This is my first post and I hope it is in the right place. My Bren Ten was purchased new in 1985 after a 3 month wait. It has only been shot about 30 times and put away in the vault for the next 38 years. I have read about some catastrophic failures of the slides. Since my was one of the first year models I am concerned about the metallurgy quality in this gun. Has anyone had their Ben Ten examined for cracks, etc. and if so who does the work. I live in Arizona. Thanks for your help.
Fred
Hello and welcome to the forum Fred!
There were some mention of poor metal in the Bren Tens early on. Some suggested magnaflux to see if it would reveal any problems that might be a problem!
Man mine was said to have been magnafluxed at some point and the original owner did shoot it some and the guy I got mine from said he shot some light loads from it.
I not sure the slide that is on mine is the original as the number on the slide is different from the serial #.
(https://i.postimg.cc/bwxhzcT1/9985d3a9-2f70-4ff9-9324-1fef2024398a-zps65255176.jpg)
With the these selling at the prices these days it is tough to take any chances...
Best regards and enjoy the forum!
Welcome Fred!
Magnaflux is the professional way to do this. There should be a gunsmith in Arizona that can help with that.
Poor mans option: Strip the slide, oil it well, then clean it good with dish soap. Once you think you have all the oil off, heat it up with a hair dryer (carefully). While this won't find the tiny defects a magnaflux machine will, it does do a good job of finding cracks they eye just can't see. If there are any, they will still have oil in them and that oil will start to migrate out of the crack as soon as the slide is over 100F. It will be visible once the oil starts to escape.
When done, re-oil and put it all back together.
All that said, none of these tests will find a defect inside the metal. And with so few rounds through the gun, I would probably not worry much about it. At this point Bren Ten's are museum pieces. As long as there are no visible defects and it manually cycles correctly I am not sure what you gain from the testing other than finding out it has an unseeable defect you can't correct and that doesn't matter anyway.
I think you're right. Why look for trouble it you're not going to shoot it. Magnafluxing would just ruin the mystic.
Thanks Fred
I would also think along the lines of the 10mm average round today is much weaker on the scale of the original 10mm.
Original was ( IIRC ) 200gr bullet at 1200fps... today the average round is a 180gr bullet at about 1100-1150.
If going to shoot it, there may be less issues with today's loads.
Hey Fred. Glad you found this place. Some of the most knowledgeable Bren Ten experts there is hide out here.
Ethan