Vz. 24 - Post-war Production

Post-war Production

As post-script to the vz. 24 story, the production of the Czech Kar 98k-type Mauser continued after the end of the war. Under Czechoslovak Army designation vz. 98N, it served until around 1952 as the service rifle for the post-war Czechoslovak forces, and was extensively exported. Early post-war specimens were identical with wartime versions, and the use of existing stocks of wartime parts continued until exhausted. The receiver marking reverted to a pre-war style Czech rampant lion symbol, although a specimen using a German style receiver code of 'tgf' and the date '1950' has been observed. The left side of the receiver was marked 'CESKOSLOVENSKA ZBROJOVKA, AS, BRNO'. The standard settled on was distinguished by a new magazine assembly made from steel stampings, with an over-sized trigger guard for use with thick winter gloves. The new stamping, unlike late-war German stamped trigger guard/magazine assemblies, did not have a detachable magazine floorplate, meaning whole trigger guard/magazine must be unscrewed and removed entirely to clean the magazine. The locking screws, which stopped movement of the bolts securing the action and trigger guard to the stock, were deleted. Stocks were mostly solid (not laminated) beech with the German Kar 98k side sling attachments but no cleaning rod recess, and a German 'Kriegsmodell' type late-war buttplate with firing pin dismantling hole in the side. Examples produced after the Communist takeover in 1948 were marked 'Narodni Podnik'.

The most famous employment of these rifles was being purchased by Haganah arms buyers and smuggled into Palestine before the British Mandate expired on 14 May 1948, and their use in the Israeli independence war of 1948. Shipments to Israel continued after independence of both new-production Czechoslovak rifles, and German-era Kar 98ks, as Czechoslovak arms dealers sold a variety of German-pattern equipment to Israel. With Israel's adoption of the FN FAL rifle in 1955, the Czechoslovak rifles were among the Israeli Mauser rifles converted to 7.62×51mm NATO for use as reserve weapons, utilizing Mauser factory equipment provided by Czechoslovakia.

In common with elsewhere in Europe, Brno also refurbished large numbers of German Kar 98ks in the immediate post-war period. These are distinguishable by a larger serial number stamped on the underside of the stock behind the pistol grip adjacent to the original German number. Czechoslovak-refurbished Kar 98ks were sold to other Communist states in Europe, and were used by military and paramilitary forces into the 1960s, and were retained for some years afterward as reserve weapons.