Amazing things are sometimes created by designers-gunsmiths and Czech among them are almost in the forefront. Actually, this is not particularly surprising. After all, weren't the Czechs in the days of Jan Hus invented their famous writer and actively used handguns in battles with the crusaders? Well, then, Czech factories actively supplied the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with weapons, and the engineers who worked there gained considerable experience on "imperial" orders. The technological level was sufficient for the release of first-class Mauser and School machine guns (although not first-class, but their own), so it is not surprising that the Czechs eventually released the ZB machine gun. 26, supplied even to China and Korea (!). Moreover, if you look at the paintings of North Korean artists, as well as their monuments, you get the impression that this particular machine gun was almost the main weapon of the North Korean guerrillas of Kim Il Sung! Well, then, after all, it was on its basis that the famous English BREN (Brno-Enfield) was born and, albeit less famous, but also fought BESA (Brno, Enfield, Small Arms Corporation) - the English licensed version of the Czechoslovakian machine gun ZB-53, under the German cartridge 7, 92 × 57 mm. But in Czechoslovakia they were engaged not only in machine guns …
Rifle ZH-29.
It was in the pre-war years that Czechoslovakia was among the few countries where intensive work was carried out on self-loading rifles. At its arms factories, a number of rifles of various designs were developed, although all of them were calculated primarily for export supplies, since their own army practically did not feel the need for them. Moreover, the rifles offered by Czech gunsmiths, although tested abroad, were still not mass-produced.
And now one of the most successful designs just became the ZH-29 rifle, created in the late 1920s in the city of Brno at the Česká Zbrojovka arms factory by the then famous designer Emmanuel Cholek. Moreover, he created it by order of China, which then became the main buyer of this rifle, produced from 1929 to 1939. When fascist Germany occupied Czechoslovakia, its production was completed and then it was no longer resumed.
One of the prototype rifles, the predecessors of the ZH-29.
By the way, when in 1929 in the United States they conducted comparative tests of a number of automatic rifles created by that time, the ZH-29 turned out to be the best among them, which speaks for itself. Although, having noted this, the Americans nevertheless decided not to accept it into service with their army. But at the same time it went, albeit in small batches for export. The army of Czechoslovakia also showed interest in it, placing an order for a small number of these rifles.
Diagram of the device of the ZH-29 rifle with a five-round magazine.
That is, we can say that the ZH-29 was one of the first truly functional self-loading rifles in the world, and if any major power adopted it, this could seriously change the face of European armies on the eve of World War II. … But the 20s of the twentieth century were marked by a sharp increase in pacifism. And then there was the crisis of 1929 … The military now simply did not have the money to modernize the army. Well, and if anyone showed interest in new types of weapons, then only those countries where, for example, in China, it was during this period of time that internal turmoil took place. And that's why the Abyssinian Empire, known to everyone today as Ethiopia, became another country that bought the ZH-29 rifle.
Rifle ZH-29 with a magazine for 20 rounds.
The country at that time was ruled by the regent Tefari-Makonnin, who abolished slavery in the country and tried to suppress the tyranny of the princes-races. However, his position was precarious. Local princes staged revolts, and since the army of Ethiopia was a militia of the provinces, it is clear that, attracting the troops of the rulers of others to fight the rulers of some provinces, he involuntarily fell into dependence on them. The only armed formation that the supreme power possessed was the Imperial Guard.
Moreover, the situation was aggravated by the fact that Western countries refused to supply him with weapons. Even the United States, which had no colonial interests there, imposed a ban on the sending of two tanks to Ethiopia, and the money already paid to private firms for their delivery, of course, disappeared. But the weapon to Tefari-Makonnin, who became emperor on April 2, 1930 under the name of Haile Sellasie I, was nevertheless sold … to Czechoslovakia. Moreover, at first he wanted to get the vz. 24 rifle, but then the Holek self-loading rifle just appeared, and even showed itself from the best side in the USA, and the emperor decided that, having it in service with his guard - Kebur Zabangi, would give him a huge advantage over poorly armed tribal militias. Therefore, Haile Sellasie immediately bought it, and by the end of 1930, all of his guards were armed with self-loading ZH-29 rifles.
A rifle with a 10-round magazine.
It is believed that ZH-29 received the baptism of fire on March 31, 1936 in the battle of the Abyssinian army at Maichou, where the imperial guard was defeated by the troops of Marshal Bodoglio. At the same time, a large number of rifles fell to the Italians as trophies, but since they did not have German cartridges, they were no longer used in battles.
In Czechoslovakia itself, the ZH-29 also did not receive distribution and was mainly produced in small batches for export to Romania, Turkey, Greece and, again, all the same China. For some reason, the Germans who occupied the country did not like the rifle, and they ordered to stop making it.
Receiver. Right view. You can see the translator of the fire modes, the magazine latch, the cutout in the bolt carrier under the bolt handle, when the bolt is delayed. A sight located in such a way that the rifle has a sighting line of considerable length.
Even outwardly, this rifle did not look quite ordinary. Looking at it, for example, one might easily think that its bolt is a massive steel bar, which is at the same time the cover of the front of the receiver. In fact, it only seems so! In one of the Internet sources, we read: “The stem of the bolt was a complex detail due to the fact that it was both a bolt cover, covering the latter from above and on the right, and a driver for the bolt. Its front has been lengthened, replacing the stem and forming a gas piston at the front. That is, again, we have an unfortunate stem, although it is quite obvious that in fact this detail can be called a bolt carrier with much more reason. So, before us is the L-shaped bolt carrier, the upper part of which covers the receiver from above, and the right one, with the reloading handle, on the right side. And from this part of the frame, a long and flat rod extended forward, which had a gas piston at the end, divided by a groove.
That is, the ZH-29 also belonged to a fairly large family of automatic weapons, the automatic action of which was based on the principle of removing powder gases from a stationary barrel through a special hole. The only unusual thing was that both the rod and the gas piston, being under the barrel, were shifted somewhat to the right!
Holek's patent for a gas venting mechanism with a gas regulator.
The gas venting device was … a tube that was put on the barrel and fixed on it with a nut, on which there was an L-shaped gas pipe displaced to the right with an opening into which the gas piston entered from behind. The tide for attaching the bayonet and the front sight were also not on the barrel, but on this tube! Such is the original device. In front, a gas regulator was screwed into the branch pipe of the gas outlet. Since the venting of gases from the barrel to the right and downward caused a rather noticeable effect on the lateral dispersion of bullets when fired, the accuracy of the ZH-29 was slightly lower than that of self-loading rifles with a symmetrically located gas vent mechanism. Therefore, to compensate for it, the sights were also slightly shifted to the right.
Holek's patent for a shutter device. The oblique tooth, with which the bolt engages with the bolt carrier, and the lining screwed on with a screw are clearly visible.
The shutter was inside the frame and, when moving forward, tilted accordingly to the left. There, on the side surface of the receiver, there was a screwed (not milled!) Insert, falling on which, it twisted and locked the barrel. The shutter was connected to the frame with a "tooth" that meshed with it. When fired, the gases pressed on the piston, the piston transmitted the force to the frame, it retreated backward, giving slack to the bolt, it was carried away behind the frame and together with it retreated in a completely straightforward manner, compressing the return spring. Due to the fact that the bolt itself was slightly shifted to the left, the trigger was also shifted to the left, and the return spring was on the right and was not removed from the case when the rifle was disassembled. The drummer had its own spring and, as expected, was inside the bolt. The rifle had a safety catch that blocked the trigger when the flag was in front.
USM patent.
Shooting from the ZH-29 rifle should have been carried out with 7, 92-mm Mauser rifle cartridges. The store was attached to it, box-shaped, for 5, 10 or 20 rounds, used on rifles that had the ability to conduct automatic fire. And in this case, magazines from the ZB-26 machine gun approached them. They could be replenished from standard rifle clips without removing the magazine from the rifle, with the bolt open, for which special grooves were prudently made on the receiver. The rifle had a bolt lag that kept the bolt open after all the cartridges in the magazine were used up. You could turn off the shutter delay by simply pressing the trigger. When you clicked on it again, a shot was already fired.
Barrel and piston rod.
Gas connection on the barrel.
To improve the cooling of the barrel when firing, an aluminum radiator was provided in the design of the rifle, located on it in front of the forend. It had three through holes: for the barrel, the bolt carrier and the cleaning rod. And the ventilation holes on the bottom were located along the radiator. The rifle stock consisted of a wooden buttstock with a pistol neck and two also wooden barrel linings, worn on the breech of the barrel.
Czech soldier in full gear with a ZH-29 rifle. From the "Operation Manual".
Firing at an aerial target. A rifle with an attached bayonet.
The rifle's sight was a sector one, which made it possible to conduct aimed fire at a distance of up to 1400 m. The aiming bar could be adjusted using a micrometer screw. The length of the rifle was 1140 mm, the barrel length was 590 mm, 534 mm of which fell on the rifled part. The initial speed was 830 m / s.
Check out the store.
The bayonet on the rifle was detachable, blade type.
It is clear that this rifle did not have any special influence on the course of hostilities, but the constructive solutions laid down in it were undoubtedly studied by gunsmiths from different countries, taking into account all their pros and cons. For example, the German MP43 firing and trigger mechanisms have a lot in common with the corresponding ZH-29 mechanisms.
Working with the gas regulator.
Why, after all, did the Germans not take it into service on the eve of the war with the USSR? Well, first of all, their firms themselves worked on automatic rifles. And besides, why should they wish for better quality, when the calculation to win was based on the quantity of high-quality weapons already available. Czechoslovakia was supposed to produce weapons tested by time! And she let him out!
For disassembly, it was necessary to extend the rods on the receiver, which were not completely removed, after which the rifle was easily disassembled into seven parts: a butt with a trigger, a bolt, a bolt carrier, a magazine, a gas outlet pipe with a pipe, a tube lock nut and a barrel along with a radiator, a forend and receiver.
During the Second World War, Germany received from occupied Czechoslovakia more than 1.4 million rifles and pistols, and more than 62 thousand machine guns, and this is just small arms, not counting everything else that is beyond the scope of this article. By the time of the attack on Poland, five German infantry divisions (93rd to 96th and 98th), as well as many smaller units and subunits, were equipped with Czech small arms. The Slovak corps, which consisted of a motor-borigade and two infantry divisions, and also participated in the attack of Nazi Germany on Poland, was also armed with Czech weapons. And a year later, it went to equip four more infantry divisions - 81st, 82nd, 83rd and 88th, as a result, by the time the Great Patriotic War began, the products of Czech arms factories were in the hands of many German soldiers and their satellites ! The sophisticated novelties of the German army were simply not required at that time!
P. S. I finished the material and wondered why none of the designers came up with a simple and obvious automation system with a gas outlet: a tube above the barrel leading to a rectangular bolt. There are two grooves in the shutter, in which a U-shaped plate walks up and down, locking it in the grooves of the bolt carrier with its two lower protrusions. The jumper of the two block plates is the cover of the gas chamber in the valve, where gases are removed from the tube. The shape of the cover is L-shaped, tearing off the camera towards the barrel. The plate is spring-loaded from above with a flat spring. A drummer passes through the bolt. At the back, a return spring rests on it, put on the rod.
When fired, the gases enter the bolt chamber through the tube, raise the U-shaped plate up (it is clear that it should not overlap the line of sight!), And they themselves flow forward, in no way disturbing the shooter, and at the same time push the bolt back. Since the projections of the plate come out of the grooves, the bolt moves back, extracts the sleeve and cocks the hammer, and then goes forward again and feeds the cartridge into the chamber, and the spring on the bolt lowers the locking plate down and closes the bolt. When the shutter is not closed, a shot cannot be fired. The protrusion on the plate is blocking the firing pin.
In order to push the bolt back manually, you should use the bolt handle, which can be either left or right, or in the form of two washers, like a Parabellum pistol, push the locking plate slightly up and then back. There are few details: a rear receiver cover with a guide rod and a spring, a bolt, a U-shaped locking plate and a flat plate spring. The design seems to be very simple and technologically advanced. It is a pity that I do not have the opportunity to embody it in metal, and in fact it is suitable both for machine guns and rifles, and for pistols.
