Continuing the series of articles and social media posts dedicated to some of their most interesting historical firearms, Ceska Zbrojovka published photos of their first polymer-framed handgun – the CZ 100. This pistol was designed in the early ’90s and although like many other early polymer-framed pistols it was not really commercially successful, it is an interesting handgun design with several innovative features.

CZ 100 was designed by a team of engineers led by a gentleman named Václav Polanský. The first prototype of this pistol was made with an aluminum alloy frame. The material of the polymer frame was strong enough to allow having full-length frame rails without a need for steel reinforcement. The polymer frame also had a proprietary accessory rail and the slide featured front serrations. Another interesting design element is the part installed right behind the ejection port which was added to make it possible to rack the slide with one hand by pressing that part against a solid surface.

CZ 100 is a semi-auto striker-fired locked-breech pistol with a tilting barrel locking into the ejection port. The pistol was chambered in 9x19mm or .40 S&W and fed from double-stack single-feed magazines of 13 and 10 round capacities. The CZ 100 is a DAO (double-action-only) pistol, however, there was also a version of this handgun called CZ 110 which had a DA/SA (double-action/single-action) trigger mechanism and a decocker.

If you want to learn more about the CZ 100 pistol, click here to read Ceska Zbrojovka’s article about this handgun.

Pictures by Česká zbrojovka a.s., www.czub.cz