Czech vz. 52, 57: The SKS We Have At Home

All the best firearms history channels streaming to all major devices: We don t need the SKS, we have gun designers at home In the early days of the Cold War, the Czechoslovak communist party was on very good terms with Josef Stalin, and were able to design and use their own small arms. A whole new slate of small arms were developed in the early 1950s, with a rifle, pistol, and light machine gun all adopted in 1952 as vz. (model) 52. The rifle used a shortstroke annular type gas piston that was located around the barrel. It was chambered for a proprietary Czech 7. 62x45mm cartridge, as was the light machine gun. When Stalin died in 1953, the new leaders of the USSR were much less tolerant of Czech small arms independence. They allowed the country to continue to use nonstandard arms, but required them to convert to the 7. 62x39mm cartridge. This led to the rifle, which went into production in 1957 and ceased production in September 1959, replaced by the