CZ BRNO GLORY Eight decades of excellence
The rifle that replaced the Mauser in Africa
WHEN I was fifteen, a friend granted me unrestricted use of his Brno De Luxe .22 Hornet. Until then, I’d mostly been a shotgunner, along with air-rifles and rim-fire .22s within their range limitations. We placed a one-gallon paraffin can 200 long strides off – further than any shot I’d ever taken. I set the Brno’s rear sight, went prone and squeezed off three shots. The Hornet’s 45gr bullets brought back three deeply satisfying clanks. My respect for Brno rifles took immediate root and rapidly grew during my use of that little rifle.
Prior to WWII, German, Austrian and British-made hunting rifles faced little competition in Africa. However, when production of Oberndorf and Suhl Mausers ceased after that conflict and post-war economic woes largely destroyed the British sporting rifle industry, Czechoslovakia’s CZ Brno rifles on cloned Mauser M98 actions began making their presence felt. By the 1960s, Western world labour costs had soared to where manufacturers still machining the labour-intensive Mauser 98 pattern actions (among them Winchester, FN and Husqvarna) could no longer compete. However, those in the Communist Bloc (CZ Brno and Zastava) still enjoyed cheap labour. Consequently, after Winchester replaced their Mauserpattern pre-64 Model 70 with an inferior cost-cutting design, the CZ Brno became Africa’s big-game rifle of choice.
Further, when UN arms embargos against SA (thus also SWA and Rhodesia) took effect during the 1970s, ironically, we filled the gaps with products from the Communist Bloc: CZ rifles and pistols. The USA imposed very high import tariffs on firearms made in Com
munist countries, effectively blocking them; hence Americans knew little of CZ Brno. As I recall, the first CZ75 pistol Jeff Cooper saw was at our Windhoek PPS range. Until then, Jeff held a low opinion of the DA/SA pistol designs. On examining the CZ75, he said, “We have to call this a break-through”.
During the late 1950s, Brno ZG-47S in 7x57 and 8x57 sold in SA for under £50 (£10 less than Winchester pre-64 M70s at the time). The Brno De Luxe .22 Hornet sold for £36, and Brno’s superb .22 rim-fire rifles for £22.
We wrongly pronounced their name as‘ Bru-no’. Correctly, it’s ‘Bur-noh’ (‘Bur’ being very brief, with the accent on ‘noh’). Few then knew that Brno is the name of the city where these firearms were made at that time. They were dubbed ‘Brno’ because English speakers had trouble pronouncing the other word on the metal: Zbrojovka (arms factory). The name Brno derives from the ancient Celtic word brynn meaning ‘hill town’. The Germans called it Brünn.
CZ’S logo has varied over the decades; the early logo was a Z enclosed within a C stylized to appear as spiralled rifling grooves within an outer circle. It has remained basically similar, though the ‘rifling’ disappeared at some point. A second logo forms a stylized pistol within a circle.
Brno has long been a very large and important city, originally in Moravia. In the year 1243, Brno was made the capital, complete with Roman Catholic cathedral. It was fortified, and known for its impregnability, successfully withstanding sieges: in 1428 by the Hussites, in 1464 by the Bohemians, in 1645 by the Swedes and in 1742 by the Prussians. With the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, Brno became a major industrial centre of the Austro-hungarian Empire and famous for its Masaryk University.
World War I brought the collapse of the Austro-hungarian Empire, resulting in the formation of Czechoslovakia, a strong democracy in central Europe, encompassing the city of Brno (which remains the Czech Republic’s second largest city after Prague). Brno had an advanced state armoury which, in 1924, was renamed Ceskoslovenska Zbrojovka AS Brno (Czechoslovakia Arms Factory Ltd Brno), commonly known as CZ. Their main product was the VZ-24, a clone of Mauser’s military Gewehr 98 and one of the best ever made. In 1937, Brno designed a machine-gun, the ZB vz.26 which was adopted by Britain and produced by Enfield as the Bren Gun, so-named for its Brno origins.
Around 1937, CZ started making a few sporting rifles on their VZ-24 action in 7x57, 8X57JS and 8x60s, adding double set-triggers and shotgun-style trigger-guards. The Model A was halfstocked; the carbine version, Model B, had a full-length ‘Mannlicher’ stock. Both retained the Mauser 98 flag safety-catch and the thumb-slot in the left receiver-wall, but not the clip-loader notch in the receiver bridge.
Around 1940/41, CZ introduced the models 721 and 722. Today there is enormous demand among American and Canadian collectors for early Brno rifles, but a common misconception is that the 721 and 722 were launched in 1947. Not so. Date-stamped examples exist proving it was years earlier. The 721 and 722 were similar to the A and B respectively, but with a solid left receiver-wall and modified bolt shroud with a low-lift safety-catch on the left side to facilitate low scope mounting. It locked the firing mechanism but not the closed bolt. ‘Spoon-handle’ aka ‘butter-knife’ type bolt handles were optional.
Soon, double square bridges were introduced with a 19mm dovetail for low scope mounting employing a Brno-made one-piece, slide-on mount. Calibres 6.5x57 and 7x64 were added. My nephew, James Mayson of Zimbabwe, owned one of these rare early Brnos – a Model 722 carbine in 7x57 with fulllength stock. It had the left-side safety, double square bridges and, interestingly, a pear-shaped bolt knob, which most writers claim only appeared on the later Brno ZG-47.
In 1939, Nazi Germany occupied Czechoslovakia. During WWII, CZ continued to make models 721 and 722 but had to stamp them Waffen Werke A.G. Brünn. After WWII, CZ adopted the name Zbrojovka Brno. A few model 721 and 722 in calibres 7x57 and 8X57JS were imported into America by Garcia. They marketed them as models “21 and 22” (blacking out
the 7s on the Czechprinted brochures – my collector friend has such brochures in original and altered form). After the Allied defeat of Germany in 1945, the French (at Russia’s insistence) destroyed the Mauser factory. Brno bought Mauser’s machinery and tooling and commenced making military K98 rifles for numerous countries.
In 1947, CZ’S engineer Ottokar Galas designed one of the finest factory-made sporting rifles ever built on a M98 Mauser-patterned action
– the ZG-47 (the ‘G’ in ZG was to honour Galas). However, in 1948, Czechoslovakia underwent Soviet communist domination which disrupted production, so the first ZG-47 did not appear until 1950.
It included most features of the Models 721 and 722, but importantly, now had a forward rotating safety on the right-hand side of the bolt-shroud which locked both striker and bolt. Its pearshaped bolt-handle dropped straight down to clear a low-mounted scope and the magazine floorplate was hinged. It was superbly finished and slick-operating. Standard and lightweight versions were offered with 23.6" barrels, optional double set or single stage trigger (adjustable) and additional calibres including .270, .30-06, 9.3x62 and 10.75x68. The classic European stocks had slim fore-ends with Schnabel tips. Later, those intended for American markets had heavier stocks with raised Monte Carlo combs.
Lamentably, ZG-47 rifles are rare – only 20 000 were made. By 1956, the Czechoslovakian government had completed a new arms factory in the town of Uherski Brod, and the manufacture of pistols was transferred to Uherski Brod. In 1964, they transferred the manufacture of sporting rifles from Brno to Uherski Brod. Noting that the West called CZ rifles ‘Brnos’, the Uherski Brod factory continued to stamp ‘Brno’ on their rifles. In 1966/67, CZ introduced the ZKK series; after a brief production overlap, the ZG-47 was dropped.
The ZKK was designed by brother engineers Frantisek and Joseph Kouký (the ‘KK’ was to honour them). It retained all the basic Mauser 98 features, most crucially its massively strong non-rotating extractor claw which grips the most expansive possible arc of the case rim for supreme reliability under hot, dusty African conditions. This is important on a dangerous game rifle (it also provides controlled feeding). Like the Mauser, the ZKK’S receiver ring had the interior collar to seal off burning gas in the event of a ruptured case, slotted on one side only for the extractor claw, and also the third locking lug at the rear of the one-piece bolt.
The ZKK did away with the bolt-release lever and ejector blade on the left of the receiver, opting for a heavy bolt stop in the left locking-lug raceway, an extension of which projects behind the receiver bridge as a neat bolt release lever. The spring-loaded ejector blade pivots on a pin in the receiver bottom, operating through a slot in the bolt face, an improvement over the M98’s which works though a slot in the left locking lug, reducing its bearing surface to potentially weaken it.
The ZKK’S receiver was an investment casting, though its final machining to required tolerances was so well-done that many remained unaware of this. In 1997, at the invitation of CZ, I visited their factory at Uherski Brod, and observed the investment casting procedure, done by the ‘lost wax’ method. The
ceramic moulds left a finely imprinted ‘sand-blasted’ appearance to the metal surface which was machined off the bearing surfaces by computer-controlled machines. Investment casting enabled CZ to produce an excellent Mauser 98 design at an affordable price when most manufacturers were resorting to less-desirable designs to cut labour costs.
The ZKK600 was for standard calibres, the shorter ZKK601 for the .308, .243 categories, and the ZKK602 for belted magnum cartridges including the longest made. Jeff Cooper chose the ZKK601 action for his prototype Scout rifle design. In 1979, I bought a ZKK602 in .375H&H with ‘classic English’ stock and express sights. Back then, the ZKK had a ‘pop-up’ peep-sight built into the receiver bridge. On rifles with fold-down sight blades, this was a great idea, but the 602’s express sight had one permanent standing blade behind the folding blades; if you raised the aperture sight you found yourself aligning all three sights together, which defeated the purpose, so I never used the peep sight. The trigger was a dreadful single-set type, but a single-stage trigger came as a standard extra, so I swapped them.
In the late 1960s, CZ donated 200 ZKK602S in .458 and .375H&H to Tanzania’s Game Department; Jon Speed (then a ranger) says these gave excellent long service. By the mid-1990s, Rigby of London was using slickened-up ZKK602 actions for their .375, .416 and .450 Rigby rifles. In 1998, I used a ZKK602 action to build a plain working rifle in .458
Lott. I shot three buffalo with it plus numerous other species, and could not have asked for better. For all these reasons, plus the fact that it was affordable, the ZKK602 became the dangerous game rifle of choice for most of Zimbabwe’s professional hunters.
In 1989, communism collapsed, Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic, and CZ was welcomed into the Western world markets. Interestingly, the original plant at Brno then began making sporting rifles again – I visited their (separate) stand at a gun show in 1997 to find their rifles clones of the original PRE-WWII Mauser 98 sporters! Brno management had complained that the Uherski Brod plant had no right to ‘unfairly’ put the name Brno on their rifles, so Uherski Brod rifles became CZS.
To compete in Western markets, CZ had to smarten up their products. They replaced their ‘sand-blasted’ metal finish with a polished finish and their trim bolt shroud with a wider, squarer one. The trigger became single-stage with an improved release. However, it remained the same ZKK design, renamed CZ537, later morphing into the CZ550 which became so popular in America. An article on the CZ550 magnum appeared in our June 2020 edition, so I’ll end my story of the legendary CZ Brno rifles here.
CZ goes from strength to strength. They recently bought Colt in America and Canada. We can expect big things from them in future.