Alois Tomiška, best know for the Little Tom pistol, was one of the original founders of the South Bohemia Armory, which became CZ of Strakonice. The first pistol produced by the company was his “Fox” design a .25 ACP pocket gun. As originally designed, it used a folding trigger without a trigger guard, and had a unique sheet metal frame. The frame was made from a single piece of steel, bend in a U-shape completely wrapping around the otherwise traditional style of slide. This allowed the pistol to be made without the difficult machining process of milling out a magazine well.
About 1500 Fox pistols of the first model were made, and the factory hoped to expand its market to police use. To that end, they made a prototype scaled up to the .32 ACP cartridge, which was the typical police caliber at the time. That is the pistol we are looking at today. It failed to generate interest, and no further production took place. It was tested by the factory in August 1921, and the project was scrapped in December of 1922.
Thanks to the Czech Military History Institute (VHU) for graciously giving me access to this one-of-a-kind prototype to film for you! If you have the opportunity, don’t miss seeing their museums in Prague:
https://www.vhu.cz/en/english-summary/
“(…)first pistol produced by the company was his “Fox” design a .25 ACP pocket gun(…)”
Why was it called so? Namely why they decided to not use Čeština or Deutsch (which I presume was more widely used, as it was official language in this part of Austria-Hungary)? Was that foreign branding attempt or something totally different?
liška is Fox in Czech apparently, nice name… I see what you mean; probably was due to like, the civilian pocket pistol market at the time… Being “European” so like, Fox in English meant a Fox… To, the French or such as oppose liška “Which is a nice word for a Fox, with it lišking
about… Etc. But a Belgian or someone might not know, it meant Fox. Along those lines… Perhaps. лиса Fox in Russiam apparently – lisa… It says. Lisa, you foxy fox you.
лиса I mean a Dutch person might know that means Fox, in English, but they might not… Hence FOX type thing…
Foxy knoxy, who remembers her? I thought she looked great behind that Vickers gun personally. Meh.
Interesting manufacturing method, for sure; when the slide “A normal slide” you think why… And then; the mag well! I see. Interesting. Might have been quite good for, sort of Roth Steyrs… Long recoil, type, but Jager sort of cheaper. Just thinking, in regards why…
You know, Roths with the inner, slide/bolt thing… Nice gun, I like it. Foxy.
Well… Not why, per se… But why, they came up with it; we know why, the mag well.
Assuming Roths weren’t made thus, for the mag well. I don’t know.
Even if they were, still sort of makes sense… Foxy anyway.
I actually really liked that jager pistol, started me off, on a whole new idea of why make “Bolts” bolts… Trellis etc. Meh. Foxy knoxy… Eh, Vickers gun.
Do one in .44 Special, U.S market, call it; Wolverine… Or something. Engraved, why not. “Folks with enough cash to buy owt special are on there last legs” modern world – Progress, they call it.
Deep blue deep engraved slide, with that case harden thing for the frame, nice gun, whats not to like. 3,000 bux.
Bit of brass, sold.
Deep engraved slide “Thing” not the slide, he he.
Frame, thing… Slide, case hardened; hey! Be a nice gun. No arguments.
“(…).44 Special(…)”
I must warn you that this cartridge is cubic ill suited for proposed purpose.
It is rimmed cartridge, already at dawn of 20th century it was detected that box magazine in pistol grip and rimmed cartridge are poor pairing, take for example https://modernfirearms.net/en/handguns/handguns-en/great-britain-semi-automatic-pistols/webley-scott-automatic-pistol-eng/ which was initially developed for then default .455 revolver cartridge and reworked for proprietary semi-rimmed cartridge.
It is over 40 mm long, which is longer than ~35 mm of 7.62×25 which already resulted in somewhat stretched (fore to aft) grip shape of https://modernfirearms.net/en/handguns/handguns-en/czech-republic-semi-automatic-pistols/cz-52-eng/
It is also fatter than said 7.62×25 which would dictate grip which is not only longer, but also wider.
Therefore please consider carefully ergonomic implications of proposed alteration.
Behind the barrel locking nut “Scaled up .44 special this, more mass.” a bb ring, sits around the barrel, gas ports in the barrel blow the bb’s into the frame… The ring of bb’s must be able to fall out out when you remove the barrel cap as per. Assisting delay… Small’ish for .44 Special, but much bigger than this, clearly. Meh, be away. Foxy knoxy.
Can be done with internal slide, thing; slips over “Said slide” in bb notches, hits shroud divets, be away, scale up & make it beautiful; perfect.
Angled front, slide bb notches, ways… Foxy gun.
And mass produced’ish… Progress. Bit of quality, again.
Totally right, U.S 3,000 dollar handguns are shit, nowadays. Fact. Like U.K shrunken Chocolate bars, profiteering mofos “Fat feckers indeed.”
“(…)U.S 3,000 dollar(…)U.S 3,000 dollar(…)”
Are you sure you correctly converted currency AND adjusted for inflation?
Ian, ceterum censeo – a Czech arsenal is called “Zbrojovka”. Which in English is pronounced more or less like in Czechish, if you just go through the lettering:
https://translate.google.co.uk/?sl=auto&tl=en&text=zbrojovka&op=translate
…however, what I hear here (as a Britton of Polish extraction), at least four or five times, is a name of iconic Polish vodka, “żubrówka”:
https://translate.google.co.uk/?sl=auto&tl=en&text=%C5%BCubr%C3%B3wka&op=translate
(which – I gather – is a tribute to your experience in Poland)
Na zdrowie!