Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at Uherský Brod,
at the CZ factory, taking a look at some of their
really cool, in this case, current modern firearms.
So what we have today is the Bren 2 BR,
which does in fact stand for "Battle Rifle".
This is a further development of the CZ Bren 2 in 7.62 NATO.
And the rationale is there are a bunch of national militaries out there
(and police and security organisations),
that are interested still in 7.62 NATO as a service cartridge.
Now these are often not rifles that are being looked for as a universal service weapon for a country,
but rather a slightly more specialised weapon for specific applications.
We see the same sort of pattern with, for example, FN
making the SCAR in both a 5.56 version and a 7.62 version.
Frankly, we ... sort of see it all the way back with ArmaLite and the AR-10 and the AR-15.
Well, CZ is doing the same thing.
So this is only manufactured as a military rifle at this point, it is selective fire.
And it was introduced first in 2018, so this is still really a quite new product for CZ.
They have already got a couple of purchasers for it.
Probably the most notable being the Hungarian military,
who, as I alluded to, did not purchase this for their entire military,
but rather as a special application sort of weapon.
Also being used by Kenya, interestingly, the ... Kenyan Wildlife Protection Service
(I'm not sure of the exact name of the organisation),
is using these for anti-poaching and wildlife protection, which is pretty cool.
So fundamentally, mechanically, this is the same system
as the standard Bren 2 in the smaller calibres.
But let's go ahead and pull it apart, and I'll show you the internals.
The marking on the side just says "CZ Bren 2".
They don't actually have the "BR" designation on the receiver.
At least with current production they don't.
As a side note, it's kind of interesting to me to see
how some of our terminology and language evolves.
"Battle rifle" really is a term that got its start on the gun forums on the internet
20 years ago as a way to differentiate 7.62 from 5.56 calibre military rifles.
And it's never really been considered an official technical term,
and yet it has become popular enough, and a useful enough term that now we're seeing
companies like CZ actually adopting it as ... a formal name for one of their products.
... It's just neat to see that sort of evolution of language in action.
"Made in the Czech Republic" of course.
And then on the opposite side the only markings we have are serial numbers.
This particular one is an early production gun, proofed in 2018.
The BR has a magazine well that is sized and fitted for totally normal magazines.
Clarification: It uses SR-25 mags, like the Magpul and DPMS.]
CZ does make their own magazine for it, "CZ Mag".
Marked 7.62x51. And interestingly it is a 25 round capacity
instead of the 20 that you typically see on AR-10 pattern rifles.
30 rounds is simply a bit too long to fit on with a bipod or when shooting prone.
But CZ decided that 25 was feasible,
and gives you a little bit more capacity over a 20 round mag.
They do also have a viewing window in the back, and if I push the follower down
you can see that indicator line.
And the magazine is marked 5 and 20.
So your indicator window, if it's empty you know the thing is almost completely empty
or it's almost completely full.
And then the window will give you some idea of capacity when it's ... partway in between.
The controls here are identical to the standard smaller Bren 2s.
So on the right side we have a magazine release, we have a selector switch,
we have a bolt lock and release in the trigger guard.
That's something that was specifically requested by the Czech military for the original Bren 2s.
And fully ambidextrous controls here, so on the left side we again have selector switch,
bolt lock and release, and magazine release.
Like the smaller Bren 2s, we have a little storage compartment in the pistol grip.
... There's nothing specific that's intended to go in there,
it's just for whatever you need - spare batteries probably are the most likely thing.
And of course the charging handle can also be swapped from left to right.
So there's a slot for the charging handle on both sides of the receiver.
A lot of these components, the small parts like the controls, the selector switch,
a lot of those are interchangeable between the two different sizes of Bren 2.
Obviously the upper and lower receivers are not, nor is the bolt.
The stock is also the same as the smaller Bren 2s.
It is extendable and also foldable.
There we go, a little tight there.
And the stock locks in place under the ... case deflector.
And ... there's nothing fancy there,
there aren't even any springs, it's just polymer interlocking on polymer.
So it's easy to snap it out, you push it down just a little bit and it comes loose.
One other difference between the BR and the smaller calibre Bren 2s is actually the rear sight.
It's the same style of rear sight, but instead of having standard minute of angle adjustments,
it actually has a BDC built into it.
So it's marked from 1 out to 6 in 50 metre increments.
Disassembly begins with the one pin here that holds the ... lower receiver in place.
That is a captive pin, so I can pull it all the way out there.
And then the ... lower receiver with the fire control group all comes off.
... There's nothing special about the fire control group here.
We can then fold the stock in.
And then push this lever, and remove the stock assembly.
And then pull the bolt handle back to here, the handle comes out.
Recoil spring comes out.
And then the one slightly ... unexpected step
is you then reach in, depress this button,
which allows you to disconnect the bolt carrier from the charging handle.
So this has a cool system in it where
the charging handle can be used to pull the bolt back or push it forward.
But when it's in the fully forward position this lever, this switch here,
is actually pushed up by the front of the trunnion
and disconnects the charging handle so that it doesn't actually reciprocate while you're firing.
It's really kind of a neat solution. And then we can pull that ... out the back as well.
So this cutout on the front of the bolt carrier hooks into that hook right there.
So, these are locked together until this lifts up,
and then the bolt carrier can slide independently of the charging handle.
Basically what we have here is a typical Bren 2
bolt assembly, bolt and carrier, [just] larger to fit 7.62 NATO.
We have dual plunger ejectors there.
On the front end we have a gas block with an adjustable gas port.
Three position: so it's 1 for normal operation, 2 for excessively dirty operation,
and then one position that is completely cut off
for using rifle grenades for those countries that want it.
So to adjust this all you have to do is just snap this from position to position.
And it's got a big hole in it so that you can stick a cartridge through there
to adjust it while it's hot, if necessary.
You can also disassemble the whole gas system from the front end.
Push the lever in, rotate this around to right there. There we go.
And we have the gas plug.
Note the two different apertures,
so a significant difference in size between the standard and the dirty positions.
We have ... the op rod itself there.
So it takes gas from this end, like so.
And that's going to push the op rod here back.
This end pushes on the bolt carrier, and has a little return spring.
So there is a Bren 2 BR disassembled.
Now let's go ahead and take it out on the range, and see how it actually shoots.
Alright, so this is a .308, it's not going to kick like a .223.
But it's actually pretty smooth and controllable.
It's not bad to shoot, certainly better than some.
Alright, I've got 5 rounds left, let's try a burst or two,
because one of the side effects of this being a military and law enforcement rifle
is it's got the fully functional fire control group.
Not just plain semi-auto, as we would typically get on a commercial rifle in the US.
Alright, that's going to take a little more practice.
Fortunately, ... I have more ammo.
Whoo! Yeah.
There is the classic question of what is the point of full-auto in a shoulder-fired .308?
Even with mainstream militaries,
we saw the US with the M14 and the British with the FAL, the SLR,
deliberately take full-auto off of their .308 infantry rifles
because it was deemed not really productive.
And ... I would say this is not quite the most controllable full-auto .308 I've shot,
that would probably go to the original ArmaLite AR-10s.
But it's a heck of a lot better than my experience with FALs and G3s.
And now I'm out.
Also it's harder for me right handed than left.
Alright, so ... some of you are familiar with the Bren 2 and you may have noticed
that this is actually set to gas port number 2,
which is like the fouled or the extreme condition setting.
And you may wonder like, "Why would that be?"
And the answer is because this is actually one of CZ's demo Bren 2 BRs
that has literally 18,000 rounds through it.
And the gas system has ... got a gas leak
... somewhere at this point from all of that gas erosion.
And it runs great - it just has to be on setting 2, so.
To me, frankly it's pretty impressive that it still runs at 18,000 rounds.
Now, we're going to go ahead and put a suppressor on it and try that out a bit.
And ... I think we can run it back at gas port 1 with the suppressor.
Less recoil, more gas. I suppose that's the trade-off of suppressors.
I'm going to break our target.
It's a pretty sweet .308 rifle, sadly it is only a full-auto .308 rifle.
Because apparently CZ has no plans to release this
as a semi-auto in the US market, or anywhere else for that matter.
Personally, I think that's a mistake, I think this could actually do quite well, especially in the US.
Fully ambidextrous controls, a proven military-pattern system.
Good magazines, STANAG magazines, 25 rounders here from CZ,
but it'll take all the other STANAG 7.62 calibre mags.
I think this could be really cool.
Possibly, perhaps, if enough of you guys like the video
and start pestering CZ management that they ought to sell this in the US
because you want one, maybe they'd actually do it.
In the meantime, I'm going to stick with the full-auto one here,
and go ahead and dump this whole magazine through.
A big thanks to CZ for the opportunity to try this out.
Even if I am, I guess, throwing some shade at their product division for not actually letting us buy it.
Check out the description text below for links to CZ's social media.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.