The vz.50 pistol was a compact .32 ACP (7.65mm Browning) double action pocket pistol used by police forces. It was given a face lift and redesigned the vz.70, and there were plans at one point to further modernize it. The new design would have been the vz.80, but only a few prototypes were made – one of which we are looking at today from the CZ reference library. The would-be vz.80 has a barrel about 1cm shorter than the vz.50/70, and a revised mechanism for removing the slide. And other than a few cosmetic changes to parts like the safety, that’s it…
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Romanian ZB-30 LMG: Improving the Already-Excellent ZB-26
Brno’s ZB-26 was one of the best light machine guns of the 1920s, and it was widely adopted by countries that did not have domestic arms design and production capacity (and it would eventually become […]
Semiauto pistol
Origins of the vz.82: A Western Pistol for Communist Czechoslovakia
The vz.82 and its cousin the CZ 83 are pistols that originated when the Czech state export company during the Cold War began looking for arms it could export to bring in hard currency. The […]
Light MGs
URZ: Czech Prototype Universal Modular Weapon
The URZ (Univerzální Ruční Zbraň, or Universal Hand Weapon) was a 1966 project designed by Jiří Čermák (designer of the vz.58 rifle). He envisioned a weapons system family with largely interchangeable elements that could be […]
The vertically moving disassembly lock is to a degree like that of the vz 52 pistol. Although, because the vz 52 is recoil operated, slide and barrel come off as a single unit after a short forward (not backward) movement. The hard thing is to lift the vz 52 barrel out of the slide against the powerful recoil spring.
I am glad the (at the time unique) automatic firing pin safety introduced with the vz 50 was kept.
Serial Number 3250…. as in 32ACP-vz50.
Not too enigmatic. I don’t think a lot of thought went into it since it was a manually done serial number in the first place.
“(…)32ACP(…)”
Wait. Czechoslovakia in 1970s used metric system, CZ 50 has marking 7⁶⁵ as can been seen in 1st photo from top http://modernfirearms.net/en/handguns/handguns-en/czech-republic-semi-automatic-pistols/cz-50-cz-70-eng/ Why they would use U.S. designation of said cartridge for their internal use, rather than 7,65 mm?
improving the takedown button is a great start, now the real trick would be relocating the mag release.
Interesting! @escape road, Do you know why they ultimately didn’t move forward with its production?