Česká Zbrojovka

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Česká Zbrojovka, popularly known as "CZ", is the trading name associated with a several Czech firearms manufacturers:

Firearms made in many different factories in the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia have been sold under the name "CZ", "Brno" or "Vz".

"CZ" (or "ČZ") is an abbreviation of "Česká Zbrojovka" (Czech Armory). "Vz" (or "Vz.", "vz", "vz.") is an abbreviation of "vzor" (model). In most cases, only weapons adopted by the Czechoslovakian or Czech Republic military have "vz." in the name (e.g. the "CZ 75" pistol was not adopted by the military, so there is no "vz. 75" pistol), although there are some exceptions from this rule. "Sa" (or "Sa.") is an abbreviation of "Samopal" (submachine gun). The Czech army used the term "Samopal" for Sa vz. 58 though it is an assault rifle, so this may be as an analogy to Russian term "automat".

Note that military weapons were after World War II designed by several independent development centers (e.g. ZVS-VVÚ Brno, VTÚVM Slavičín etc.) and then assigned to a production factory (so it couldn't be said e.g. "vz. 58 was designed by Česká Zbrojovka Uherský Brod", you may only say it was produced by Česká Zbrojovka Uherský Brod).

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