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Red Oktober VZ-52

I don’t think anyone should be surprised if they have been around for a little bit, but the VZ-52 is one of my favorites. I don’t yet own one yet, but someday one will follow me home. The rifle hits all the check marks for me: semi-rare, handy, historically interesting, mechanically interesting, and attractive. Sure there are some flaws with the rifle, but I’m not idealizing it as something the military should go adopt tomorrow.

Czech VZ-52 cold war era semi auto rifle in 7.62x45mmMini-30 loaded with 5 round VZ-52 stripper clips

I even went so far as to modify my Mini-30 to be as functionally equivalent as possible. So, it’s probably no shock that I have been enamored by the InRange videos from the Red Oktober competition with Karl shooting his VZ-52. You can see the link to a playlist of the videos below. I will be updating them with the remaining videos as they are uploaded.

I will say that I’m a bit sad he’s not trying to use clips at all, but it does reinforce what we’re saying. Using stripper clips to reload is probably not something to do under a time limit (or getting shot at). The obvious caveat is when the loaded magazines run out, use what you need to.

 

Anyway, we hope you enjoy the videos as much as we did.

 

11/5/18 Update: The firing pin issues are an interesting discovery. I think their assessment of the design was quite right. The designers should not have cut so much meat out of the firing pin. I have the notion that modern materials and proper heat treatment would allow somebody to get away with that design. In the end, if you think that makes me want the rifle less, you are dead wrong!

11/6/18 Update: Ian’s attempts to load his VZ-58 with stripper clips demonstrates a little of why we don’t claim you should ditch all your magazines in favor of stripper clip loading. If you are under duress, change to a new loaded magazine. For the off chance you run out of magazines, practice loading with your clips.