Re: VZ-58 Reliability
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: michael357</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Bennybone</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I owned 2 VZ58s and 1 VZ2008.
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Why did you sell them ?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Bennybone</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
They are nothing like an AK in any way.
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Which one is more reliable ? </div></div>
I'm going to dignify this thread with an appropriate response without going into your reasoning in starting such compare and contrast threads.
So, let's consider the "AK." The reliability of any given "AK" is a factor of its age, its use, the quality of its maintenance, and the quality of its construction, and all of these factors are relative.
The "AK" itself is a basic design of interrelated parts that allow it to function with a relatively, and I say <span style="font-style: italic">relatively</span> high degree of reliability, given the adverse set of conditions under which it may be found in any given environment.
Most of us, here in the peace and tranquility of non-combatant life, regularly clean and lubricate our firearms well in excess of what is needed, and we don't subject them to constant, hard use as we navigate the rough patch between our homes and the grocery store.
If, however, the bottom were to fall out of our charmed existences, the somewhat forgiving design of the "AK" would allow it to go on for a bit without enjoying its former level of care. If you don't believe me, visit Youtube; there are plenty of silly videos in which dirt and pebbles are dumped into "AKs," which are then successfully test-fired.
I have yet to see or hear of videos in which VZ-58s were subject to such abuse. Perhaps it's more acceptable to half-kill $450 WASRs (notice I didn't type "WASRs," there's a reason for that), or perhaps the Czechs just aren't dull enough, on average, to be conned into attempting to blow up perfectly fine rifles by burying them in vegetable gardens in Prague and then firing them up. After all, the drunken monkeys of some of our larger US firearms companies have to have a sufficient base weapon with which to work in order to deliver the canted-sight and keyholing-barrel masterpieces that we have come to expect from them.
Now, then, as to the "AK." There is no such thing as "the AK," but, rather, just a bunch of examples of local production and variants that share certain common characteristics and features. While not quite a complete list, they include examples of the design either presently or historically manufactured or modified in Afghanistan, Albania, Bulgaria, China, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Egypt, Finland, Hungary, India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Yugoslavia, and only God knows where else. These designs include short-barreled, long-barreled, and in-between-barreled carbines and rifles in at least six different calibers, some of them produced by hand in small-town shops and mountain-side caves, and others in modern factories.
Given the vast number of varieties of the Kalashnikov design, then, and the possibility of little or lots of prior use, followed by up-to-snuff (or not) reconditioning and semi-automatic repurposing by a stateside gunsmith, it's quite possible that some of them might be more reliable, and some of them less reliable, than any given example of a VZ-58. Thus, then, my frustration with your question.
Given the ability to secure ammunition, magazines, and parts, were I to suggest one or the other to you, I'd say that any standard AKM-type AK design in 7.62x39 would be a fairly safe bet, notwithstanding your possible desire to gum it up with Lego bricks and half-chewed peanut brittle before running a magazine-full of ammo through it. Good luck with your future endeavors, OP, and realize that there is nothing under God's blue sky that you cannot make worse for your possession of it, with the possible exception of a spectacularly large rock that you cannot possibly lift.
