RESURRECTION: Will The Phoenix Ever Rise?

 

Too Good To Die?

When the doors closed for the last time at Dornaus & Dixon it appeared that the Bren Ten was to die an ignominious death. There were many buyers who were angry with Dornaus & Dixon and their Brens (and rightly so). Repeated delays in bringing the gun to market, guns shipped without magazines, and guns being returned for warranty service and then never returned. Any attempt to reintroduce the Bren Ten would a highly skeptical, and possibly even hostile, market.

Beyond the financial difficulties of the company, and the manufacturing problems with gun itself, it's hard to deny that the gun's design and what it sought to achieve was impressive. A full-size combat pistol with increased capacity and more energy, as well as the option to employ it as either a DA/SA pistol, or a 'cocked and locked' single action like the popular 1911.

The Bren's 'window of opportunity' was quickly closing, however. In the mid to late 80s many law enforcement agencies were beginning to trade their revolvers for the new fangled "wonder nines" such as those made by Smith & Wesson and Beretta. While the Bren Ten boasted two more rounds than the 1911 .45, these new 9mms were packing up to fifteen rounds. If someone were going to attempt to market a new Bren Ten, it would be best to do it sooner rather than later.

Peregrine Industries And The Failed Phoenix

Not long after Dornaus & Dixon Enterprises, Inc. closed their doors Richard Voit (of Voit sporting goods fame) purchased the rights and other materials from the bankruptcy courts and established Peregrine Industries, Inc. In addition to this, Tom Dornaus was also hired to help in redesigning the Bren to both remedy some of the Bren Ten's flaws as well as "update" the design and features. Even though there were going to be some rather significant changes, it was very important that the new gun retain the classic appearance of the original Bren Ten. For example, while the Falcon does away with the cross-block safety and installs a decocker in its place (serious design changes), the new company went to the pains of forming a cosmetic "crown-style" bushing into the muzzle-end of the slide even though the new gun used a different bushing design eliminating the need of the original version. Also, extensive effort was put into testing the guns to make sure that there would be no breakage problems down the road. In fact there was a battery of guns that were shot continuiously in an attempt to force potential problems to the surface. This way the fix could be incorporated into the design before any guns hit the market avoiding costly recalls and repairs. Peregrine Industries seemed to have learned from Dornaus & Dixon's problems, but the fates were once again stacked against the Bren. It has been commonly believed that a lack of significant police/military contracts and the resulting lack of funding forced Peregrine Industries to fold. This was an issue, but it was not the reason for the decision to shelve the Falcon. The "nail in the coffin" for Peregrine Industries was the fall-out from the imfamous savings and loan scandal. In short, the S&L scandal prompted many financial institutions to cancel loans to numerous businesses. Being a brand new company with what was basically an unproven product with no promise of success, Peregrine Industies had their funding pulled. This, not the lack of police/military contracts, "pulled the plug" on the Falcon.

Richard Voit holding a Falcon Pistol Picture from Sep 91 American Survival Guide

Picture from Peregrine Industries Catalog

Contrary to some rumors, Richard Voit retained all rights to the Bren and Falcon right up to Vltor's involvement in the Bren Ten a few years ago. In fact, according to Mr. Voit, all the R&D is complete and all that is needed to produce the gun is funding and the will to see the project through to completion.  This is, of course, assuming that Vltor would be producing a Falcon/Phoenix and not a 'true' Bren Ten. Below are three articles covering the Peregrine Falcon. There is a lot of interesting information in these articles, including a bit of Bren history. Even now when I read it it makes me want to go right out and buy a Falcon! Unfortunately though, as we all know, the Falcon never 'took flight' and all the pre-production samples are, to this day, locked away in some safe.

Triton's 'Non-Starter'

Some years ago rumors started going around that someone was considering bringing back the Bren Ten. The "interested party" was Fernando Coelho, founder of Triton Cartridge Corporation. Triton Cartridge Corporation had a great reputation for high velocity handgun ammunition, and its owner was quite familiar with the Bren Ten. In fact, a Bren Marksman Special Match even graced the opening page of their internet website! Rumors started popping up that Triton had purchased the rights and was preparing for production. As we now know, the new "Triton Falcon" never came to be. The story was that Triton, after thoroughly investigating the potential risks versus returns of taking on such a project, decided that resurrecting the Bren Ten was not in the best financial interests of the company. As it turns out Triton never did more than make a few "feeler" phone calls. Mr. Voit still owns all rights, patents, intellectual property, etc. concerning the Bren Ten and Falcon pistols. The following message was posted by Triton Cartridge Corporation on The Firing Line internet gun forum:

From: TritonCartridge
Date: 02-09-2001

For the past few years, Triton has been considered the reintroduction of the Bren 10. With a project such as the Bren 10, there were many factors that had to be analyzed thoroughly. These considerations ranged from researching intellectual property, design concerns, engineering interests, legal costs, and lastly, market viability.

While we have received numerous mailings and phone calls supporting the project, we have determined that it is in the best interests of our customers and investors to continue focusing on production of the finest ammunition available. Therefore, Triton Cartridge Corp. regrets to announce that the conclusion of our market research forces us to abandon the Bren 10 project.

Triton would like to thank those who showed continued support for Triton, in both the Ammunition and the Bren 10 arenas. We value your support and understanding in this decision.

I find it rather interesting that, "...Triton Cartridge Corp. regrets to announce that the conclusion of our market research forces us to abandon the Bren 10 project," considering there was no "Bren 10 project" to begin with. This was apparently a no-go from the very beginning, but there's still hope that we will some day see the return of the Bren Ten.

Vltor: Close, But Not Quite

If the name Eric Kincel sounds familiar it doesn't take a lot of investigating to find his name on a few articles about the Peregrine Falcon and Phoenix.  Eric, who founded Vltor Systems in 2001, has been a long time fan of the Bren Ten.  He appreciated the design and features of the Bren Ten and with Vltor's growing expertise and resources decided it was time to bring the famous gun back to life! At SHOT Show 2008 Vltor had a mockup of what they were calling the "Fortis."  (At the time all intellectual properties, such as the Bren Ten name, were still owned by Peregrine Industries.)  Rather than a 'new and improved' version the Vltor Fortis was a faithful copy (asthetically) of the original.  When SHOT Show 2009 rolled around Vltor had functional prototypes in the 5" and 4" models, in both 10mm Auto and .45 ACP.  In addition to models mimicking those offered by Dornaus & Dixon of some 25 years prior, they also had an all-stainless model finally offering a true "Miami Vice" gun Sonny Crockett would be proud of!   In 2004 Vltor was purchased by Abrams Airborne Manufacturing, and while Eric Kincel was still running Vltor, he still had to answer to Abrams and therefore may not have had as much freedom to pursue the Bren project as he would have liked.  For a while Vltor was pretty good about keeping its Bren fans up to date with the project, but it was soon obvious that it had been shifted to 'back burner' status.  Numerous difficulties with tolerances, castings, etc. were mentioned as the production date was pushed back and back.  The last word, by Gary Abrams himself, was that limited production would begin in 2016, but 2016 has come and gone and now the only sound we hear are crickets.

Vltor's Fortis Prototype Production

I would like it understood that while to this day I am disappointed that the Vltor Bren Ten never made it to market, I do not blame or hold a grudge against Vltor.  Truth be told they have done more work than anyone else in bringing this masterpiece back to life.  The purpose of posting the Vltor blog posts concerning the status of the Bren project is not to slam Vltor, but simply to lay out the timeline of Vltor's work on the work being done.

 

 

We would like to inform our customers, industry partners and friends that Sporting Products of West Palm Beach, FL is no
longer handling the distribution or sales of the Vltor Bren Ten pistol – this news came to us recently from Sporting Products
and we are unable to make any further comments regarding the dissolution.

We do want to let everyone know that we are bringing the full management and oversight of the Vltor Bren Ten back under
our roof; effective immediately the design, manufacture, marketing and distribution of the Bren Ten will be solely and squarely
on Vltor Weapon Systems and Abrams Airborne Manufacturing. We hope that this repositioning will allow us to not only
oversee this project from start to finish, but that it will also put us in direct contact with the retailers and customers. In the next
few weeks, we will reestablish our presence on the Internet and open the forum to provide updated and candid information
about the Bren Ten pistol.

We do want to say that beyond our initial discussions to use Sporting Products as the sole distributor of the Bren Ten, we
have not committed to any pre-orders or sales agreements, nor have we received any down payment for any of the Bren Ten
pistols. If you believe that you have a purchase agreement of any type for the Bren Ten, you should contact Sporting Products
directly with your concerns.

Again, we hope to make the best of this event and get the Vltor Bren Ten to the shooting market as soon as possible.
become available.

 

 

January 9, 2014

To Our Valued Customers:

Bren Ten Project

We, at VLTOR, know that the subject of the Bren Ten handgun is of great interest to many of our customers. We understand
this has been a long process for you. It has been a long process for us as well. We also know that you have been given some
information along the way, but that information was limited and not regularly updated. Ultimately through this whole project,
our biggest regret is that we have let you down.

A little history behind the story

In 2010, VLTOR began a project that consisted of reengineering the original Bren Ten, 10mm handgun. Without the rights to
the name, we began developing the product under the name, VLTOR Fortis. We purchased the rights to the Bren Ten name,
giving us the ability to replicate the original Bren Ten. The initial prototypes of the Bren Ten pistol were shown at SHOT show
in 2010.

In the process of working on the design of the weapon and showing some initial prototypes, we were communicating with a
company called Spirit Guns as a primary distributor. Spirit Guns organized a purchase of Bren Ten handguns, and without our
consent or instruction, began taking pre-orders for the weapon. Spirit Guns went out of business shortly after this, which
created speculation and discontent for us. There was much debate occurring as to whether or not Spirit Guns was lead to
believe that development was closer to production than it was or whether we had approved the company to begin taking pre-
orders. We would like to assure you that neither of those were the case. We released the Bren Ten prototype prior to full
production in order to engage our customers and gauge demand on such a weapon. We did not give consent for any dealer or
distributor to begin preorder sales of the weapon prior to full testing and production.

Why hasn’t it gone into production yet?

We’d like to attempt to answer the biggest question all of you have: why hasn’t it gone into production yet? Although we’ve
sold several prototype units to a select few development partners, we have not yet achieved a design that is representative of
the standard you have come to expect from VLTOR. As a result, we have gone back to the drawing board multiple times, trying
to create the best possible product for you. As to be expected in the design process, some of those modifications have led us
down more than a couple of dead ends. In addition to design difficulties, turnover in our engineering department, coupled
with tough decisions for maintaining cash flows in a bad recession have been difficult and have also affected the Bren Ten
project.

In short, we haven’t lived up to your expectations. For that, we apologize. We want the Bren Ten to be the best we can build
in order to maintain its legacy and represent the level of quality you deserve.

The future of VLTOR and the Bren Ten

Our goal is to fill your demands and to do everything possible to satisfy our customer base. With that said, we are going to
continue to pursue the manufacture of the Bren Ten handgun. We know you have heard time and time again that “we are
working on it” and we understand if there might be continued skepticism. However, we hope that you will take into
consideration that we are working to be a new company; more driven to bring the innovative products to the market in a
timely manner with the quality you expect from us.

We have made changes to the company structure and to our manufacturing processes that are allowing us to be more
efficient in pursuing these projects. We can tell you that the Technical Data Pack (TDP) is complete for the Bren Ten, and as a
result of the recent changes to the business structure, a full design and engineering review have been completed. The next
step is to conduct a manufacturing review focusing on the new frame casting and current state of all the casting tools. Once
we can be certain the tools are capable of producing a quality, consistent product with the new materials, we will proceed to
an initial run of new prototypes. This will be a perilous undertaking as changes to casting tools generally have extended
timelines. However, if we achieve positive results, we will begin production in late 2014.

Many of you have been very patient with the process and we greatly appreciate that patience and support. Our goal is to keep
you up to date as the process unfolds, so please continue to visit our website and social media pages for updates as they
become available.

Sincerely,

Gary Abrams

President/CEO