Bruiser from Brno The CZ75

Bruiser from Brno: CZ75

When the war ended in 1945 the Czech army had to pick up the pieces and re-organize itself, but before it could get very far the country fell under Soviet domination and the army, like other Soviet satellites, adopted Soviet weapons. This did not suit the Czechs, who had ideas of their own, and some very good designers, so it was not long before they began developing their own weapons.

Among the most pressing needs was a pistol; their pre-war design was a horrible weapon, and anyway most had been taken by the German army, and the current issue pistol was the elderly Soviet Tokarev. So the designers were put to work to produce a decent pistol, and the result was the CZ52, an odd design with a most complex roller-locked breech; really locked, unlike the Heckler & Koch roller system, which is only a delayed blowback. In spite of its complications, its difficult manufacture and its undoubted cost to produce, it has remained the issue Czech army pistol ever since, and it remained in production until the mid-1970s.

The CZ52 satisfied the army but it did not satisfy its makers, since it had no export potential: largely because of its complexity, but also because it was chambered for the Soviet 7.62-mm pistol cartridge, which nobody outside the Soviet bloc used. The first attempt to improve matters was the model 50, a 7.65-mm blowback more or less copied from the Walther PP. This, due to bad manufacturing technology, proved to be unpopular and unreliable, but it is still the principal pistol for Czech police and security forces.

Best shot

The next attempt was the CZ75, generally agreed to be the best pistol to come out of Czechoslovakia in the last 50 years. Here the designers turned to the best time-tested ideas, and assembled a reliable and accurate weapon. The locking system is pure Browning, using a shaped cam beneath the breech, and two ribs on top of the barrel which lock into the roof of the slide. The lockwork allows single- or double-action firing. The magazine holds 15 rounds of 9-mm Parabellum, and the pistol is well-proportioned and sits comfortably in the hand.

The first models were carefully and slowly made by machining solid steel billets to make the frame and slide, but this was too expensive so they used investment casting. This was beyond Czech technology at the time, and the first cast components were imported from Spain. Eventually the Czech factory perfected the casting technique, and the pistols were made entirely in Czechoslovakia. Early machined pistols have a slightly different frame contour to the cast models, and they are also identifiable by having the front face of the trigger grooved.

In the endeavor to reduce production costs, some bureaucrat ordered that the half-cock notch on the hammer be removed, since he could see no purpose for it. After loads of reports from Germany of accidental discharges, the half-cock notch was rapidly restored to the design.

The quality of manufacture and finish on the CZ75 is well ahead of any other pistol produced in the post-war Czechoslovakia, and after its introduction in 1976 it sold well in Germany and other European countries. It shoots well, is robust and reliable, and the cost is attractive when compared with Western products.

Copies of the CZ75

An additional income has been the licensing of manufacture outside the Czechoslovakia. One such licensed copy is the Swiss AT84. However, the Swiss have made some minor but important modifications; the AT84 safety catch works whether the gun is cocked or uncocked, where as the CZ only renders the pistol safe when it is cocked. The Swiss design has adopted a custom-made German Peters-Stahl barrel of exceptional hardness and accuracy. The finish is of the highest order, better than the CZ product.

New developments

However, the Czechs were not content to sit on their design, and recently they introduced the CZ85 model. This is the 75 brought up to date by incorporating an ambidextrous safety catch and slide stop. The top of the slide has been ribbed to cut down reflection and give a clearer sight picture, and some minor changes in the lockwork have resulted in a smoother trigger-pull. The finish of this pistol is really first-class, and it remains to be seen how well it will do in the commercial market.

Strange as it may seem, the CZ75 has not been adopted by the Czech army or police forces; it is entirely for export, to gain much-needed hard currency. Also there may be sufficient CZ52 and the 83 models (the 83 replaced the 50, and is no more than a slight improvement on it), to satisfy military and police needs. Certainly the 75 and 85 could not be adopted before 1989, since the 9-mm Parabellum is a Capitalist cartridge, not to be tolerated in a good socialist state; but it should not be beyond the capability of the Czechs to remodel the 75/85 into 7.62-mm if they really wanted.

Added:  Tuesday, March 28, 2006
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