Czech VZ52 Rifle Question
Hi...I was hoping someone might be able to give me some guidance with regard to a VZ52 that I recently bought. The rifle is definitely chambered for the 7.62x45 round, and appears to be otherwise more or less a standard issue VZ52. But there is an oddity...the acceptance date stamp is overstruck with "39," and there's another "39" struck just above the acceptance date, as well. The original acceptance date stamp is not legible (at least not to my eyes). The typeface for the "39" stampings does not match the typeface for the other receiver numerical markings...but the two "39" marks do match each other. It obviously cannot be the correct acceptance date, as 1939 predates the VZ52's first issuance date by a bunch. Has anyone ever come across this before and, if so, what does it signify? In the alternative...any educated guesses about significance?
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I don't know anything specific about your rifle, and have never seen or heard of one with similar markings.
That said, my WAG is that it has been altered to function with Russian 7.62 X 39 ammo. This is a rather easy conversion as all it requires is the chamber to be sleeved to function with the shorter ammo.
The problem with this conversion is that if the sleeve is not machined correctly. To be oversized and made to be a very tight interference fit in the original 7.62 X 45 chamber. It will be extracted and ejected with the fired 7.62 X 39 cartridge.
When the Czech VZ 52 rifles first were on the market years ago, a U.S. company tried to make sleeves out of aluminum. Needless to say they became a major fail.0 -
That was the first thing that crossed my mind, too...but when I checked it, the chamber is definitely too big for the 7.62x39 and it does fit the 7.62x45. My next thought was that maybe it was rechambered through the sleeve method at some point and the sleeve since has come out or been removed...there'd never be any way to know for sure either way. But I'm also not aware of any examples of restamping the receiver on a sleeve rechambered 52 (not that I'm an expert on it either, though). It also seems a bit odd to me that someone would stamp that over the acceptance date and in another location. I mean...why obliterate the date if you were going to stamp the 39 somewhere else anyway? 0 -
Have you looked at the small print on the barrel?Some of the rifles imported and sold by CAi were already rechambered in the 7.62x39.Maybe the Shotgun news archives have some sort of add related to this subject. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by jbarker429
That was the first thing that crossed my mind, too...but when I checked it, the chamber is definitely too big for the 7.62x39 and it does fit the 7.62x45. My next thought was that maybe it was rechambered through the sleeve method at some point and the sleeve since has come out or been removed...there'd never be any way to know for sure either way. But I'm also not aware of any examples of restamping the receiver on a sleeve rechambered 52 (not that I'm an expert on it either, though). It also seems a bit odd to me that someone would stamp that over the acceptance date and in another location. I mean...why obliterate the date if you were going to stamp the 39 somewhere else anyway?
I'm not sure what's involved when the chambers are sleeved, but having a shop do a chamber cast would show if any reaming/clean-up was done to accept the now missing sleeve.. At least you'd know if the chamber does, in fact, meet specs for the original round..0
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