Today's video originally included a whole bunch of cool shooting range footage of
the CZ-2000 LMG, but YouTube does not want me to really publish that.
So it is currently available for free to watch over on Utreon,
I have a link in the description text below.
You can head over there right now, and watch the full-length video
including all the shooting there. It is also available on Floatplane.
And if you're a member of Patreon you have already received
the morning that this video published, a link where you can see
the full-length version that, well, YouTube's not so happy with.
But if you're not worried about the shooting footage then carry on, thanks for watching.
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at Uherský Brod
at the CZ factory in the Czech Republic,
taking a look at some of the very cool, very rare,
firearms that they have in their factory archive.
And today we have the light machine gun version of the CZ-2000.
Now I have a video already out on the overall CZ-2000 project, aka the "Lada".
This was originally developed in communist Czechoslovakia,
and it was just on the cusp of being adopted by the military
as basically an AK replacement to the vz.58 when the Velvet Revolution happened.
The government was overthrown, the Czech Republic is formed in its place.
And the CZ Company, now privatised, brought the project back to life
as an ... attempted ... export product in the early decade of the Czech Republic.
So the plan was to have a complete suite of this style of firearm.
The light machine gun as a support weapon, a standard infantry rifle like the AKM,
and a submachine gun/personal defence weapon sort of gun like the "Krikov", the AKS-74U.
So we have taken a look at the other two patterns,
and today we have the light machine gun version.
Now fundamentally this is the same gun as all the other types of CZ-2000.
The receivers are all interchangeable, the fire control parts are the same,
the magazines are interchangeable, the stocks are the same.
The sights are almost the same, you'll see that here.
And the idea is you get a significant amount
of parts interchangeability, which is really good for logistics.
Now, no one ended up actually buying these guns, so production was quite low.
And this is the first time that I've got my hands on one of the light machine guns.
So let's take a look at it up close
because there are a few elements that are unique to the LMG.
So this thing is a little bit big to fit all in camera at once.
The buttstock is identical to all of the other
CZ-2000 patterns, all the way down to the submachine gun.
It's got a nice solid folding mechanism.
Locks in place here on that little staple.
So we can lock the buttstock in place, that allows us to get a little more of this in frame.
We have the same gas piston length as, frankly, ... a standard AK,
same length as the standard CZ-2000 rifle.
The barrel however is heavier profile, and obviously substantially longer.
The front sight, however, is the same as a standard CZ-2000.
This has the night sight in it that we can lift up, it's under spring pressure right there.
So it comes up, and when you don't want it,
it locks down out of the way inside the front sight block.
Now this bipod looks like your typical RPK bipod.
Simple stamped sheet metal legs.
We've got this metal clip that locks the legs together for stowage.
And it of course springs open to use, and ... locks out in the open position.
However, on typical RPKs made by everyone except Czechoslovakia
(or in this case the Czech Republic), the bipod is fixed to the barrel.
On this one we actually have a little spring-loaded latch right here
that I can pull down - a little hard to show you but I can pull that down.
And our front sight block has the standard bayonet lug,
because it's the same front sight block that's used on the rifle.
And the bipod actually snaps onto the bayonet lug.
So in theory you could have the light machine gun with no ... bipod and a bayonet instead.
Or you can just easily remove the bipod, so that's handy for stowage.
Typically you wouldn't be using the light machine gun without the bipod.
But if something gets damaged on here, which is certainly a possibility
with a pretty simple sheet metal design like this,
well, you can just pop it off and replace it with a new bipod.
Lastly, out here at the muzzle we have a very simple birdcage style flash hider.
Which is reverse threaded, left hand threaded on.
Very AK-like for the attachment there.
Left hand thread, and then a plunger to lock it in place
in whichever one of these locking notches happens to line up best.
Our rear sight here is the same style as all of the other CZ-2000s
with these two wire protective guards.
What is a bit interesting is that the range settings are a bit different
in that this has a universal setting which ... looks like about somewhere around 400 metres.
And then you can set it only as low as 300, and it goes up to 1,000.
If you go back and look at the video we did on the submachine gun version,
it actually starts at 100 and goes up to 800.
So the sight leaf is a similar style,
but the actual range markings are different.
In addition we have, instead of a ghost ring and a precision aperture sight,
we have a standard aperture sight there, and we have a large night sight.
A little difficult to show you that because of the sight guards, but there you go.
So two big dots, that would have been luminous paint on there.
Or you can flip it back to a standard aperture sight.
These used the standard transparent 30 round magazines.
But the Czechs also produced a drum magazine.
So this holds 75, and these are the only military AKs made in 5.56 with drum magazines.
So the Russians obviously didn't use 5.56,
but the Russian AK-74 pattern, they experimented with drums
but only on a very limited basis, never went into production.
And then opted to use a 45 round stick magazine.
Where the Czechs actually developed a 75 round drum specifically for the RPK version.
Obviously, as with other AKs, the drum is interchangeable ... with the standard box magazines.
Another unique sort of mystery feature of the CZ-2000s
are the upper handguards here, which are a distinctive blue colour.
In fact if you go back and look at my video on the CZ-2000 infantry rifle,
it also has one of these blue hand guards.
The reason for this I don't know for sure.
The best hypothesis I have come up with is that these were made out of
a polymer material that is more heat resistant than the rest of the furniture.
Because there is a heat shield inside the lower handguard,
there is not one in the upper handguard, and there isn't really room for one in the upper handguard.
And so I suspect that they discovered that heating was a problem here.
In fact you can see the lower handguard sticks out
just a little bit beyond the upper one, there's space for a heat shield here.
I suspect they found that this needed better heat protection,
didn't have space for a ... heat shield in it,
and so instead opted for a more thermally appropriate material, which happened to be blue.
Again purely speculation, but this blue is not like a one-off 3D printed replacement,
this is a standard part on CZ-2000s.
Disassembly we'll go through very quickly because this is the same as on the other guns.
You have one major pin that holds everything in place.
So we can pull our [dust cover] off. That of course has the rear sight.
We can then take the main spring out, that is a totally standard AK mainspring.
Although without the little tab on the back here to attach the dust cover.
Note of course - I should have pointed this out,
as with the other CZ-2000s there is no safety or dust cover on the side of the gun.
There is a little bit of an opening behind the bolt when the dust cover is in place, right there.
And our selector switch is entirely on the left side of the gun.
It's semi-auto, safe, 3 round burst and full-auto.
Anyway, we can then pull out our bolt carrier.
The bolt removes just like an AK.
Sort of a typical thin stem AK-74 style of bolt in ... 5.56.
And then our one master pin also allows us to take off the handguard.
And as you can see, there is no heat shield inside there.
We just have a little spring clip to hold the handguard onto the gas tube.
And that's it. We have a bulged front trunnion.
See the feed ramp there is cut ... with little mini feed ramps from either side.
And then the standard CZ-2000 3 round burst-enabled trigger mechanism.
There's your burst ratchet right there.
This is your burst counting cam lever that cycles that ratchet every time the bolt cycles.
And that's all we have.
The only marking on here is a little bit on the trunnion, K002-94.
I believe 94 is date of production, 1994.
And our top cover is actually mismatched, this is K004 instead of 2.
On the light machine gun specifically, there is also an optics rail here.
Now this isn't an optics rail as we would think about it today.
This was intended for a night vision, an early first generation infrared scope.
So it's a big heavy-duty rail, because it's a very large optical package
with an active infrared spotlight.
So, it made sense on the light machine guns.
And then of course we have a pair of sling loops here.
You'll notice that this ring is basically the same as the sort of sling ring on the vz.58.
And then the second one is at the front of the handguard.
Obviously these are very rare guns to find today, they never went into serial production.
So eventually this would lead to the CZ 805 project,
which was adopted by the Czech military.
And then the CZ Bren 2 modifying and improving on the 805,
which is used by the Czech military, as well as a whole bunch of other countries around the world.
But very rare to come across one of the original CZ-2000 light machine guns.
A big thanks to CZ for the opportunity to bring this out of their vault to film it for you guys.
Hopefully you enjoyed the video. If you do like this sort of thing
definitely check out the links in the description text below.
You can see all of CZ's other social media ... presence there
where they post not only current production stuff, but also cool historical pieces like this.
Thanks for watching.
[Shooting footage available free to view on Utreon. Link in description.]