Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at CZ
in Uherský Brod in the Czech Republic
by the generous invitation of the CZ Company
to take a look at some of the cool guns that they have
in their factory reference collection.
And what could be more interesting than 9mm Parabellum
... well this is a vz. 68 Skorpion, and this is a Skorpion 9x19.
If you're familiar with the Skorpion EVO 3, well this is the Skorpion EVO 2.
So the story of this begins of course with the vz. 61.
This is the version of the Skorpion that was originally adopted
as like a personal defence weapon effectively, it is in .32 ACP.
Adopted in '61, and the designer didn't stop there.
So there were other calibres that he was interested in working with,
and the vz. 64 and 65 followed shortly after this.
Those being chambered in .380 and 9mm Makarov.
... Because he was personally interested in the project,
he pushed to get permission to continue development in 9mm Parabellum.
And he got it, and the result was the vz. 68.
This actually got as far as military testing, there's a really cool picture of some Czech soldiers
with it is actually this ... exact gun in testing that exists from the 1960s.
Well, unfortunately he died shortly thereafter, and the project pretty much died with him.
Now there would be a brief revival in the early 1980s
when Czechoslovakia developed the vz. 82 pistols using 9mm Makarov.
They had their own version of the Makarov cartridge, which they had designated the vz. 82 cartridge.
And there was a brief attempt to develop this, or develop the original Makarov version of this,
for the new Czech 9mm Makarov cartridge, and that didn't really go anywhere.
And a few years later we have the Velvet Revolution,
and the end of ... the communist government in Czechoslovakia.
Now when the Czech Republic is formed in the years afterwards,
it is of course more NATO oriented, more western oriented, and it becomes pretty clear
that the Czech military is going to be wanting a proper modern submachine gun.
So CZ, now a privatised company,
goes looking for what they can develop for a modern Czech submachine gun.
And this is what they have available.
There's not a lot of money in the early years, there's not much opportunity
to develop something completely brand new from scratch.
And, hey, they do have this, this got mostly complete, it was in trials.
And so they bring it back out, and through the 1990s they're working on developing it.
Now, the problem is this is a complex and expensive gun.
In fact, let me just show you how complicated this thing is inside.
Now some of the vz. 68 prototypes were made with the
typical traditional over-folding wire stock, a stock like this one.
But this particular example was made with essentially a vz. 58 rifle stock,
which frankly it looks really cool, and it probably makes this gun handle very well.
It certainly shoulders ... very well and gives a really nice sight picture.
I will also point out that these are supposed to have two charging handles.
This is simply missing one, it's supposed to have both, so.
The most distinctive ... feature about the 9mm Skorpions is the straight magazine.
Compared to the .32s at any rate. But the controls are basically all the same.
So if we look at this side we have our zb. 68 markings, calibre 9mm Parabellum.
Serial number there is 0001: this is the very first one.
We have a magazine release button, a manual bolt hold open
and a selector switch.
The selector switch on the vz. 68 had the same markings as the 61.
So semi-auto, safe, and full auto is indicated by 20.
This length of straight magazine is in fact a 20 round magazine.
Double stack, double feed, just like the original Skorpions.
With a hold open, so when the gun's empty it will lock open.
For the 9mm guns they made 20s like this, they also made 10 round and 30 round magazines.
Now the question is how to convert a blowback gun designed for .32 ACP
to a much more powerful cartridge like 9mm Parabellum.
So a number of things were done, and this is actually a very clever conversion.
First off, the gun has been lengthened just a little bit.
This gives space for a larger bolt,
and a little bit more travel in the receiver to essentially give it dwell time,
to reduce the ... rate of deceleration of the bolt as it travels backward.
Next up, the 9mm version retains the rate reducing mechanism from the vz. 61.
So while the receiver is slightly longer on the 9mm version,
the grip is identical, and the rate reducer is identical.
So we can go ahead and pull that out here.
So we have a spring and plunger.
And our grip, and then just a ... washer.
And then this is the actual rate reducer.
So ... in fact let's pull open the gun and I'll show you all of how this works.
Disassembly is just like the regular 61.
We pull one pin there. You then pull the receiver forward, pivot it up.
And pull the bolt out of the gun, take our charging handle off.
And there's the bolt and the recoil springs.
So what we have in the back of the receiver is this toggle.
And the way it works
is this plunger is sitting in the tube here.
When the bolt hits at full travel it's going to tilt this plunger downward.
(Actually it's already in the downward position.)
This hook is going to catch on the bolt, it's actually going inside that cutout.
And it's locking and holding the bolt in the rearward position.
And when it does that it's going to snap down,
and the bottom leg of that lever is going to hit this.
This is sitting inside the tube in the grip,
it's going to go downward, working against this spring, until it bottoms out.
It's then going to come back upward.
And we have a loose weight on it here.
This thing is going to then slam back into the bottom leg of this lever.
Which is going to kick it up, which releases the bolt, and allows it to go forward.
So the amount of rate reduction is based on the weight of this plunger and the spring here.
Now that's going to reduce the rate of fire, which we would expect to normally be very high
in a very compact submachine gun like this in 9mm Parabellum.
There is also the matter of reducing the bolt velocity to a safe level.
So this is our bolt from the 9mm gun.
And this is the bolt from the .32.
You can see that ... the 9mm bolt is substantially larger,
it is in fact almost exactly double the mass of the .32 calibre bolt.
And that additional mass gives this bolt enough inertia to safely fire 9mm Parabellum.
The other thing that has been added: if we look back here on the .32 calibre bolt
you see the space for the rate reducer hook to catch.
If you look in the back of the 9mm bolt we also have this moving weight.
This is ... an anti-bounce weight so that when this fully chambers,
and impacts the front of the barrel trunnion
this is going to then go forward and counteract
the tendency of the bolt to bounce open.
So that's going to help prevent out-of-battery detonations and essentially misfires
that are ... potentially common in full-auto open-bolt guns like this.
Well, full-auto guns. This is not open bolt I should say,
this is closed bolt firing from a hammer.
The firing pin is missing, or has been removed, from this vz. 61.
But there's your hammer, right there.
So if you look at this whole mess of tiny complicated parts,
I think you start to get the idea for why this wasn't going to be a practical,
feasible, high-volume low-cost submachine gun to produce.
It is ... a beautifully made gun, and it's a beautifully engineered gun,
but it also has to be practical to manufacture and sell.
And that was the downfall of the vz. 61.
Now the other example that I have here is one of the Czech Republic guns.
This is ... what was called the Skorpion 9x19, the vz. 68 designation is gone.
This is serial number [81] right up there, ... made in the Czech Republic.
So this is after the revolution.
This is CZ attempting to develop this gun for the modern Czech military.
There are a couple of changes. Fundamentally all the mechanics are the same,
the internal mechanism remains the same as the 68.
The sights have been beefed up with nice big protective wings here.
... The selector lever has actually been updated to "30"
because they did make 30 round magazines for this.
This one in particular here is a 20, but.
We have a Picatinny rail added onto the underside for accessories like a light,
or potentially a vertical front grip on it.
And this one has the same style of wire stock as the original vz. 61s.
Note that in this case the stock is longer to match the overall length of the gun.
And it no longer locks onto the front sight wings like the early guns,
it now locks onto this muzzle nut.
So in addition to the Picatinny rail down here we have ...
(no, that doesn't want to come off) but we have a threaded muzzle.
And this actually has a little bit of a compensator effect to it
with two slots in that threaded muzzle brake.
So it acts to control climb a little bit,
and give you a threaded muzzle if you want to attach something like a suppressor,
and also to lock the folding stock on.
Now if we compare our Skorpion 9x19 to our standard vz. 61,
line them up at the back, you'll see that the 9x19 stock is a little over an inch longer.
And that doesn't seem like a lot, but it actually makes
for a significantly more comfortable cheek weld
and shouldering of the 9x19 than the original Skorpion had.
With the original Skorpion ... there were a lot of techniques for things like
putting this actually against your cheek instead of your shoulder
because it's a very short length of pull.
Well, the 9x19 really doesn't have that problem, it is a much more comfortable gun to handle.
Despite a bunch of trials and refinement,
and attempts to get this working as the Skorpion 9x19,
it becomes clear by the mid-2000s, about 2005/2006,
that this gun is not going to be feasible for the modern Czech military.
They go so far as developing something like this with a polymer buttstock
and a riser for a sort of modern optic,
and a vertical front grip, and a light, and a suppressor, and all the tactical widgets.
The problem is this is really a kludge to create a modern submachine gun.
It's not going to fit the bill. And so CZ instead has to go elsewhere
looking for something that will fill the military requirement.
And what they find is Jan Lucansky's what becomes the Skorpion EVO 3.
That is a subject for a different video.
But it leaves us with the EVO 2 and it's ...
(well, it wasn't ever called the EVO 2, that's sort of a retroactive designation),
that leaves us with the Skorpion vz. 68 and Skorpion 9x19.
Early and late designations.
Grand total production here was I believe 85 units.
They were put on the market about 2003 looking for commercial customers.
If the Czech military won't adopt it, maybe someone wants to buy it.
Turned out, no one really did want to buy it,
probably because of the price and because of the complexity.
And so ... once those 85 were built that was it, and the project died again.
And there is basically no chance of it being resurrected now
because of the success of the Skorpion EVO 3.
So a big thanks to CZ for giving me access
to their firearms reference archive to dig out these really cool guns.
This is serial number 1 of the vz. 68, which is fantastic to take a look at.
So if you're interested in either CZ historical firearms or CZ's modern firearms,
check out the description text below for links to all of their social media outlets.
And I hope you enjoyed the video. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for watching.