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VZ.24 (prop)

A high poly model of the Czechoslovak VZ.24 rifle.

The vz. 24 rifle is a bolt-action carbine designed and produced in Czechoslovakia from 1924 to 1942. It was developed from the German Mauser Gewehr 98 line, and features a very similar bolt design. The rifle was designed in Czechoslovakia shortly after World War I, to replace the Vz. 98/22, also a Czech-designed derivative of the Gewehr 98. The vz. 24 featured a 590 mm (23.2 in) barrel which was shorter and considered more handy than the 740 mm (29.1 in) Gewehr 98 barrel. The vz. 24 was chambered in 7.92×57mm Mauser like its predecessors.

Throughout the late 1920s and into the 1930s, Czechoslovakia exported hundreds of thousands of vz. 24 rifles to various countries across the globe, with variants chambered in the original 7.92×57mm Mauser, 7×57mm Mauser, and 7.65×53mm Argentine. These included contracts for several South American countries, most of which were 7 mm or 7.65 mm guns. Around 40,000 rifles were sent to Spanish Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War. Nearly 200,000 rifles were purchased by China, seeing action in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which became part of World War II. Iran purchased vz. 24 rifles, along with two other variants, through the late 1920s and 1930s, and later produced their own copies in the late 1940s.

Germany acquired hundreds of thousands of the rifles in 1939 when they occupied Czechoslovakia and pressed them into service under the designation "Gewehr 24(t)"; during the occupation, production of the rifles continued until 1942, when the factories were converted to the German-designed Karabiner 98k. During this period, several hundred thousand rifles were also built for the Romanian Army. Vz. 24 rifles saw extensive service during World War II in multiple theaters, predominantly with the German and Romanian armies on the Eastern Front. Lithuanian vz. 24s, which had been captured during the German invasion in 1941, were later seized by Soviet forces, who in turn used them to arm the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

After World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was dismantled; one of the new states to emerge from the ruins of the Habsburg Monarchy was Czechoslovakia. The new state received control of the Skoda factory in Brno, which was renamed the Brno Arms Works in November 1918. The following year, the factory began producing the first short rifles based on the German Gewehr 98 design, the Mauser Jelená. At least 150 of the rifles were chambered in 7mm Mauser, with at least as many also chambered in 7.92×57mm Mauser. The original Gewehr 98 rifle featured a barrel that was 740 mm (29 in) long, which proved to be too long and cumbersome in the trench fighting of World War I. Nevertheless, Brno developed the long vz. 98/22 in 1922 from the basic Gewehr 98 design, with a 740 mm (29.13 in) long barrel, along with a vz. 98/22 Short Rifle variant, though it did not see significant production.

Starting in 1923, Brno decided to develop a rifle based on the German Karabiner 98AZ, a shortened version of the Gewehr 98 with a 590 mm (23.23 in) barrel. This resulted in the vz. 23, a rifle with a 550 mm (21.5 in) long barrel that was initially produced with parts cannibalized from other rifles. The design was further refined into the vz. 23A, which consisted of newly manufactured components. Further refinements produced the vz. 24, which entered production in 1924. That year, Brno Arms Works, which had been controlled by the Czechoslovak government, was privatized to encourage export sales.

The vz.24 became the primary rifle of the Czechoslovak Army before World War II. It resembled the German Karabiner 98k, which it predated by more than a decade. Unlike the K98k, the vz. 24 has a longer top handguard, and it retains a straight bolt handle.[5] Between 1924 and 1938, Czechoslovakia manufactured more than 775,600 rifles, with the first rifles entering service in 1926. The final order was placed in July 1938, as tensions escalated with Nazi Germany over the Sudeten Germans. Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, production continued for the Slovak Republic (a Nazi client state). The exact number of rifles manufactured between 1938 and 1939 is unknown, but may be less than 10,000, based on serial numbers of surviving rifles.

The vz. 24 was a bolt-action design based on the Mauser action, featuring a straight bolt handle. The rifle's barrel, which was 590 millimeters (23.23 in) long, featured 4-groove rifling with a right-hand twist. Overall, the rifle was 1,100 mm (43.3 in) long, and it weighed 4.2 kilograms (9.2 lb). The primary chambering was for 7.92×57mm Mauser, but export variants were also chambered for 7×57mm Mauser and 7.65×53mm Argentine. Ammunition was stored in a five-round, fixed, internal magazine that fit flush with the bottom of the stock, which was fed with stripper clips. The rifles were fitted with tangent rear sights that were graduated in 50-meter (55 yd) increments, up to a maximum range of 2,000 m (2,187 yd). The front sight blade was fitted with a protector to prevent it from being damaged.

The rifle's stock featured a semi-pistol grip and an upper hand guard that extended from the forward receiver ring to the forward barrel band. Sling swivels were placed on the bottom rear of the butt and the left side of the grip and on the rear barrel band. Grasping grooves were placed just forward of the recoil lug to aid in handling the rifle. A cleaning rod was stored in the stock under the barrel.