Brno manufactured lots of military firearms for decades.
When Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, Brno began producing German military firearms, as happened in most invaded countries.
https://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbrojovka_Brno&prev=search"Zbrojovka Brno , founded in 1918 as Československá státní zbrojovka (Czechoslovak State Arms Factory), was one of the most important armaments and engineering companies in Czechoslovakia and was the world leader in some of its products. Their products, which included not only arms (rifles, machine guns, pistols) but also automobiles, tractors, machine tools, motors and others, were usually manufactured under the brand name Z or ZB .
The traditional company, founded in 1918 and last operating under the name Zbrojovka Brno , was wound up in 2006 after bankruptcy. The company Brno Rifles , which was founded in 2004 and acquired licenses and trademark rights and was renamed Zbrojovka Brno in 2010, is a subsidiary of Česká zbrojovka (ČZUB) with the name acquired in 2010 until today."
"In Brno , until the end of the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian artillery workshops, the K. uk Waffenhauptfabrik branch in Brno (1916-1918), a branch of the Vienna Arsenal , made weapons for the kuk army .
After the founding of Czechoslovakia in November 1918, the site and the workshops were taken over by the Brno National Committee and bore various names, such as Státní zbrojovka a strojírna v Brně and Československá zbrojovka a strojírna v Brně ( State and Czechoslovak Arms and Machinery Factory in Brno ). Above all different machine parts were repaired. On January 20, 1919 [Fn 2] the factory was renamed Československá státní zbrojovka (Czechoslovak State Arms Factory). From 1923 the company was called Československé závody na výrobu zbraní (Czechoslovak factory for the production of weapons) . In 1924 there was a retroactive renaming to Československá zbrojovka Brno , the company also became a public company . After the occupation of Czechoslovakia , the politically undesirable attribute "Czechoslovak" was deleted from the name and there was the Zbrojovka Brno , which was affiliated to the Hermann Göring works under the German name Waffenwerke Brno . On 27 October 1945, the factory was nationalized and was still Czech Zbrojovka Brno . In the period from 1954 to 1968, the company was named Závody Jana Švermy Brno , after which it was renamed Zbrojovka Brno . After 1989, the company has again adopted the legal form of a public limited company.
Already in the 1960s, the communist government made shifts and outsourcing of production (especially in the 1980s in favor of the company Česká zbrojovka in Uherský Brod, also ČZUB, which, however, the products continue to market under the original trademark ZB [7] ); as a result, under the new market conditions in the 1990s, the company increasingly ran into difficulties. An attempt was made to counter this by rebuilding the company in 1999/2000, which consisted of setting up a holding company with four subsidiaries that had been divested by outsourcing:
Zbrojovka Brno Trade
Zbrojovka Brno Arms
Zbrojovka Brno Metal (founded in 1999, dissolved by resolution of the shareholders to June 13, 2006 [8] )
Zbrojovka Brno Technologies (after the bankruptcy of 2002 replaced by Zbrojovka Brno Výroba )
The parent company itself shrank and employed only a dozen employees in 2001/2002. In March 2003 Zbrojovka had to declare bankruptcy with the subsidiaries nonetheless, it was settled, the production stopped in 2006 and 2007, the company-owned property including real estate and inventory was auctioned. [11]
At the same time, Brno Rifles was founded on May 14, 2004 as a 100% subsidiary of ČZUB, which previously produced bolt action rifles for hunters and was interested in existing Zbrojovka new constructions. As early as 2006, ČZUB and Brno Rifles purchased parts of Zbrojovka Brno's production facilities and took over most of their employees. After ČZUB won the Zbrojovka Brno trademark and logo in mid-2010, on July 2, 2010, it renamed the Brno Rifles subsidiary in Zbrojovka Brno (Ltd.). [11] [12] [13] [14] For example, even though the Zbrojovka Brno website, which can be reached today, maintains its tradition dating back to 1918, these two companies should not be confused."
"
During the Second World War, the company made German rifles for the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS German rifles such as the Mauser carbine 98k and the rifle 33/40 and formerly Czech models under new designations; Also produced was a machine gun and an anti-aircraft gun."
"In the beginning Zbrojovka was engaged in repairs of rifles and machine guns, spare parts were made. It was the rifle Mannlicher 1895 and the machine gun Schwarzlose from remnants of the Austrian army in large numbers.
From the black lot MG was the own model vz. 7/24 (or M07 / 24 ) developed and produced in large numbers. The production and further development of Mannlicher rifles was largely abandoned in favor of Mauser's models. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, the production of weapons in Germany was severely limited, the company (with financial help from the Ministry of Defense in Prague) bought the complete machinery, licenses and documentation of the rifle Mauser Karabiner 98 in Oberndorf - as well as the license of the gun Mauser 1914 . These two weapons were under the designations rifle vz. 24 and pistol vz. 24 produced; the designer of the pistol, Ing. Josef Nickl, later worked in Brno himself. [4] [3] Especially the rifle vz. 24 became a successful product of Zbrojovka Brno : from this model 2 million pieces were produced until 1938, the Czechoslovak army bought about 750,000 pieces, the remainder was exported all over the world. [16]
In the interwar period, also some machine guns were developed, including by the designer Václav Holek , which were later used extensively in some armies during the Second World War. Here is above all the light machine gun ZB vz. 26 from the year 1924, based on the prototype Praga 1024 and its serial production began in 1926; There were several variants, including especially ZB vz. 27 and ZB vz. 30 , the produced total number of all variants amounts to about 145,000 pieces. In addition, the heavy machine gun ZB vz. 37 developed and manufactured. Both for the light and the heavy machine gun, the British military was interested. After the Royal Small Arms Factory in the 1930s some copies of the models vz. 26 and vz. 30 tested, a license was purchased from Brno for a model for the British .303 cartridge , which was then produced under the name Bren in Canada and other countries from 1935 to 1971; The machine gun was in use until the 1990s. In addition, the British military agreed with the Czech manufacturer, the licensing of the heavy machine gun ZB vz. 37, which bore the name Besa in the British manufacture by the Birmingham Small Arms Company and was produced from 1939 to 1946 (60,000 pieces).
After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Germany weapons were produced in the Zbrojovka Brno for the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, albeit under modified designations: the rifle vz. 24 as rifle 24 (t) , the ZB vz. 26 as MG 26 (t) and the ZB vz. 37 as MG 37 (t) , where the "t" stood for "Czech". [4] [19] [20] [16]
In addition, the anti-aircraft gun Br 303 was developed in the factories in Brno, from which about 1944 about 130 pieces were produced. From this, after the war, a new flak was developed, the ZK 454 , the 1956 under the name PLDvK vz. 53/59 (NATO code: M53 / 59 ) was introduced into the army - but produced by the works Zbrojovka Vsetín ."
by » 13 Oct 2018, 3:58 pm
That's a beautiful bit of gear Apollo! Good thread Chappo
Maybe a spare bought for a farm and never needed?
as they should be 
