Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on forgottenweapons.com I'm Ian McCollum,
and I'm here today visiting Marstar in Canada,
taking a look at some of the guns that they have in their collection and inventory,
and one of those guns is this Czech vz. 59, medium or general-purpose machine gun.
This is chambered for the 7.62x54r cartridge, uses its own proprietary belt, (because it's Czech)
and is actually the development of an earlier machine gun design from 1952.
So, in 1952 the Czech military adopted a whole new family of weapons.
They adopted the new rifle, the vz. 52,
they adopted the new pistol, the vz. 52,
and they adopted a new machine gun, the vz. 52.
Kind of like US designations. We had an M1 carbine and an M1 sub-machine gun and an M1 rifle.
They have the same sort of thing, everything here is the model of 1952.
The rifle and the machine gun had the same basic operating system,
which is a pivoting locking wedge?
Very similar to the Walther P38.
You're probably familiar with this, or, you're more likely to be familiar with this, in the rifle iteration, but,
they did also make a machine gun version of it, and that original machine gun was in 7.62x45 millimeter.
Which is just slightly more powerful than the Soviet standard 7.62x39.
And it used that proprietary cartridge because it's Czech.
And they, I guess, wanted to assert their quasi-independence from the Soviet bloc,
and they also thought that they had a better cartridge.
However, that didn't last very long.
In 1957 they converted to adopt the 7.62x39,
and both the machine gun and the rifle were adapted to use the Soviet standard cartridge.
Now, there are a couple interesting features to that early version of the machine gun which,
we'll get to, later, when I have a chance to take a look at one of those guns.
But for now we're gonna take a look at the model of 1959 which is the same basic gun,
scaled up for 7.62x54r.
This came out a couple years before the PK.
Which is why it's a good excuse for the Czechs to have not adopted the PK and developed this instead.
It still has that Walther P38-like operating system,
and there are a couple other interesting quirks to the gun. So, let's dive right in and take a look at those.
So, we are going to start disassembly by removing the barrel. Pretty easy actually we're going to open the top cover here,
and then the top cover itself, when open, acts as the interrupted thread lever.
So, if I rotate that clockwise, that allows me to just pull the barrel out.
You can see the interrupted threads here, on the barrel.
And then you have matching interrupted threads on the inside of the receiver.
And that is basically on a nut connected to the top cover
Next up we are going to pull this pin out.
Actually is going to come out from this side we'll push it through there.
Pull that pin, that is a captive pin, so it stays in place.
And then, the buttstock assembly and recoil springs come out, and the pistol grip assembly comes out,
and then, I can open up the bottom and pull out the bolt and bolt carrier assembly.
Well, there's your complete field-stripped vz. 59. Not a whole lot else to say about the disassembly process, it is super easy. Very cool there.
Actually, I will point out up on the the buttstock assembly here we have the main recoil spring,
and then we also have a buffer spring that's going to take the impact from actually the bolt itself.
Right up at the top of the bolt, when that impacts the back of the receiver assembly,
that slows it down and keeps it from damaging anything.
Anyway, let's take a closer look at some of the individual components.
So the way this guy works is,
it's the bolt head here, and it has this tipping block. That's gonna pivot rather, pivoting block. That's gonna pivot up and down like this.
It sits on our gas piston and bolt carrier like so, and it's going to cycle back and forth.
What happens down here. Is that this little hook
grabs the underside of this pivoting piece and pulls it down like so.
So, this is the gun out of battery and when it's cycling this,
the gas piston, is pushed forward by the recoil spring. It's gonna go up
pushes these locking lugs up into battery.
There are two bars in the receiver that have cutouts so you're locking lugs are right there and right there.
That's where the bolt lugs lock into.
I can't really show you it with the bolt in place because the gas piston is underneath and blocks the view.
When that happens, the rear end of the bolt then hits on
this rear block of the bolt carrier, and that hits the firing pin, pushes it forward,
exposes it, and fires the gun.
So, this is an open bolt only firearm,
and there is no semi-automatic mode. So, the only thing going on for fire control is a sear. When you pull the trigger the sear goes down,
releases off of here, and the whole assembly goes flying forward to fire.
Actually, there it is right there.
So as long as you hold this down, the bolt's just gonna fly back and forth, or the bolt carrier, over that.
When you release it, then it's gonna catch and stop.
In addition to its strange locking system one of the other weird features of the whole
vz. 52, 57, 59 series of guns, is, there's no charging handle on the side. It uses the pistol grip as the charging handle.
So, there's a button on the left side that I depress, and then pull the trigger, and, by the way, the trigger
opens up the ejection port cover, and then I can push the pistol grip forward, it then locks on to the bolt
and I pull it back and now the bolt is cocked to the rear and it's ready to fire.
On the left side of the pistol grip, in addition to the release lever to use it as a charging handle,
we also have a safety. Down is fire, and up is safe.
Which doesn't let the trigger go.
That, does let the trigger go.
Now, this lug for releasing
the charging handle, or, releasing the pistol grip to use as a charging handle, is going to drop the rear lug on the assembly.
When these pieces are assembled in the gun, that rear lug is snapping on to this little bottom plate on the buttstock assembly.
So pulling down this lock allows the charging handle to come free of the buttstock, and then you push
it forward until the sear engages with the bolt carrier, just like it's ready to fire. So, you snap the sear onto it
That's why the trigger has to be pulled.
That's why you have to pull the trigger to do this.
You push it forward, release the trigger, sear engages in the bolt carrier.....right.....there.
Right there, and then you can pull the whole thing back
Couple other elements to show you, we have a feed tray cover right here, that pops up pretty easily.
And then we have this feed ball right there,
that is connected to this wheel and it pivots like that.
So, this is operated by that bolt carrier gas piston.
when the gas piston goes by it's going to push this inward which is going to pull a cartridge.
It's going to push it inward like that which pulls a cartridge in and then snaps back to
get into the next position to do the same thing on the next stroke of the bolt.
Now this gun does use a push through belt, which is a bit unusual,
but what it means that we have a much simpler feeding system.
Because the belt comes in, and when the bolt goes forward it just takes a cartridge right here,
shoves it straight through the link, into the chamber, and fires it.
There's no need to do part of the feeding on the rearward cycling portion of the...well...the cycle.
Relevant markings here are on the back of the receiver right there.
This was a 1962 production gun along with its serial number, 30,000 and change.
And then we also have a couple of refurb marks.
So this gun was rebuilt in 83, and then 87 they stayed in service for a little while.
The bi-pod is pretty typical.
Squeeze it together, and it folds up stays nicely out of your way.
Deploys quickly and easily like that.
And, the legs are extendable if you have enough hands to hold on to them and do it.
The carry handle here is kind of neat, in that, it sits here off to the side when you don't want it in your way,
pivots up vertical for carrying the gun,
but, it also has this little lever, which allows you to rotate it into this position, and then snap it into that position.
When it's locked down in this position it acts as a vertical front grip for the gun, so that you can shoot it off hand.
The rear sight is a simple U-notch, it folds down here to be out of the way,
but there isn't a battle sight if you want to use the scope, if you want to use the sights,
you have to lift it up like this.
And then you can adjust the elevation by dialing this wheel up and down.
They did also make an optical sight for these. Although, I don't have one here to show you.
A couple last little elements; there are dust covers for every opening in the gun.
So, this is where the belt comes out when it's empty, and we have a little cover there push it back.
And then it will snap up into position.
There is a dust cover here on the feed side
That's not even spring loaded, you just push that down and that blocks dirt from getting into the feed way.
And then the gun actually ejects directly out the bottom.
So, there is a spring loaded cover down here that covers the ejection port.
You can see all the guts at the bottom of the gas piston assembly down there, too.
That is actuated by the trigger.
And the way that works is that you actually have this little arm; the trigger pushes that arm up as well as doing its actual trigger stuff inside the gun.
Now, in addition, you have this little tab. When the bolt hits that tab, it's going to kick the port cover open if it's not open already.
There are a couple accessories I should mention that I don't actually have here with the gun.
One is a belt box, these were used with 50, 100, and 200 round belts.
The 50 round belt fit nicely in a little side mounted belt box for easy transportation.
There is a light, short-barreled infantry model and that's what we have here.
With about a 21 and I think 21.5 inch barrel.
There was also a 25 and change inch barrel, a heavier barreled version for other purposes.
Like I said, they did have an optical sight that was sometimes used.
They did also have tripods.
So, this was definitely the universal machine gun concept in action, where you could have this as the portable infantry gun, or,
you could set it up for use in an in-placed position or defensive role.
This gun would be modernized a bit later on, there was a version developed in 7.62 NATO,
and it was adopted by a couple armies in the region.
I believe, to some extent, it's actually still in service.
Well, I think the big question now is, how does it actually shoot?
So, we're gonna take it out to the range and find out.
Stay tuned tomorrow, we'll have the full shooting video posting with the vz. 59 and in the meantime,
big thank you to Marstarr for letting me,
play with, disassemble, shoot, and show to you guys their vz. 59.
If you're up in Canada looking for shooting supplies, definitely check them out.
Also a big thank you to all of my Patreon supporters,
who's loyal and excellent support makes it possible for me to travel to places like this and bring you guns like this one.
Thanks for watching!