Heya BiA
Yeah I knew the British Squaddies called the L1A1 the SLR, I don't think the Brits ever issued the L2 to their army although I'm hoping some of the British forum members can confirm/deny that.
As for the L4 Bren, I think it was mostly the Royal Marine Commandos that used it (because it was capable of operating in extremely low temperatures) and again I'm hoping that the British members here can confirm/deny if if was ever used by the British Army as an infantry weapon (and not just as vehicle armament).

I've seen pics of South Africans using R1 (their home built version of the FAL) 20-rd mags in their 7.62mm Brens somewhere but I can't recall the source. However having a quick search of net gave the following page from 2008 which shows a South African Bren with a 20-rd FAL mag plus another with a 30-rd Rhodesian FAL mag
http://weaponsonline.proboards.com/thread/993

I believe the Canadian C2 uses a completely different rear sight to the L2, a "dial" style whereas the L2 uses a leaf rearsight. And something else about L4 Brens in Aussie service, I vaguely recall that we were advised to only load the L4 mags to 28-rds whereas the L2 mag was okay with being loaded to 30-rds.
I haven't had any experience with civilian semi-auto FAL types so your personal knowledge is both interesting and welcome :)

To the best of my knowledge the L2 was never issued to branch of the British armed forces (the only exception I could think of who might have used it on an "unoffical" basis would be the SAS)

Re: the Bren, whilst I can't confirm 100%, but I believe it was used by the Army in a Light Machine Gun role prior to the introduction of the SA80 family - there are several references online of Bren guns being issued to units that took part in Operation Granby (the 1991 Gulf War).

Pretty sure the L4 BREN was the standard Light Machine gun for the British Army the General Purpose Machine gun being the GPMG (MAG-58)

I'm given to believe that once they adopted the MAG58 as the L7 GPMG the British Army no longer kept the L4 Bren in frontline use and it was issued to support services. Infantry units all used the L7 but some armoured vehicles did have Brens for self-defence/anti-air protection.

I also read reports of L4 Brens being used in Op Granby but the wording was that they were re-issued i.e. pulled from whatever storage they were in or grabbed from service & support units and issued to the Infantry only for the duration of the Operation.

Sorry, rereading my answer to the question about Brens I could have probably been a little more precise...I was giving a relatively short answer to the original question, which was whether the modern era Bren had been ever been used by the British Army as an infantry weapon, the answer to which, i think, is yes, it has, e,g, in the Gulf.

However as far as I know the Bren was not a standard issue weapon - I believe you are correct that it was replaced by the GPMG and only retained for some roles, most motably as a vehicle mounted weapon (for example on the AT105 Saxon). But some have definitely emerged from storage at different points in time, most notably the Faklands and Op Granby. (When it comes to Granby, the British Army had to strip a number of cupboards bare to fully equip the 1st Armoured Division for service in the Gulf, so the reissuance of older kit was probably part of this process). So I agree with SSC.

Hope that helps...

According to my copy of "The Modern British Army, Terry gander 1988". The L4A4 was not issued to frontline units, but issued to support units (Engineers, Signals, etc). Probably as a section (Squad) LMG.

The GPMG remained the section MG up until the introduction of the lSW. However it seems they still used it as a section weapon in the first Gulf war and the Paras and Marines refused to stop using them as section weapons.

Even if civilians can't have the L1A1's, destroying them or M14's, M1911's, etc. seems like a criminal waste of taxes. :mad: Can't they be sold, loaned or given as aid. If they must be deactivated, part them out and sell the parts.

Just to increase the sadness factor...
In some cases in Australia, such rifles were dismantled and all the steel parts melted down for scrap, any wood parts were simply burnt. Some other cases involved cutting all the steel parts into small pieces and dumping the results into the ocean.

Not sure of L1A1 and other non-US weapons. But US weapons (in the US) they for the most part can not sell any weapon or part of said weapon if it is or can be full auto. (like the M14) They also stopped selling pistols not sure if because they sold them all or if new political head. There is the CMP (Civilian Marksmanship Program) that sell old us weapons they have sold so many that for the most part they only have M1 grands left to sell.

Worthh noting that for many years the L4 was preferred to the L7 by the Royal Marines for arctic warfare as the mag was more reliable than a belt in the snow.

Interesting! I had read that the RMC preferred the Bren over the Jimpy for artic warfare but the general explanation was that the Bren was better able to cope with artic conditions. However if it's because magazine fed was more reliable than belt-fed then the reason is more that magazine-fed won't drag all the snow/ice/other crap into the feed mechanism rather than the Bren itself was better able to cope with the freezing conditions compared to the Jimpy.

The impression given by the book I read was that the Bren was able to cope with the conditions better than the L7 - that's quite a different situation to the preference for mag over belt!

P.S. For those unfamiliar with British military slang: the MAG58 was produced under licence in the UK as the L7 General Purpose MachineGun AKA GPMG. When said as a word GPMG sounds like "jimpy".

I do have a slight advantage here, I was trained on the Been, my mate wrote the Osprey book on it and I have trained the author Dan Abnett how to use it... :-)

Nice! :D

That's what I love about this forum, there is such an incredible range of experience & knowledge among the members here that there's always something new to learn :)

There is a lovely bit of trivia on the Bren - it ejects downwards meaning when it was used in open topped recce vehicles in WW2 it regularly sent hot brass down the back of the driver's shirt!

Other nice bits of trivia include the fact that if the barrel locking nut wasn't engaged you could end up running down the range carrying just the barrel (less of an issue with the L4 series that was only issued with one barrel).

A belt feed version was submitted in the trials that resulted in the GPMG being adopted.

There was a special 100 round AA mag that was a drum BUT this blocked the sights as it was intended for AA use only.