Who could build a Bren Ten clone?

steelgray

steelgray

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The Bren Ten was a ground breaking gun - and the first commercial chambering of the 10mm auto cartridge.

One would have thought that leveraging the brilliance of the Cz75 pattern, incorporating Jeff Cooper's ideas for design improvement and having Sonny Crockett's star power behind it would guarantee its success.

bren1.jpg


However, the fairly obscure company behind the gun Dornaus & Dixo ("D&D") over-promised. When it finally delivered to customers - who had pre-paid and had waited too long - many (most?) guns shipped with no magazines.

This came-about since D&D goofed-up by designing the gun with a mag that was supposed to feed both 45 ACP and 10mm. The original mags didn't work and the maker took too WAY long to get a dedicated 10mm mag out to customers.

This great gun deserved better - and I'm betting that someone could pick up where D&D left off... but who? I'll throw these three possibilities out there:

Norinco - who has brought back even more obscure guns, including clones of the TokEqypt and heck even the FEG P9R. I believe that Norinco has never offered a 10mm gun. Maybe it is time.

Turkish Pistol makers - these guys seem to have taken certain parts of the commercial pistol market by storm; including producing a stainless copy of the HP

Tanfoglio - who already is selling improved Cz75 pattern guns and even has 10mm guns with polymer and steel frames - sold in small no.s

Why does the World need a Bren Ten redux gun? Why not just buy a Tanfoglio 10 banger? IMO, the latter lacks the features and the cache of the Bren Ten. And notably, unlike the Tanfoglio - or any Cz75 pattern gun - the Bren Ten gave you enough real estate to grab onto rack the slide - a BIG deal to me.

Your thoughts?
 
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Because of the machining, I think only the Italians could truly do it justice. That said, it'll cost Swiss, and then some. So essentially, I'd buy three.
 
It's been on its way back before but never makes it all the way. I would imagine Vltor is never going to get one out the door despite them saying it's in the works.
 
I would love a CZ 97 in 10mm. From what I understand some of the custom shop guys have played with the concept but they’re too busy with other projects and filling orders, same with the main factory. But I can dream...
 
I would buy a remake in a heartbeat as would many. I bet someone will kick the project off now that the 10mm has steadily increased in popularity and is no longer a niche caliber. Also a surprising number EAA Tanfoglio 10’s are sold south of the border.
 
I think there are a lot of people that would want to buy one, I'm just not sure how many would if the price was up in the semi-custom to custom 1911 price range. $2,000+ guns tend not to be high volume sellers - which is ok if you have the broad market appeal of the 1911 platform.

As mentioned above, at least two manufacturers in the past 10 years have started a new Bren 10 project but have never taken it all the way. I may be wrong but I suspect that if it was viable, someone would already be selling it. or at least be testing the waters on the forums.

But then again, this is a crazy market so who knows what is cooking out there!
 
krausb said:
I think there are a lot of people that would want to buy one, I'm just not sure how many would if the price was up in the semi-custom to custom 1911 price range. $2,000+ guns tend not to be high volume sellers - which is ok if you have the broad market appeal of the 1911 platform.

As mentioned above, at least two manufacturers in the past 10 years have started a new Bren 10 project but have never taken it all the way. I may be wrong but I suspect that if it was viable, someone would already be selling it. or at least be testing the waters on the forums.

But then again, this is a crazy market so who knows what is cooking out there!
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I recall one a few years ago, though the company name currently escapes me. That said, I hope there's some Miami Vice fanatic out there willing to throw down their midlife crisis cash to restart with someone's stalled tooling. A boy can dream ;)
 
Bren Ten: The most tactical pistol


Could use a few modern updates.
Would still rather get a CZ 97 in 10mm.
Heck, a 10mm Sig P220 would be nice as well.
 
If the objective a was a double stack, modern 10mm in the pattern of a SIG 220 THEN Norinco could do that for small change (in terms of retooling) by doing a 10mm version of its NP762 (already chambered in the long and hot 7.62x25)

NP762-500x228.PNG


That wouldn't be a Bren Ten though. If Crockett had one of these in 10mm what would Tubbs carry? I guess a Norinco PD12SB.

What is the closest thing to a Chinese 308 Ferrari?

Guess that might be Qiantu K50

261911.jpg




sixty9santa said:
Bren Ten: The most tactical pistol


Could use a few modern updates.
Would still rather get a CZ 97 in 10mm.
Heck, a 10mm Sig P220 would be nice as well.
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We are both wrong in the sense that it wasn't a real Daytona either. The "Ferraris" used in the first two seasons were actually re-bodied Corvettes based on a 1976 Corvette (car 1) and a 1981 (car 4) Chevrolet Corvette C3 chassis that had been modified with fiberglass body panels by specialty car manufacturer McBurnie Coachcraft to resemble an early-1970s Ferrari Daytona Spyder. The tan and black leather interior as well as the convertible top was fabricated by Scott Draizin/Headsup industries based in Ft Lauderdale.

Although Tom McBurnie is credited with planting the Daytona Spyder in the mind of the public, it was actually Al Mardekian, an importer of gray-market exoticars, who sold Miami Vice the two look-alike Ferraris for $49,000 each.

McBurnie was hired to build the bodies for the Corvette-chassised cars. It was blown to pieces on the show with a hand-held Stinger missile launcher during an illegal arms deal.

BTW: the Bren Ten Carried by Sonny was real but converted to fire 45 ACP blanks (yup). Also, many of the bad guys, depicted as being shot by Crockett were, in fact, not actually killed. Its called "Hollywood" - deal with it.

This post definitely needs some sound over. I'm thinking Phil Collins. I can feel it ...

Still alive said:
It wasn’t a 308. It was a Daytona and a Testarossa.

I believe there is a Chinese copy of a Porsche Cayenne though.

Might be easier to copy the 645 than the Bren 10.
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Still to this day my favorite T.V. show, even though it was only uniformly good for the first two seasons, then inconsistent thereafter.

Anyway as far as the guns go, I'd rather have a clone of one of the short pump shotguns that Tubbs used than any of Crocket's handguns.
 
I had been in touch with Vltor a few times a year up until a couple years ago. It was always being worked on an refined, progress was always being made but never with any explanation whatsoever. I figure they thought they could make it work and got started, then realized the substantial costs and spent the rest of their time trying to find a way to make the numbers work.
 
Yes buying up the old equipment and remanufacturing these classics is definitely a labour of love by enthusiast and neither easy nor likely to be that profitable. I know they are certainly going through growing pain getting the new Automag off the ground but in fairness they are doing several tweaks to the design in improve reliability and longevity.
 
Given the highly niche nature of the Bren it's unlikely a full sized factory would bother with the project. Baer, Brown, and maybe Wilson would be better suited to turning out limited runs. Caspian and STI if there were a chance at larger sales.

Now that Glock has broken their addiction to brick sized grips you'd be better off lobbying for a single stack 10 than trying to revive a gun that wasn't that great to begin with.
 
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