CZ-75
When the Second World War finished in 1945 Czechoslovakia began to establish military forces anew. Since the country was in the area of influence of the Soviet Union and entered into alliance with the Soviet Union the weapon in the inventory of Czechoslovak army was also Soviet. The Czechs did not like it because their country had domestic engineering staff. However, time passed and the Czech Republic started to produce its own weapons, pistols and handguns.
It emerged that it was necessary to develop a new gun. Prewar home-made models were poor in quality, so German weapons and Soviet hand gun ТТ were commonly used. In consequence of the efforts of constructors a gun CZ-52 with a complex roller rifle bolt lock came to life. But in contradistinction to a similar system of "Heckler and Koch" the Czechs really managed to implement bolt locking while the Germans had virtually only a semifree bolt even with roller device. Despite such a complex mechanism and not simple and expensive production the gun has been in the inventory of the Czech army up to the present day assuming that its production stopped in the middle of the 1970-s.
The army was satisfied with CZ-52 hangun, but the producers were not. It was impossible to sell it in other countries, firstly because of its complex mechanism and secondly, because of the usage of the Soviet 7,62-mm pistol cartridge which was used only in the Soviet Union and among its co-belligerents. The Czechs tried to mend a situation and developed a 50 - 7,65-mm gun with a blowback bolt which practically was a copy of German "Walther" PP. Although it’s bad assembling this gun was doomed to become unpopular and unreliable it is still the main gun of Czech police and Security Forces.
.jpg "Cz-75 gun")
A perfect shot
The second attempt was to create a gun CZ-75 hangun which was recognized as the best Czech gun over the last 50 years. Creating it the constructors used time-proved ideas and developed very reliable and exact design. Locking mechanism was borrowed from "Browning ". In this gun there is a special ear under the barrel and two lugs on the foreside which go into the notches on the upper side of the bolt cover. Trigger and firing mechanism can work on the principle of single or double-acting. 15-loading magazine case for 9-mm cartridges of the type "Parabellum" pistol. The gun is well-balanced and comfortable to hold.
During the production of the first patterns the frame and cover of the bolt were carefully sawn from steel blocks with a help of machines. But it was very expensive, so the producers decided to cast these components. However, at that time Czech industry couldn’t manage such a task, so the first components were casted in Spain. In the course of time the Czechs mastered precision casting techniques and the handgun started to be produced in the Czech Republic in full. Early patterns produced with a help of machines differ in somewhat other contour of the bolt cover. They can be recognized by the presence of the hollow on the forepart of a trigger.
On purpose to reduce the production cost one civil servant gave an order to remove from the cock the notch of the half-platoon – as though it was unnecessary. However, when Germany started to complain about more frequent occurrence of uncontrolled shots, the notch of the half-platoon was immediately given back to its position.
The quality of production and gun cover made it the best postwar gun of the Czech Republic. After the start of its production in 1976 this gun was successfully being sold in Germany and other European countries which were attracted by the low price in comparison with the price of west patterns as well as by its high reliability and hardness.
New development
After a while a new gun CZ-85 hangun appeared. It was the modification of the gun CZ-75, equipped with the cut-off of bolt cover and a safety lock which could be moved with both right and left hand. On the top of the cover there was made a full-length ledge to decrease the reflection from the body during pointing and to improve visibility through the sight. The insertion of some changes into the triggering mechanism allowed achieving the smoother pull-off. The cover of the gun became really perfect. All this redounded upon sales volume of the gun in the export market.
It is strange but the gun was not put into service in Czechoslovakia. It was produced only for export to let the country gain foreign currency. Relatively speaking CZ-75 and CZ-85 hand guns were not put into service until 1989, because 9-mm "capitalistic" cartridge "Parabellum" could not be used in the socialistic country. However, if Czechoslovakia had wanted to change CZ-75 and CZ-85 for soviet 7,62-mm cartridge it could have done it.
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