The wz.38M, designed by Józef Maroszek, was the winner of Poland’s 1934 self-loading rifle trials. Production began in 1938, but only about 150 examples had been produced when Germany invaded and production was halted (the Germans decided not to continue production). Only 7 examples are known to survive to this day, in various conditions – 4 in the US, and one each in Poland, Russia, and Germany. The highest series number currently known is 1054, and all the known rifles are marked “Zrb.2”, indicating manufacture at Zbrojownia Nr. 2 (Arsenal No.2) in Warsaw. Mass production would have been done at the Radom factory, but it appears this was never begun.
Mechanically, the rifle uses a tilting bolt system reminiscent of the BAR, with a gas tube and pistol located below the barrel. It was equipped with a detachable 10-round magazine, but like many contemporary rifle designs it was intended to be reloaded with stripper clips, and spare magazines were not standard issue (or rather, would not have been, had the rifle gone into mass production). There is a safety selector above the trigger on the right side (safe/fire only, no full auto capacility), and the rear leaf sight is graduated from 300m out to 2000m.
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Looks like a ZH-29 copy with a more conventional bolt design. It’s a shame Germany tried to destroy them all, this looks like a good rifle.
This reminds me of a downsized BAR or something
Reminds me of a BAR too. Poland was a user of the BAR design, modified for Polish requirements.
Hi, polish licensed and modified BAR you can see in film Kelly’s Heroes, scene on the mine field
It is basically. The Poles licensed the BAR and apparently ripped off the action to make the rifle
The “Mausetrap” Mainspring constructıon of this
rifle of 1938 era, shows us that, there is really
nothing new in the firearms field. When Browning’s
“BDM” pistol used such kind a mainspring for hammer,
it was described as an “Innovatıon”.
Reminds me of the Browning A5 shotgun …
Too bad the Poles weren’t able to make enough of these guns. If they did, 1 squad of Polish soldiers would probaly be = to 2 or 3 German squads. And they could’ve held out longer. Thanks for showing this machanical art.(By the way, I’ve read the translatel Polish wiki article about this mechanical art, and, from the requiremnets, if I was a gun desighner back then, I would desigh a bullpup rifle,with dual spring, roller locking, recoil buffer, a free floating threaded crome lined bull barrel same lengh of the wz.38 barrel.Plus, it would have a foregrip and bi-pod, plus a rail for scopes.
Interesting follow up to this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/settlement-in-case-of-rare-polish-rifle-seized-from-virginia-gun-collector/2013/11/11/99d77bfa-48ae-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend
There was produced ONLY 55 rifle’s for testing. This rifle was only a prototype. The magazine was not detachable!! Never. They want to load this rifle like the polish mauser wz.29. Meybe they would use detachable magazine from polish lmg wz.28 (polish modified B.A.R.) after the tests, but the war solved this problem very quickly.
And by the way. In Poland live many inteligent and honorable people. Polish politicians are not like them. There are greedy, lazy and lie every single word.
And i’m sorry for my crapy english.
I would imagine your English is far better than the majority of people’s Polish on here! I don’t think it matters where you’re from, politicians are the same the world over.
Adam wszędzie są mendy. Tylko my jeszcze nie nauczyliśmy się ich rozpoznawać
And what is the definition of the word “politicians”?
I was one some time ago.
As for the conclusions: I deny it, not all of them.