Firearms

When Gerry James, a prominent American expert and publicist in the field of ammunition, compiled a list of the most successful small arms of the 20th century for Guns & Ammo magazine years ago, one of his acquaintances asked him: "If you could only have one weapon, what would Was it? ” Without hesitation, James replied, “ Model 1911 caliber .45 ” This view is shared by a number of other experts as well as a large group of shooters from the general public. Few valid, although the vast majority of people associate the name Colt with revolvers, the most successful short weapon of the famous armory is the Colt M 1911 and its variations. Most of all, however, is that the famous pistol celebrated its 100th birthday last year.

Attempts to develop a weapon capable of a higher cadence than a repeating rifle - the most widely used and best handgun at the time, which, nota bene, had not yet reached all the possibilities offered by its mechanism - date back to the mid-nineteenth century. However, the time did not wish for a new invention and it had to wait until the period between the world wars ...

As usual, there are also some czechoslovak weapon designers are better known, while others are less well known and some know almost nothing at all. Much has been written about Václav and Emanuel Holkov, and almost nothing about their third brother František. Quite often it was also written about the Koucký brothers, but practically nothing more is known about the Strakonice brothers Kratochvíl, Jan and Jaroslav. It is true that - in comparison with the above - they worked in the arms industry for a relatively short time, only until the transfer of development and production of weapons to Brno in 1954. Nevertheless, they introduced into service of the Czechoslovak armed forces three of their weapons: self-loading pistols vz. 50 and vz. 52 and self-loading rifle vz. 52 ( later version 52/57 ). Perhaps now is the time for these white spaces in the history of Czechoslovak arms industry to fill at least a little. As children, Jan and Jaroslav lived with their parents in southern Bohemia, in the village of Budislav near Soběslav. Father Lambert worked there as the head of a cooperative distillery, mother Katerina had a lot of housework. They had five children together. The eldest, after his father Lambert, died as a child, but then he was followed by brothers "gunners" Jan and Jaroslav, sister Marie ( married Závodná, a clerk who then lived in Deštná near Jindřichův Hradec ), and Bohumil ( who later became deputy director of Pedagogical Institute in České Budějovice ). After her father's death, her mother Kateřina moved to the village of Sedlečko, a little east of Karlovy Vary, where children and grandchildren regularly went on holiday with her.

I started the series about famous weapons with the Desert Eagle pistol due to its media fame, and I decided to alternate pistols and revolvers regularly. So today it's the turn of the revolver, and what other weapon should we start this part of the series with than the revolver, which has been in production for almost 130 years.

Not to mention the Buntline Special model. In terms of importance, this is a completely insignificant variant, in the years 1876 - 1877 a series of only thirty revolvers was created, plus individual specimens made between 1877 - 1888 to order.

In 2011, a complete frenzy broke out in the shooting world. The reason was one extraordinary anniversary. That year, 100 years have passed since the creation of the Colt M 1911, one of the most famous self-loading pistols in the world. Professional periodicals spewed articles about this weapon, armament companies threw jubilee models on the market, and some armories even began production of this type, although until then it was not in the production program at all. Of course, we at valka.cz can't just miss this anniversary, so we will remember this famous pistol on these pages as well. We seem to be coming, so to speak, "with a cross after funus", but it was not so easy with the creation of the famous pistol. The weapon was actually created in 1910 and a year later was officially accepted into the arsenal of the US Armed Forces. However, the first pistols were not shipped from Colt's factory until January 1912, a hundred years ago.

The black dust described by Roger Bacon in 1242 was used until the middle of the 19th century, except for a change in the mutual ratio of the individual admixtures. On the other hand, firearms have become unrecognizable during these six centuries. From the roughly worked works of the Middle Ages, weapons evolved with their elegant decoration reminiscent of works of art. But despite all the differences, their concept remained essentially the same. In order to better understand the development of Europe shaped to a large extent by war conflicts, it is necessary to examine in more detail the beginnings of European firearms ...

In the last 60 years or so, two automation propulsion systems have firmly anchored the interest of long automatic weapon designers, both using the pressure of the gases discharged behind the projectile from the bore of the barrel, one with a gas piston and piston rod and the other without piston and piston rod, only with gas tube. They are certainly the most widespread today and other solutions occur only very sporadically. Recently, however, she has stirred up the calm surface of this traditional pond with information about the new system, which is actually a hybrid of the two previous ones. Extensive information about him was provided by the German magazine DWJ 10/2011 in an article Zweigleisig by A. Seremek, who evaluated all systems. Here they are freely presented and only here and there slightly supplemented by his opinions.

Infantry bunker KS 5 ( where K = Kralíky section of fortifications, S = Infantry bunker and 5 = serial number of the building in the fortification line ) with the code name " U potoka " is a typical representative of heavy fortification ( TO ), which was to secure the northern border of Czechoslovakia against sudden invasion of the German army, to enable the undisturbed mobilization of the field army and possibly also to protect its flank during a possible retreat ( under the pressure of a stronger adversary ) towards Slovakia.

From the end of the 19th century, the main weapon of an ordinary soldier was a simple but powerful and accurate repeater. Repeaters such as the German Mauser, the British Lee-Enfield, the Russian Mosin, the Austrian Mannlicher and the French Lebel in their time represented the pinnacle of technical perfection, the use of all previous development of firearms. This is evidenced by the essentially identical basic scheme of different repeaters introduced into armaments in different countries, as well as the long period of their use.

Ing. Bohuslav Novotný was born on August 5, 1931 in the small village Mouřínov near Bučovice, today the district of Vyškov ( formerly Bučovice ), as the oldest of three children ( sister is one year younger, brother was five years younger). He spent his youth in the village of Dambořice ( almost 2000 inhabitants ), where his father taught ...

"During the occupation, Janeček's armory internally worked on anti-tank (PT) rifles, an automatic rifle and a machine gun without a piston. After the war Ing. Kynčl prepared a machine gun with a dynamic conclusion, tested under the brand ZJ 483 or later KP 5. […] prepared [prototype repeater] ZJ 480 (whose further development led to K 5), a number of versions of self-loading rifles AK with and without a piston, after which, at the beginning of 1948, he tested his prototype ZJ 481. Experiments with PT 9/7 and 15/11 mm rifles also continued after the war. For the second shot, Janeček's armory designed two PT rifles - a repeater and an automatic one. Ing. J. Kynčl. "
Šáda, M .: Čs. small arms and machine guns. Prague 1971

In February 1947, the VTÚ informed the Strakonice and Brno armories that it was going to order prototypes of automatic rifles for testing, and also told them the " preliminary general conditions ". ČZ submitted two proposals, Brno's Zbrojovka in the Janeček plant in Nusle also two - AK with a piston and AK without a piston, Prague's Zbrojovka design office, led by Josef Koucký, its design with a piston. Prototypes were ordered from all solutions ...

A new law on weapons and ammunition has been in force since 1 January 2003. Here you can get acquainted with it ...

On May 14, 1955, an agreement was signed in Warsaw, according to which a military grouping of the Eastern Bloc states was formed, and the then Czechoslovakia also became a member of this power-political instrument of the USSR. This, of course, meant another intervention in the future development of various weapons and weapon systems of domestic origin.

Who wouldn't be excited about the Wild West? Stories of fearless gunslingers, bravely walking towards a gang of bandits on a deserted street in the glow of the setting sun. Stories of determined sheriffs, skilful bank robbers, amazing super shooters, noble Indians and honest cowboys. As a kid, I loved these stories. However, as I grew up, I wanted to know more about the lives of these legendary heroes, and with astonishment I began to uncover the world of the real West - which was no less exciting, but still somewhat different.

How did the men in the Wild West fight? What were the shooters like? How did they train? The second part of the article will answer this.

It is remarkable how little we know about the weapons of the most famous gunslinger in the West. Did Wild Bill Hickok really use the Colty Navy Model 1851, or are the witnesses who said he used 44's right? Where are these weapons today? Did Smith & Wesson really carry him at the time of death? And what about the weapon that accompanied him from this world? Let's follow in the footsteps of probably the most famous revolvers in the West ...

In the 1970s, further extensive research was conducted in this area. The key elements of these studies were experiments with firing into a special ballistic gelatin. These experiments definitively confirmed the theoretical considerations of researchers Hunger and Woodruff from the 19th century.

Josef and František Koucký are the world-famous fraternal pair of Czechoslovak designers-gunsmiths. Unfortunately, there is not much information about Josef's private life, because his son Josef lived in Germany for many years and also died there a few years ago. So if any estate after his famous father has survived, it is irretrievably lost. However, the situation is somewhat better around František: his son Vojtěch, who lives in his native house in the Krnsko region, has already forwarded most of the documents to him for publication (for two TV shows about his father, among others), but he still has something left - including memories. That is why the information about František and his life is much more detailed than about Josef.

The ZK 483 machine gun was originally designed as a test for the development of a 20 mm caliber weapon. The Military Technical Institute (VTÚ) was instructed to work on this weapon in the middle of 1948, and since 1949 this machine gun has appeared in Konstrukt as ZK 492. However, the development was gradually suppressed, until in 1951 it stopped working completely.

Already in the years 1950–1960, small arms ( self-loading pistols vz. 50 and vz. 70, 6.35mm pistols „Z“ and DUO, air pistol ZVP, already mentioned ZKP 493, automatic gas gun APP, signal model 67, Grand revolver or starting pistol UB 70 and UB 71 gradually became a typical Uherské Brod product. ). And so there was very fertile ground for the new 9 mm Para pistol, exhibited for the first time in Madrid and marked by the trade press as a "bomb from Madrid" - the CZ 75 pistol of František Koucký. At that time, unfortunately, no one knew how revolutionary the construction was, nor that the weapon would become the flagship of Česká zbrojovka for many years to come. And the result? - Absolutely insufficient patent protection of the structure meant that variants of this weapon are now produced in the world by literally anywhere ...

Wild Bill Hickok - the most famous of the famous and the most admired of the admired. It was shrouded in mystery of legend during its lifetime, and later the reality was completely covered by a layer of myths. The fact remains, however, that this man became the most famous gunslinger in the Wild West.

... On Friday, July 21, Public Square was empty and full. Crowds of curious people crowded the houses, balconies, and windows. At nine in the morning, Hickok arrived in the square from the Lyon House. Dave Tutt was already waiting for him at the west end of the square near the courthouse ...

Hickok was probably a very vain man. He was responsible for a ton of nonsense - and yet he never said a word about himself. He didn't even have to. The others did it for him.

"When Bill Hickok ruled in the name of good citizenship, every gunslinger who tried to take over the city paid for it. His assassination in Deadwood was one of the most cowardly acts the mining camps remember. "