¶ Chronological Summary
- 1979 Dornaus & Dixon start development of the pistol and 10mm Auto cartridge
- 1981 Dornaus & Dixon Enterprises becomes a legal entity
- 1982 The D&D production facility is dedicated
- 1983 Finished Bren Ten pistols begin shipping to customers
- 1986 Dornaus & Dixon close their doors
¶ History
In the 1970s the police and some military forces used a mix of semi-automatic designs and revolvers. Semi-automatic pistols offered high rates of fire and quick reloading, but generally used small rounds that would neither overstress the mechanism nor the shooter. Revolvers were offered in calibers with considerably more power than the semi-automatic pistols, but held only a small number of rounds and were fairly slow to reload. Neither could be considered ideal.
On December 13, 1979, Thomas Dornaus and Michael Dixon decided to start the development of a new semi-automatic pistol to address the gap between existing revolvers and semi-automatic pistols. What was needed, they believed, was a semi-automatic pistol with its greater ammunition capacity and faster reloads, but one that would deliver power exceeding both the .45 ACP and the .357 Magnum. They hoped the new design would become as popular as the then-aged Colt 1911.
On January 15, 1980, they went seeking advice from the most knowledgeable sources available. This effort led to Jeff Cooper. Upon seeking his advice, the two discovered that he had already been working on such a pistol. The trio combined their efforts: Dornaus and Dixon provided the engineering, development, manufacturing, and marketing, while Cooper provided conceptual design criteria and technical advice. The company was formally incorporated as Dornaus & Dixon Enterprises Inc. on July 15, 1981, in California, and a new factory was set up in Huntington Beach.
The pistol, meanwhile, was adapted from the CZ-75 but heavily modified, including a stainless steel frame, easily visible sights, and various other features that would normally only be found on heavily customized arms. The original prototype named CSP-80 was chambered in .45 ACP. Jeff Cooper however insisted that the new gun be chambered in what he termed the .40 Special. His ballistic requirements were that a 40 caliber 200 grain FMJTC bullet fired from a 5" barrel have a minimum target impact velocity at all reasonable combat ranges out to 50 meters of 1,000 FPS. Because of this and the fact that the CSP-80 was chambered in .45 ACP, the shorter cased concepts such as the .40 G&A were abandoned and work began on the .45 ACP length .40 Special using shortened .30 Remington rifle brass. The resultant wildcat cartridge was then renamed the 10mm Auto. Jeff Cooper took this and renamed the Combat Service Pistol 80 the Bren Ten.
The Bren Ten was produced from 1983 to 1986. They had started taking orders in 1982, forcing them to ship out examples as soon as possible, before in-depth testing was done. The first batch of pistols was sent to the customers with one magazine from a pre-serial batch. Customers cancelled their orders and in 1986 Dornaus & Dixon Inc. was forced to file for bankruptcy.