#Solothurn

The story of how Hungary came to equip its armed forces with Swiss machine guns, like many origins in WWII, goes back to WWI.  The treaty of Versailles prohibited or significantly inhibited arms production by any former Central Powers countries, Hungary being one of them.  Many small arms designers impacted by the same regulations turned to outside countries to circumvent these regulations, Switzerland being a favorite choice of the Germans.  Therefore Louis Stange (whose resumé also includes the FG42, MG39Rh, MG 81, MG 15, and the MG 34) of Rheinmetall took his MG 30 design to Switzerland to be produced by Solothurn Waffenfabrik (A company which was in itself a bit of a Rheinmetall creation).

At the end of the past year, we reported about the merger of James D. Julia auction house with Morphy Auctions. The former became the division of the latter. That’s why the online catalogs of their firearm auctions are now hosted on Morphy Auctions website.

The ITM AT84 is a Swiss built copy of the CZ 75 built in Solothurn, Switzerland. Patrick takes a look at this interesting find that somehow was produced in Switzerland, imported to Israel where it was a duty weapon for some time, then imported to the US by Century International Arms. Chambered in 9mm, the AT84 is identical to the early Pre-B CZ75s on the market with a slightly different roll mark. Later in the production run the decision was made to switch to a Tanfoglio design that made it to the US as a commercial import called the AT84S.