finding magazines if you get it.

[DrewN]

Mine never ran worth a damn, I gotta say.

[scootle]

This thread means that everyone who tagged it has some mandatory reading... courtesy of beetle once upon a time....

https://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=1007813

Also this.



For the lazy clickers....

ok boys and girls, it's raining outside and I'm bored at home with nothing to do. Gather around for another one of beetle's stories about a weird, historical, or obscure firearm.

In today's story we are going to fast forward from my normal realm of early automatics all the way to the 1980s. Yes we are talking about the decade of bad hair, bad clothes, and one badass gun that was the superstar of the era. but I'm getting ahead of myself. let's start with the back story.

Colonel Jeff Cooper was a United States Marine and is acknowledged to be one of the creators of the "modern style" of pistol shooting in which the arm is raised and the pistol is aligned with your line of sight.

In addition, Cooper is credited with codifying other firearm concepts that we take as basic today -- for example, the 4 rules of safety and the "condition" terminology for handguns (condition 1 - locked and cocked), etc.

Colonel Jeff Cooper


Cooper taught these techniques at his Gunsite academy in Arizona. Then and even now Jeff Cooper and his Gunsite academy were thought of as experts on the use of small arms.

In the early part of the decade Cooper came across the pistol designed by Josef and Frantisek Koucky and manufactured by Ceska Zbrojovoka - the CZ 75. Cooper thought of it as a superior design lending itself well to the high two-handed grasp he taught at Gunsite. In addition Cooper liked the fact that it could be carried in Condition 1 - locked and cocked. His main disagreement with the CZ 75 was that it was chambered in what he considered to be a small caliber round, 9mm.

One of the principles of Cooper's teaching was the use of a large caliber pistol because he felt that it was important to use the largest quantity of force to stop even the most determined attacker. Cooper exclaimed that a CZ 75 design combined with a large caliber cartridge would be a significant step forward in combat handguns.

Two entrepreneurs heard Cooper's call and reached out to him -- a partnership was born. The entrepreneurs were Thomas Dornaus and Michael Dixon. At the early stages of their collaboration the partners asked what caliber the gun should be designed around, .45ACP or something more? Supposedly Cooper responded that the gun should be as powerful as they could make it. With the help of ammunition manufacturer Norma, 10mm was born.

Cooper became the pistol's leading proponent, carrying it, teaching with it, and lecturing law enforcement on its praises. He was fond of sharing the fact that the 10mm had more muzzle energy at 100 yards then .45ACP did at the muzzle.

This is my Bren Ten, which I purchased from a Calguns collector. Everything is in fantastic shape, even the utilitarian box (which is valuable to collectors and impossible to find today).



The gun is named "Bren Ten" for two reasons. Obviously the "Ten" is a reference to the new 10mm cartridge. The term "Bren" was coined by the British as a combination of "BRNO and Enfield" -- the Bren light machine gun was based on a BRNO design with modifications by Enfield. BRNO is the center of the Czech gun manufacturing area where CZ is located. How's that for obscure connections on how the name Bren Ten came about?



Let's take a closer look at the gun. Because of the connection to Cooper, his Gunsite logo was featured prominently on the frame itself.



One of the stranger aspects of the design was an additional "cross bolt safety". Not only did the gun have a traditional thumb safety, but also an additional cross bolt safety that when activated prevented the hammer from striking the firing pin. Perhaps Dornaus and Dixon felt that this additional safety was needed to prevent accidental discharge in case the gun was dropped. For whatever reason it was added this cross bolt safety added a lot of mechanical complexity and user confusion.



To fire the gun you have to release the thumb safety (where the red dot is) as well as push in the cross bolt safety from the other side of the frame.



The gun has a rather unique muzzle.



The Miami Vice Connection
Miami Vice hit the airwaves in 1984. In the original pilot Sonny Crockett used a Sig P220. However when the Pilot was picked up it was decided that he should carry a state-of-the-art weapon. 1984 was when the Bren Ten first hit the market so it was a natural pick for the TV show.



Trouble in Paradise
Even with the gun's prominent positioning in Miami Vice, there was soon trouble in paradise. Dornaus and Dixon had outsourced the magazines to MecGar in Italy. Perhaps they tried to get too clever. The original magazine was dual caliber .45 and 10mm. It had overlapping feed lips which could feed both. However, it turned out that the feed lips would get bent out of shape after only a few firings of 10mm. A nasty spat arose between Dornaus & Dixon and Mecgar. It was messy situation with D&D refusing payment and MecGar confiscating shipments in customs.

It was a bad situation for buyers. The guns had already been prepaid by buyers (mainly because of Cooper's reputation). But when the guns were delivered the box often had no magazines. The gun community was outraged.

D&D had to find another magazine source fast. Instead of buying fully manufactured magazines, they were forced to buy components and assemble the magazines themselves. In a comedy of errors the floor plates were not in spec and would cause the magazines to drop out when firing. D&D "fixed" this by affixing two pins on the floor plates to apply additional pressure on the frame.



The whole magazine debacle was probably the final straw and D&D closed shop in 1986 with just about 1500 Bren Tens manufactured. As the saying goes "the best way to make a little money in the gun business.... is to start with a lot of money."

There have been attempts to resurrect the Bren Ten recently, first by Peregrine systems and then later by Vltor. Perhaps the curse of the Bren Ten is still in play as both attempts have faded into obscurity. Maybe CZ will one day make a version in 10mm, removing the need for a "CZ clone".

Whatever the case, the Bren Ten's legacy will continue. It will always be the gun that introduced the 10mm cartridge, and if you are a 80s kid like me, Sonny Crockett's gun.

[Romeo_alpha01]

^^^ good read. Even easier if you're playing the music in the background.

[Corbin Dallas]

I came here to say if you want a 10mm, the bren 10 is not what you want to own. Buy anything else unless you like collectables that are safe queens. A delta elite would be 100x more reliable and they're known for their issues.

[ysr_racer]

It almost looks like a CZ 75. Does anybody else see it?

[bohoki]

It almost looks like a CZ 75. Does anybody else see it?

yea looks like a eaa witness they come in 10mm

[DrewN]

Mine was the same as yours I think, and I made a tidy profit 20 something years ago. I was too poor at the time to have safe queens.

[sigstroker]

It almost looks like a CZ 75. Does anybody else see it?

It's almost as if they copied the design, and named it BREN in it's honor.

[sigstroker]

I came here to say if you want a 10mm, the bren 10 is not what you want to own. Buy anything else unless you like collectables that are safe queens. A delta elite would be 100x more reliable and they're known for their issues.

The Delta Elite is too weak or too small. Lots of broken Delta Elites is what prompted them (SAAMI?) to lower the power from the original 10mm. I still have a few rounds of the original 10mm ammo when they were the only ones making it. I bought it because a friend of mine bought a Delta Elite and I wanted to shoot it. I could tell after the first shot that it was too much for a gun designed for .45 ACP.