11” Bren 2 owner here. I’ll weigh in and say I think this thing is a failure and I’ll be parting with mine soon for the reasons many have already weighed in on.

-Handguard is useless and you need to spend $200+ to buy and HBI (which I’m not a fan of the HBI handguards aesthetics anyway).

-Gas piston settings from factory are stupid and you need to spend $100 to get it drilled or buy an aftermarket one

-Lack of support for caliber conversions, and even during the short period the 7.62x39 was available, the insane expense of them ($1100)

-No parts support

This is a $1600-$2000 (depending on configuration) off the shelf rifle you have to spend another $300 on to make useable, NOT including a stock or brace or whatever. It’s unavailable to convert as marketed and Then if it breaks you’re SOL.

Best thing I can say for it is that the factory trigger is nice and overall it looks cool. That’s about it.

Is it a piston gun thing to offer really short handguards? I always wondered why FN had such a short handguard on the SCAR and when they upgraded to the non reciprocating charging handle, I would like to have seen a longer rail.

CZ support has been inconsistent across the board for anything rifle caliber. I had bought multiple Bren 805 S1 carbines and pistols only to find that they discontinued them with no support barely a year later. The Bren 2 is lighter and has design changes, but I still have whiplash and lost my ass selling the S1 models.

The decisions that they also have made with model availability and support for different pistols makes me hesitant to buy anything unusual or novel. If you go with an SP-01, P-01, or 75 series you will be fine. Those models have been around forever and there is a robust aftermarket supporting them. But anything striker related or polymer from them may or may not be supported on the future.

I also had a buddy buy a P10c OR new on sale. There is some type of an issue with the frame and or design of the trigger shoe where it gets stuck intermittently and causes a dead trigger. CZ would not fix it or warranty it (within spec they said), so caveat emptor. I've got plenty of older steel and aluminum framed CZ pistols that will be staying, but I can't recommend buying anything CZ striker fired unless you can examine in person.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: HKAngusKL,

quote:

Originally posted by MikeGLI:
Is it a piston gun thing to offer really short handguards? I always wondered why FN had such a short handguard on the SCAR and when they upgraded to the non reciprocating charging handle, I would like to have seen a longer rail.

While I doubt this was a main reason for the SCAR's short handguard design, many piston guns like the SCAR vent quite a bit of excess gases forward of the gas block assembly. So if you do put an aftermarket forend on the SCAR make sure there is some sort of gas shield feature to block the gases from chewing thru your shooting gloves. I learned that one the hard way!

quote:

many piston guns like the SCAR vent quite a bit of excess gases forward of the gas block

I wonder if that actually is part of the handguard design process; I find it likely. I think that gas vent blast is more of a short stroke phenomenon, than long stroke. The TG36 I have has a legitimate flash and report from that vent. The G36 designs all scale the op-rod as the barrel and handguards lengthen across variants, probably in an effort to keep that gas vent forward of the shooter's hand. Makes sense to me anyway. What is the longest Bren variant adopted by the military or LE? If nothing adopted is longer than thirteen inches or so, they probably see no need to make longer handguards; the commercial 16" variants therefore end up with handguards that look "too short". A theory anyway.

Another note, based on my experiences with the TG36, the 55X series, and a piston AR I had, is that piston guns just don't really suppress as well. Seems counter-intuitive, as piston seems to make sense for cans, due to the cleanliness advantage and typical gas adjustability, but an AR has always seemed quieter to me. Make no mistake, a short stroke can be crazy clean (the TG36 with OSS stays unbelievably clean), but I think an AR will always have the edge, when it comes to noise and flash performance.

*I am aware OSS has a reputation for being louder. I have shot the TG36 with a non-vent can as well, and it's still noisier.

The gas port on my FS2000 got me once. I should have known since the sling setup that came with it had some flame cutting on it in line with the gas port.