Memorial Day auction find: Czech VZ 52

mawkie · Jun 4, 2016

-Attended a MD auction on Memorial Day and walked away with four acquisitions. This was the third: a Czech VZ 52 rifle in 7.62 x 45. This wasn't on my bucket list but I'd pretty much given up looking years ago when most of the decent examples were scooped up leaving the dregs with badly broken stocks. At this point Century reworked them and covered the evidence of all that extensive woodwork with black truck liner paint. Ugh!
-So when I saw this very nice example, still packed with grease I was interested. I was lucky to have a MDS member and buddy with me that day who's very focused on all things Czech and he gave me the thumbs up so I felt it was worth making a run at if the price was right. And it was. Got if for a very reasonable price.
-Picked it up today and am pleased in all. Only one glitch: a broken tip on the firing pin but was able to source a replacement for $30 along with an original sling for $15.
It would have been awesome if this was a VZ 52/57 but then it would have sold for 2-3 times what I paid. And no truck bed liner paint!

highli99 · Jun 4, 2016

Congrats! Nice lookin rifle.

Bertfish · Jun 4, 2016

Looked at them many times; really like the bayonet.

Two things that have always made me pause are the plethora of examples with serious condition issues (seen a lot with sewer pipes for barrels) and the general lack of ammunition.

Sirex · Jun 4, 2016

Looks nice. You get that at the auction in Union Bridge?

mawkie · Jun 5, 2016

Sirex said:
Looks nice. You get that at the auction in Union Bridge?

-Yup! One loooong day but worth the wait. Was chatting post auction with some other MDS members and we all wondered what that collection would have fetched had it been properly stored. Only saw a handful of long arms that didn't have VG or better bores but so many had surface rust and some form of stock damage. Yet there were diamonds in the rough if you were willing to take a chance. Prices on the whole were a fraction of market value.
-While there were about 30-40 folk seated for the firearms I noted that the majority of bidding was done by roughly a half dozen with the rest purely Lookie Lous. Most of those I know because I see them regularly on the auction circuit. Only one dealer was in attendance, a blessing in my eyes as auctions like Redding have now been filling up with aggressive dealers with very deep pockets who are willing to go to or above market value in search of inventory. No bargains to be found there anymore!

smdub · Jun 5, 2016

Nice! I have 52/57s on my search list on GB. Will pull the trigger on a nice example someday.

Sirex · Jun 5, 2016

mawkie said:
-Yup! One loooong day but worth the wait. Was chatting post auction with some other MDS members and we all wondered what that collection would have fetched had it been properly stored. Only saw a handful of long arms that didn't have VG or better bores but so many had surface rust and some form of stock damage. Yet there were diamonds in the rough if you were willing to take a chance. Prices on the whole were a fraction of market value.
-While there were about 30-40 folk seated for the firearms I noted that the majority of bidding was done by roughly a half dozen with the rest purely Lookie Lous. Most of those I know because I see them regularly on the auction circuit. Only one dealer was in attendance, a blessing in my eyes as auctions like Redding have now been filling up with aggressive dealers with very deep pockets who are willing to go to or above market value in search of inventory. No bargains to be found there anymore!

I wanted to go, someone told me they had a couple SKS rifles, and I want another, but lacked funding and the time. These are in the classified ads if it helps ya any. NOT mine, just saw them and reminded me of your thread.
https://www.mdshooters.com/vbclassified.php?do=ad&id=28759

Cruacious · Jun 6, 2016

Sweet, and someone put-up a case load of 7.62x45 ammo for it too recently. I need a new barrel for mine as it is shot out, but probably will re-barrel it to 7.62x39 for convenience.

yellowsled · Jun 6, 2016

very nice the stock matches! congrats...

drking2 · Jun 6, 2016

Very nice. How do you find out about these auctions?

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Chrisftk · Jun 20, 2016

Cool pick ups!

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mawkie · Jun 21, 2016

Can't find the import marks on this one. Would be grateful if anyone with a Century or other import would let me know where to look for their import marks. If my poor eyes didn't betray me and there are no import marks then I can only surmise one of two things...
1.) Importer missed marking it. Have seen this happen before though it's very uncommon. One thing's for sure, VZ52s couldn't be imported pre 68 since the iron curtain didn't fall until '89. So import marks should be somewhere.
2.) It's a Grenada bring-back. There was another VZ52 at this same auction tagged as a bring back but without provenance I considered it just a good story.

Mitch5690 · Jun 21, 2016

I didnt even pay attention who was there! I get so caught up in bidding im half oblivious.

mawkie · Jul 5, 2016

Have been on the prowl for info on VZ52s sans import marks and found a viable source to support the Grenada story over on Gunboards. This is the story posted by a USMC vet that has a very strong ring of truth to it. I'm guessing that AKs went straight to the Contras as we were very involved in that mess during the early years of the Reagan administration...

Yeah, there is truth to it. The "Unarmed Cuban Construction Workers" had a large weapons cache on the island of Carricou. All the rifles were flown by CH-46E from Carricou to Greenville Airfield on Grenada once we made the poor unarmed Cuban construction workers stop trying to kill us. The cache included VZ's and AK-47's. Where they went from there I don't know. Probably C-130 to Mobile, AL. I DO know that several cases were flown to the USS Guam including my VZ-52 and my two AK-47's. I was the co-pilot in that Frog and Ed Walsh and I flew every single rifle from Carricou to Grenada. The Marine Captain at Greenville who was coordinating the weapons' departure handed Ed and I a VZ and two AK's each through our cockpit windows. He told us the non-AK's were SKS's. Hell, we didn't know the difference at that time. The crewchief and right door gunner also got the same. Once we got back to the Guam, most of the maintenance department in HMM-261 got a rifle along with most of the pilots. We kept the AK's throughout the cruise (7 months long including Beirut) until we were at three miles (?) off the coast of North Carolina. With many tears, most of us threw our AK's over the side. I donated mine to a couple Brit pilots who for whatever reason could take them back to England. The VZ-52's were legal. Customs had no issues whatsoever with them since they're not autos. Perfectly legal. In fact, the agent who inspected my Frog when we returned looked at mine, also thought it was an SKS, and handed it back to me before I went into the hangar. However, one grunt Marine found out, Customs had much more chew than he had ass and the genius even spent a few days in eastern Kansas in a very small condo after his CO discovered his "snuck in" AK-47 proudly hanging on display on the fireplace mantel. Oh well.

After carrying the VZ-52 around with me since then, thinking for over thirty years it was an SKS, I loaded it up with 7.62x39, locked and loaded, took the safety off and "click." Once I figured out it was a VZ-52 via Doctor Google, I ordered some 7.62x45, locked and loaded, pulled the trigger and fell in love. Sadly, the rounds I could get ahold of expand at the shell casing base after firing so they get stuck in the barrel. The extractor can't get them out of the barrel so it jams every time. Hopefully you won't have the same issues and you're able to find some better ammo. You can get the x45 on gunbrokers but man it's expensive.
Anyway, I do know mine and lots of other VZ's were liberated and also that it was perfectly legal to do so. If any other AK's found their way into a clever Marine's home, he kept his mouth shut and was smart enough not to proudly display for all to see. As far as I know, all us pilots in HMM-261 heeded the Guam's 1MC announcements made several times per day in addition to Granny Amos' warnings all they way from Rota to Morehead City and got rid of our AK's but we certainly wanted to keep them.

There is another story of a US source smuggling VZ52s in from Canada where they were legal and obviously would be sans US mandated import mark. That one is harder for me to swallow and has zero provenance.

Not long after getting the VZ I received a wonderful gift from a friend: a new front sight hood. I also picked up a proper sling. Last item to scoop up is a cleaning kit.

OnTarget · Jan 20, 2018

Is the Czech VZ-52 (7.62X45) a C&R item?

Abulg1972 · Jan 20, 2018

OnTarget said:
Is the Czech VZ-52 (7.62X45) a C&R item?

Yes.

Chazp89 · Jan 20, 2018

Awesome score! I love those little rifles! Much better shape than you normally see them in. If you are interested I have some x45 brass cased boxer primed ammo from buffalo arms that I will no longer need since I rebarreled mine for x39.

Memorial Day auction find: Czech VZ 52

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