Vltor Bren Ten
The Vltor Bren Ten is an updated version of the original Bren Ten pistol, which itself was a derivative of the CZ 75 series of pistols. The Bren Ten is being developed and manufactured by Vltor Weapon Systems of Tucson, Arizona and is completely made in the United States. It will initially be available in two calibers: .45 ACP and the 10mm Auto round which was developed for the original Bren Ten.
Development
The Bren Ten was a complete pistol and cartridge concept that started in the late 1970s, co-developed by firearms expert Jeff Cooper; the Bren Ten and its 10mm cartridge were developed primarily to give law enforcement and military personnel the most powerful, yet still practical service pistol available. The Bren Ten never saw large scale production and manufacturing ended in 1986. Several years later there was an attempt to bring a Bren Ten style pistol to market, as the Peregrine Falcon, however this effort fell victim to financial problems and never went into production.
In early 2008, Vltor Weapon Systems started development of the Fortis pistol. Vltor were able to locate all of the original blueprints, drawings and engineering notes from the original Bren Ten and received overwhelming support from many of the original supporters of the concept, including Jeff Cooper's surviving family. They were initially not able to secure the right to use the name "Bren Ten" and decided to market The New pistol under the name "Fortis". 27 July 2009 Vltor announced that they had acquired the rights to the Bren Ten name and that the pistol would be sold as the Bren Ten rather than Fortis.
The Vltor Bren Ten is externally identical to the Bren Ten, and retains the external shape and style of the Bren Ten. Internally, the Vltor Bren has several changes that were made to address performance and safety concerns, allow for more modern manufacturing techniques, and make it a stronger and more reliable pistol.
One major and embarrassing problem which plagued the original Bren Ten was the unavailability of magazines. A number of pistols were actually shipped without magazines.
The Vltor, however, has been designed not only to use its own magazine (which doubles as a takedown tool, as did those for the Bren Ten), but can also use magazines from the Tanfoglio/EAA Witness series of 10mm and .45-caliber pistols. These are widely available, though thousands of magazines have been made even before full-scale production of the pistols. Unfortunately for owners of the original Bren Ten, these magazines will not work in those pistols.
See also
Bren Ten