Rifle identification question

[David Rose]

I bought a rifle last week in an estate sale. I believe it to be a WWII era“Brno ZKM 451 Model 1 TGF”. It has all of the appropriate Czech markings you would expect. My confusion comes from a stamping under the barrel that says “made in Belgium“.

Does anyone have insight into why a rifle made in Czechoslovakia would be marked made in Belgium?

 

[DoggyDaddy]

I know FN made barrels for Mausers, but I don't know if they made any for .22's. But if they had I would think they would have put their mark on it. There are lots of guns that were made in Belgium though, so it's hard telling who made it.

 

[92FSTech]

That looks like a Century Arms (CAI) import mark, not something applied by the manufacturer. I'm no expert, but I found some discussion here (https://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284866) about some similar markings, and the conclusion they seem to have come to in their thread is that Century either made a mistake about the country of origin when they import marked them, or intentionally put "Belgium" on there to get around legal issues with importing guns from an eastern block country. Either way, looks like you found a nice rifle!

 

[KellyinAvon]

Nice score! Double points for being the winning bid at an estate auction.

 

[johntheplinker]

Interesting. Might be that Century found these in Belgium, and just put that that instead of Cz. Also depending on the time frame these were imported there very well could have been some funny business involved as 92FSTech pointed out.

Most of those were made very soon after the war but yours could very well have been a late war built rifle, hence the tgf mark. No waffenamts so no provence whether it was actually used as a training rifle but it does have Czech acceptance marks.

Also a bit of quick research finds that these were imported mostly in the early 1990s so not long after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.

 

[David Rose]

Thanks for all the replies and feedback!

When I bought the rifle all I knew was that it looked cz-like. I had no idea the history of these rifles was so interesting.

 

[johntheplinker]

Thanks for all the replies and feedback!

When I bought the rifle all I knew was that it looked cz-like. I had no idea the history of these rifles was so interesting.

Yes, that rifle is the father and grandfather of all the rimfire bolt actions CZ has made since.