Every once in a while someone manages to put together
a military firearm that's just massively popular. The Remington Rolling Block was for single-shot
rifles, the Mauser 98 was for bolt actions, the PK was for belt-fed universal machine guns, and the ZB-26 is that gun for the
magazine-fed light machine gun. Thanks for tuning in to another
video on ForgottenWeapons.com. I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at the James Julia Auction House taking a look at some of the guns they're going to be selling in their upcoming fall of 2017 Firearms Auction. And I'm really excited today to get a
chance to actually take a look at a ZB-26. This really is the grand-daddy of
magazine-fed light machine guns. After World War One this is the kind of gun that
everyone was looking for for about 20 years. And the Czechs just really knocked
it out of the park with this one. So, the story of this thing dates originally
back to 1921, when the Czechoslovakian ... military started looking for a light machine gun. And they did a bunch of trials. They tried out pretty
much everything that was available on the market, the BAR, the Hotchkiss 1914, the Darne
machine gun, the Berthier machine gun, basically everything that was around. And including a couple of
domestic Czech ... developed guns, including one developed by a pair of brothers,
Emmanuel and Václav Holek of Czechoslovakia. And what those guys came up with
was actually initially a belt-fed gun. They ditched the belt feed, they went to a magazine feed,
and the Czechs decided to go ahead and adopt it. That was the I-23, made by a little factory called Praha
(p-r-a-h-a, it's probably pronounced some other way). A little bit of back and forth ensued, the factory wasn't
really big enough to supply the Czech military with guns, and so eventually this ended up
being produced by the ZB factory. And at that point it became
commercially known as the ZB-26. In the Czech military it was the LK vzor (v-z-o-r) 26,
the Light Machine Gun Model of 1926. Now, between 1926 and 1939 the ZB
factory would manage to sell ... at least 120,000 of these guns to no
fewer than 24 different countries. If you didn't make your own light
machine gun, this was the one to get. This would additionally be extremely
influential ... to Colonel Nambu designing the Type 96 and 99 Nambu light
machine guns. They are heavily based on this. It was directly responsible for the Bren gun. The ZB
factory entered an updated version of this, the ZGB 33, in British machine gun trials, and it ended
up winning and becoming the Bren gun. And the reason that it was so
successful is it just did a great job of blending all the requirements
for a military light machine gun. It had an excellent magazine that was reliable
and durable. The gun itself was reliable, durable. It was not overly expensive to manufacture.
It wasn't a cheap gun, this isn't stamped sheet metal, but it wasn't so expensive that small
countries couldn't afford to buy them. It is super quick and easy to take apart,
it's a very simple gun in operation. It's accurate, it's controllable in full-auto. It is fireable in both semi and ... fully automatic. It was chambered primarily for the 8mm Mauser
cartridge, but it was offered in a couple other cartridges. 7mm Mauser, and ... a couple others
that don't come to mind offhand. At any rate, 24 different countries
really can't all be wrong. So, this particular one is an interesting example
in that it actually has a Spanish military crest on it, but it was manufactured, or completed, during
the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, and used by the German ... [sort of] paramilitaries.
The Wehrmacht never formally adopted the ZB-26 because they had their own guns,
basically the MG34 took its place. However groups like the Waffen SS, and a lot of police,
and security organisations in Germany at the time, ... organisations that didn't have access to the
Wehrmacht's own direct stream of armaments. A lot of those guys used guns like the ZB-26. So. Let me show you that,
that crest is pretty cool, and I'll show you the other markings,
and how this all comes apart. Alright, so markings. We have this really cool, intricate
eagle crest here. That is a Spanish military crest. And remember that ZB was making these guns
commercially for all sorts of different customers. So the serial number here, 0534, is going to
be the serial number for a specific contract. This is number 534 for that Spanish
order, not number 534 overall. To go along with that, on the right side
of the receiver is the designation. Since this is a commercial gun it is marked
"ZB 26", and the serial number is repeated. However on the left side of the receiver
is marked Waffenwerke Brünn A.G., This was the German name for ... Brno, the ZB factory. And this name was adopted when the
Germans occupied Czechoslovakia. So what we have here is a receiver that was in progress, they had ... put the crest
and the serial number on it, but they hadn't actually finished the
guns off to be sent out to the Spanish. And when the Germans showed up they
decided that these were pretty cool guns, and, well, they'd just as soon
keep them themselves. So guns like this that were in progress were completed,
and then they were actually sent to Heinrich Krieghoff. Or they were overseen by Heinrich
Krieghoff for final assembly and proofing. And you can see evidence of that here on the very back
end of the receiver with a waffenamt and an eagle crest. We can also see that on some of
the small parts, like the bolt in there. We have an eagle crest and then an HK
stamp, and that HK is Heinrich Krieghoff. The controls for the ZB-26
are really quite straightforward. We have a 20 round standard magazine that is top fed,
so that allows you to get a little bit lower in prone. And it's also easier to change, especially for an assistant
gunner to change for you when you're shooting. Magazine catches is at the back, that's
just a nose in and rock back magazine. And by the way, this is an excellent magazine design.
These are strong and reliable and really good. There is a fire selector above the trigger with options for 20
which is full-auto, 0 which is safe, and 1 which is semi-auto. This gun does fire from an open bolt,
pretty typical of light machine guns. We have a magazine well cover
that slides into place there. It's actually missing its little detent, it should be
held in place there, but you can close off that. You also have a quick change barrel.
This is of course very similar to the Bren, because the Bren was developed from this. So there's a little button on the back
here, and I just lift that lever up, and the barrel slides right out. This barrel, by the way, is
another really good example of the ... redirected occupation production
of these guns by the Germans. So we have a Z in a circle which is a ZB factory mark. But then we have a waffenamt
and a German eagle firing proof. This barrel was originally serial number 33660-42. That has been crossed off because the
Germans decided to allocate it to gun 534, which is the gun we're looking at here. And it is barrel number 1. If you had
a spare barrel, it would be marked 2. Field stripping is very simple.
There are two pins, here and here, that hold the lower assembly and the buttstock on. And kind of like an AR-15 you can remove
one and just swing this out of the way, or you can remove both and take it off
entirely. I am going to just remove this pin. Push it through, it is a captive pin, and once
it's out the lower assembly pivots down. This is the guide rod for the recoil spring,
which is located here in the buttstock. With this out of the way I can pull out the operating rod,
gas piston, bolt carrier, and bolt. The gas piston on this thing is really long because
the gas port is located all the way out at the muzzle. And one of the things that would be changed
when the Bren was developed from this is they would move the gas port back to
about the midway point of the barrel, and have a much shorter gas piston as part of it. Anyway, this is our bolt carrier. And this is the bolt, and this is going to sit like so. This is the unlocked position. All the
way back here is the locked position. When it is locked, this surface right here lifts up again a
locking shoulder in the back of the receiver. And that's what locks the action when
it fires, again exactly like a Bren gun. So when this is cycling, this is the unlocked position. It will go forward, ... these two tabs here are going to
catch a cartridge from the magazine and strip it down. ... The bolt will stop because the
cartridge will be fully chambered and this surface here will
hit the barrel face and stop. The bolt carrier beneath it is going to continue moving,
which forces the bolt to cam upwards like this. Once it cams up it then comes into contact with this surface right here. That is going to hit the firing pin
right back here, which is spring loaded, and protrudes when it gets hit. So it's an open
bolt firing gun, and that's what causes it to fire. So it's like this unlocked, locked, and then under spring tension right there, fires, and then it ... unlocks, then extracts, and then
ejects the cartridge and continues the cycle. It does eject downward, which is
why there's this opening in the op rod. Empty cases are going to go down
through that and out the bottom of the gun. There's the whole thing disassembled.
Like I said, really very simple to take apart, and that was part of what
made it such a popular gun. Because the magazine is located right in the centre on
the top of the gun, the sights have to be offset to the left. And we have a rear notch sight here, and it is
connected to this big drum for changing your elevation. Note that there's a little window here with the range
in hundreds of metres, and that goes from 200 all the way out to 1,500, and just raises this rear sight notch as it goes. The front sight is a hooded barleycorn to match,
also offset to the left the same amount. So ... the sights are parallel to the barrel,
just about an inch off to the left. One other neat thing to point out here is this
carry handle, which does a couple of things. You can pivot it up like that to
carry the gun just at your side. This of course works as a handle for
removing and replacing hot barrels. And then you can fold it down
to get it out of the way. And you can actually pull it back like this and
rotate it down, and it will lock under this lug. That, by the way, is the lug for
anti-aircraft sights to be mounted on. And in this position it locks down, and it acts
as basically a sort of horizontal front grip that allows you to hold the thing ... in an assault
fire sort of stance to fire from the hip while moving. These are fantastic guns, and they just
really don't get the press or the attention because, well, they're not made
by one of the really big countries. So, if you'd like to add this one to your own
collection and have a really sweet shooter yourself, take a look at the description text below. You'll find
a link there to the Julia catalogue page on this gun, and you can look at their pictures and their description. And if you're interested, place a bid here live at
the auction, or over the phone, or through the web. Thanks for watching. [ sub by sk cn2 ]
