#Vz58

Welcome back to TFB’s  Photo Of The Day!  We have some historical images from CZ Firearms (Česká zbrojovka) to share.

Using images to communicate news and stories has shaped the way we view the world and in our Photo Of The Day we get to see all sorts of firearms and soldiers. Here we have soldiers of Enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group Latvia as they participate in the exercise CRYSTAL ARROW 2021.

Welcome to TFB’s Photo Of The Day. Today we honor the vz. 58 (model 58) as it’s also called. The caliber is 7.62×39mm and it was designed and manufactured in Czechoslovakia. It’s been around for a while, but is still active. It’s quite a “back to basics” rifle.

Today’s Photo Of The Day gives us a top view of an AK ( Type 56) with the dust cover removed and with & without bolt/recoil spring assembly.

In a world full of AR15s and AK variants, few companies dare to be different. This list deals with a few offerings on the market that we wish would make more range appearances but tend to sit on the shelves or in distributor warehouses. Criteria for this list requires the guns to be listed by the manufacturer on their website.

The Czech Republic has announced that it will donate obsolete vz. 58 rifles, both new and used, to the Iraqi and Kurdish regional government. The vz. 58 is an unusual assault rifle often confused with the famous Kalashnikov pattern of rifles, but very different from that family. Jane’s reports:

The vz. 58 is a rifle well-known for being easily mistaken for – but totally different from – an AK. Everything down to the locking mechanism, fire control group, and operating mechanism is different from the famous Kalashnikov, despite appearances. In fact, the vz. 58 rifle was a huge achievement for the relatively small country of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), as they had produced a weapon every bit as good as its contemporaries from the superpowers. Certainly, a gun’s merits can’t be boiled down to a simple mud test… But it wouldn’t hurt to see how it does anyway, right?

In October, I traveled out to see my co-writer Alex C. to collect data on the weights of different long guns and some of their components. Over that weekend, I weighed 58 rifles and submachine guns, and numerous magazines, bolts, bolt carriers, and other miscellaneous items. The purpose of this was not only to collate a general list of the weights of different weapons, but to be able to enhance the accuracy of a previous spreadsheet I’d produced showing the loaded “combat” weights of different rifles; that being available at this link.

The Chinese QBZ-95 bullpup has been in service for two decades and due to its sheer production, over 1.65 million so far, it will be the most prolific bullpup ever built. I did a detailed write-up on the QBZ-95 for Guns & Ammo SIP in 2006. Since then, that article has been used by many writers and researchers as reference. However, there’s still some confusion and misunderstanding on the QBZ-95’s inner workings. I hope this will help clarify the matter.

It has been just over a year since the RCMP re-classified the Cz858 rifles in Canada. We are still waiting for “the fix” Bill C-42 to come into full effect and remove the restrictions on them.

The Vz. 58 rifle is one rifle that gets much less recognition as a design than it deserves. Its front-tilting locking block design is unique and works very well, and the rifle itself is both lightweight and reliable. CzechPoint, which has been for a long time a distributor of these rifles, has decided to begin producing Vz. 58s themselves, using a combination of newly manufactured parts made in Czech tooling (and with personnel trained by Czech technicians) and surplus parts. A more in-depth description is below:

Kaliber magazine’s editor turned TFB onto a new development from Hungary. A small company called KolArms has created a 9mm conversion kit for the Vz. 58 rifle. Mr.Vass (Kaliber’s Chief Editor) breaks the conversion and other developments down:

In America the AR15 is king. Damn near every shooter has one nowadays and every gun store seems to have a whole wall of them for sale at any given time. Across the Atlantic however in the Czech Republic, a nation with anomalous gun laws (relative to the restrictions of many other European countries) and a strong shooting community you will find that the people are as familiar with the VZ58 rifle as American shooters are with their AR15s. The VZ58 has always intrigued me as the Czechs managed to avoid some form of an AK variant as a service rifle during their time as a Soviet satellite state, perhaps due to their strong arms making tradition dating back hundreds of years. Nearly every Czech firearm I have ever handled has been fantastic, both hand and long guns and I have embraced all firearm “Czechnology” (horrible pun) since I have yet to get a lemon. When our editor Phil said I could review the VZ2008 from CAI I was thrilled, and I knew my curiosity would finally be settled and I eagerly awaited getting the gun so I could beat it up. I knew exactly what I was going to put this gun through too; 700 rounds, five mags at a time, and no cleaning. While the AK is famed for its reliability, I was curious to see if the Czech design was as good.

Later this year CzechPoint will be importing the venerable Sa vz. 58 rifle chambered in .223. The rifles are manufactured by Czech Small Arms, not Česká Zbrojovka (better known as CZ) who originally manufactured the VZ-58. There are two models. The tactical model has a folding stock or an M4-style stock and forward rails. The sporter model has a fixed “thumbhole” stock.

Nolo could not find any decent instructions online explaining how to strip a Vz.58 fire control group, so he wrote a guide on how to do it …