Holek Automat

[@russbilzing5348]

The utter simplicity of this design is outstanding. How this never became the blueprint for a combat rifle is amazing.

[@Sean_Coyne]

Beautifully made rifle and at $2,250, quite a bargain for such an interesting piece from such a famous family.

[@norcofreerider604]

Seriously, I don't think you could make a new one for what this one sold for.

[@randyhavard6084]

That firearm looks fantastic, especially the wood

[@THR33SIXX3MPYR]

A modern reproduction of this gun would be amazing, it just seems like such a user friendly design!

[@lukaszpokoju]

When I see such a neat silhouette and design I cannot help thinking: "Add it a 10 rounds double stack magazine, change the charging handle position, add a dust cover on this big ejection port,improve the rear sight and it would probably have turned it into a excellent combat rifle!" Anyway thanks again, Ian for making us discover such exotic weapons.

[@MrPizza-fe8jh]

+MrAvanile It could have been the inital idea to first sell these as civilian hunting rifles first (with rich, high-ranking, influencial millitary people among his clients) and then going to army with an improved design and hope that the Colonels and Sargants and such were so happy with their hunting rifles they would want to trial a millitary version of it. Sounds like a good marketing plan to me.

[@b.griffin317]

Double-stack mag feeding would have been the most difficult of those mods to make I'd imagine.

[@b.griffin317]

And that bottom gas vent would have been an issue with debris entering the action. A separate charging handle would have been in order. The transfer bar which is the rear-most part of the gas system looks complex to machine. All issues.

[@raditya5663]

@dimapez Chraging handle position like in HK but down under

[@ToggleSwitch13]

Man, hearing that thing cycle is VERY satisfying to the ears.

[@LukeColt]

+WesticlesEmpire My thoughts exactly, if a swiss watch was a rifle, it would make that same cocking noise. Overall lovely gun. There's something cool about a rifle so obscure.

[@Sanguinium]

+WesticlesEmpire It looks super smooth. Something tells me it would rival a smooth bolt action in cycling feel.

[@bt67766]

dat Czechnology

[@JayRaxter]

+LukeColt I agree AND it fires an easy to obtain and reload cartridge. For me $2k+ isn't 'affordable' (though I do own a 556 SWAT and a 556R which would be over $2k). It is just a very nice looking rifle though.

[@LukeColt]

Jay Raxter I don't live anywhere near the Auction place so its a no for me :( But that is a great point Jay, the 7x57 is very much available and from what I hear it's a fantastic cartridge. I'd love to see that rifle up close man, I really would.

[@adrianlarkins7259]

This rifle looks almost brand new. The stock and bluing are in A1 condition

[@GunsWatchesCO]

I love how elegant that gun in its simplicity. That you for showing this one.

[@gunfuego]

This is rhe most elegant and beautiful rifle I have ever seen. I've seen thousands of firearms and this takes the cake. Simplistic and ergonomic.

[@eugeneharrelson3933]

Very beautiful rifle. Wish modern manufacturers would go back to something like this but make it affordable.

[@mistermanji]

I really like the way this rifle looks. European semi-autos have always been so interesting to me.

[@commissarpistols606]

I bet that would be a nice deer rifle. 7mm mauser is a good cartridge too.

[@raider762]

Sure is a simple design. No tools needed. I like.

[@baron8107]

This gun looked very ahead of it's time.

[@LukeColt]

That is one of the most wonderful designs for an elegant hunting rifle that I have ever seen. Love it !

[@arnomaas6452]

such a mechanically beautiful gun !

[@RukaSubCh]

Wow that's a really simple and pretty brilliant design.

[@chrisdooley6468]

Wow that is a very simple and clean design! Another interesting gun. Thanks for the download:) btw $2-8k for an auction piece is not exactly affordable to most so I can't imagine the other prices during Julia's 'regular' days lol

[@GrumblingGrognard]

+Chris Dooley Hey, old farts like us have to have something to do if we win that lottery! :) Screw the Eruo-car. You'll see me hanging with Ian! ;)

[@SFHFWill]

Very cool rifle. I really like how simple and clean it looks. As a hunting rifle I think it has a very amazing design. Great weapon. Thanks Ian!

[@J9_j3]

very elegantly designed mechanics. a joy for an engineer to look at. a lot of thought was put into design obviously, too bad it didn't have further evolutionary development.

[@DudeNumberOnePlus]

The innards are surprisingly beautiful.

[@alfulton5946]

I'm surprised noone makes one like this now it looks very simple to produce compared to other semi automatic guns

[@tis7963]

I just saw one of these in the flesh at the NRA Sporting Arms Museum in the Bass Pro in Springfield, MO. It is indeed a gorgeous gun.

[@crocop195]

I simply can not understand that this never got picked up as a military rifle,it is so simple and the mechanism seems really reliable,and with a few modifications like a bigger magazine and changing the position of the charging handle I bet it would outperform a g43,garand,svt and almost everything else

[@sprmusa]

Such beautiful craftmanship. Gorgeous rifle

[@jamiehalford1345]

beautifully engineered disassembly.

[@aserta]

Deceivingly complex, complicated manufacturing, and the insanity of making a sporting rifle in the middle of a World War...if the gun weren't so beautiful, i'd say Mr. Holek was one bullet short of a full magazine. Lovely firearm Ian, thank you for picking it up on video for us.

[@Psiberzerker]

Beautiful, and elegant design.

[@jacohaasbroek3311]

You can see the BRNO type styling coming through on this rifle

[@jimmelnyk7506]

What a beautiful rifle, both in its lines and design.

[@SgtPattyson]

Could you do a video on the Nambu Type 100 SMG? Unless you've already done one and that I've just managed to miss it. Keep up the great work!

[@Jesses001]

Nice disassemble. Very easy and smooth. I like that rifle. It seems very well crafted.

[@MrRoboskippy]

That's a very cool gun Ian, thanks for posting. It also looks like no one ever used it. It reminds me, in many ways, of an AK.

[@noob5000000]

I like it, aesthetically pleasing and elegantly designed. I'm not crazy about the sling swivel charging handle, though.

[@SporkmanBW]

That is just a beautiful rifle. Whoever gets that is very lucky indeed.

[@stevelewis7263]

That is a very nice simple gun, would be great to see it on the range

[@GrOuNdZeRo7777]

I REALLY like that design and it could've had some potential as a military firearm with a larger magazine and perhaps a smaller intermediate cartridge. But a very nice sporter too, If I had my own factory I would take this design and reverse engineer it...It's a shame so many cool firearms saw so little production....I'd buy it in a heart beat and not be afraid to shoot it occasionally either.

[@drmaudio]

It is surprisingly easy to disassemble for a sporting rifle.

[@craigpp10]

Very nice looking gun. No doubt that it's also very comfortable to shoot.

[@slowpokebr549]

Pardon my language, but Holy Shit is that a nice simple design. Why in the heck didn't someone graft a big magazine onto that design and use it as an infantry rifle. My Garand takes about twice the time to take down and put back together, let alone a SVT 40.

[@commodork]

This gun looks reliable as hell.

[@jeffhumphreys8642]

What a gorgeous rifle and in such good shape! Thanks for the videos Forgotten Weapons! Keep it up!

[@DruidicRifleman]

Thats actually very Nice

[@DruidicRifleman]

+DruidicRifleman I said that before Seeing the take down.... that thing is Beautiful

[@blindman_outdoors6707]

it seems like its a clean very simple rifle. it'd be really fun to shoot and own

[@burleydad]

Yet another thing the existence of which I was completely unaware that I now feel compelled to have immediately!

[@IMarcaI]

This is a really lovely gun

[@r4fken]

This is a beautiful rifle. It looks like if it had had more interest then it could have very easily been adjusted for military use. What a lovely rifle.

[@vetrnymlyn2]

+Pippin I love old Czech guns, becouse I am from Czech republic! So I totaly agree with your opinion.

[@r4fken]

Adam Foxik After firing a CZ75 I am in love with most Czech guns. Its a shame I cannot own them in the UK. I have to make do with airsoft replicas. :/

[@vetrnymlyn2]

+Pippin To be honest with You. I have never shoot from any gun, but I love too look to the inovation, new ideas, that came up when desinging new weapons. The oder the gun, the more interesting ideas. :-)

[@brianmiller9365]

"might have had something to do with it" -- great vid again. Cool gun indeed! WOW Thanks for your time and effort. I really like this rifle.

[@MattdelBosque]

Wow what a beautiful rifle I'd love something like that in my collection

[@GRMGR1]

very cool design

[@pistonar]

Wow. Elegantly simple and well made. Of all the guns you've reviewed for the various auction houses, this is one of the very few I would bid on if I could. I wouldn't maroon to just sit there in a safe. I would shoot that one.

[@Sobspeed]

The stuff of legends in my country!

[@robertbogan225]

What! this guns so awesome! It's so simple in side I wish I could see it shoot... I got to shoot a 8mm mauser it's nice but a semi auto in 8mm that's just awesome

[@ap1s2k78]

Gorgeous and elegant

[@Destilight]

Yay, two videos in a day!!!

[@ronaldcolman6211]

Very elegant in it's engineering, I'm actually surprised the Germans didn't crib more of it's design for the stg44 etc. The hammer setup reminds me of later 'assault rifle' design, the AR15 and Ak spring readily to mind. Either way it's a gorgeous rifle that I'm sorry to say I'd never heard of until today.

[@MidnightdoesWoT]

This makes me very very happy because it's very very simple!!

[@ERWERman]

From the video it seem it's a very high quality made.

[@CrispyGFX]

Gorgeous rifle.

[@Empireabc]

It looks like it came outta the factory just yesterday!

[@mruler360]

Have you ever done a video on a VZ52 or VZ52/57?

[@sergeantbigmac]

+mruler360 That would be a good one and right up his alley. For how popular the sks is, it would interest a lot of people while still fulfilling the 'forgotten' requirement.

[@Arrowdodger]

What a lovely gun. I'm glad he was able to keep working even during WW2. I guess as nice as this is, it's not suitable for warfare.

[@phil180700]

What a gorgeous looking rifle :o

[@randywatson8347]

Very nice condition.

[@newdefsys]

Beautiful

[@RussellHoughton]

I would say it's a case of the right gun wrong time.

[@robertkubrick3738]

Sling swivel should have been on the gas block. Imagine the inertia of overcoming the sling attached to basically the op rod.

[@icasabona]

Wow, disassemble and "guts" look very much like my CZ 511, which is a straight blowback .22 caliber carbine, but it really looks like it.

[@WrexShepard]

Because the gas piston is directly connected to the charging "handle," there appears to be an open gap in the gas piston cylinder where the handle moves. It looks like gas could escape out of that hole? Would that be a problem in that it would spray hot gas out the bottom?

[@zow97]

+Eric Barnett I wondered the same thing -- and wouldn't that loss of pressure keep the piston from sliding all the way to the rear?

[@GLMtr]

Name in description is not Franticek, it is supposed to be Frantisek (Václav and František to be presice). Nice video greetings from Czech republic.

[@troubleboy]

+GLMtr Also Vaclav is pronounced Vatslav, not Vaklav, iirc.

[@mortisCZ]

+GLMtr +Forgotten Weapons I was going to be pedantic about it too (as a proud Czech), but You know, Czech is harsh language and Ian is doing his best. Let's be glad that there are quite a lot interesting yet forgotten weapons, which were made here. :-) For linguistically interested ones: František should be pronounced with very soft "t" and high pitched, short "i". "Š" might be considered quite similar to "ch" in French Chauchat LMG. Václav is much simpler because it has just hard "c" (like in Curych) and "á" which is just a prolonged "a" (near to slowly pronounced father). Thank you guys for Your patience with me being smarta**. :-)

[@GLMtr]

Vaklav was also said in BBT by Sheldon so it can be excused since producers of very famous sitcom got it wrong too.

[@mortisCZ]

GLMtr As I said. Czech might not be as difficult as Finnish but it is still a wierd mix of mostly slavic roots with latin grammar and many words or rules taken from German. You end like that if You were eclectic country in the middle of Europe with strong influence from everyone around...for thousand years :-D

[@MarvinCZ]

+Vojtěch “Mortis” Ptáček There is a website I recently found, for just this purpose: forvo.com/word/franti%C5%A1ek/#cs forvo.com/word/v%C3%A1clav/#cs

[@finalfantasy50]

Would the Skorpion vz. 61 count as a forgotten weapon that could be in this series? It is one of my favorites

[@lukaszpokoju]

I might say "no" as, in my opinion even if it is an old-fashionned weapon, it remains an iconic gun, rather famous and well known in firearms history. Although Ian made a topic on it on his website, and the article is quite interesting : www.forgottenweapons.com/submachine-guns/vz61-skorpion/ .But to my knowledge, there's no video about it. However the design of this gun is very neat and interesting.

[@nosuchthingasshould4175]

Such a clean design. Why has tilting bolt gone out of use?

[@cofrbooboo]

I would love to have that in my safe!

[@b.griffin317]

The feature on the bolt that prevents the firing pin from being struck; would you describe this as a form of anti-pre-ingagement? Or am I misunderstanding?

[@hughgordon6435]

Always wondered where the bsa undercover shorter air rifle got its cues

[@aasifihiaasif9521]

Very very lovely

[@Xzibit9]

10:29 I see what you did there ^^

[@Xzibit9]

check = czech, get it?

[@dominic0147]

i have a 1991 Mitchell american eagle luger i know they are pretty rare and maybe you could do a video on it ?

[@dominic0147]

RonJohn63 i already did

[@MatthewBaileyBeAfraid]

This could probably have been greatly simplified, and given better features to make it an excellent Battle Rifle. The simplicity of operation and disassembly would be perfect for a military weapon, and only some of the more complex machining on the carrier makes it more difficult to manufacture.

[@axelord4ever]

_Automat_ I LIKE THAT WORD! EDIT: first

[@axelord4ever]

+DUKE NUKEM Actually, no. AUTOMAT, check 3:50

[@robnunya572]

Elegant. How does it shoot?

[@jamesranger6283]

Typical czech firearms very well made. Crazy nice.

[@cheapgangairsoft]

The trigger unit reminds me of the one in the Gewehr 43, is it just an impression or am i actually right?

[@m1994a3jagnew]

I look all around and I see the cheapest firearm I could find was a Savage Arms 12 gauge pump gun. I think I can do better. If I ever get the chance to open up my own weapons company I plan on producing pump guns for $75 along with cheap accessible firearms. In addition to clones of more successful firearm designs that you otherwise would never get unless you're absolutely loaded. Guns for the people from the people to the people.

[@Rigzly23]

that bolt carrier seems fairly reminiscent of a Winchester 100

[@Andy47357]

how did this not become a military service rifle?!

[@samrussell4065]

Considering the traditional subversive element to the Checzhs, this looks like a way to research an automatic rifle without it coming to the attention of the occupying Germans. If this had been produced by the family firm they might have took notice, but who would bother with a small factory producing a few sporting rifles?

[@uzivatel56]

+Sam Russell "Traditional subversive element" - I like that! Greetings from Czech republic.

[@samrussell4065]

***** When it comes to the Czechs, never underestimate their patriotism, their independence and their capacity for subversion. Czechoslovakia was a nation under the Nazi jackboot, but striving to be free. An effective semi-automatic rifle would have been very useful for the Resistance.

[@scullystie4389]

What a beautiful rifle. That charging handle seems like a rather bad engineering decision though.

[@furkanbayrak6306]

can you do a video for kirikkale Turkish mauser if you can find

[@jameslawrie3807]

Elegant

[@TheyCallMeMagz]

Even though this gun is mechanically simple, I'd still be afraid to disassemble it. I think I'd forget how to reassemble it halfway through.

[@Hurricane2k8]

+MAGO5 The Progenitor In case that ever happened to Ian (which I doubt, given his obvious knowledge and understanding of engineering and guns in general), all he would need to do is have a look at the video he just recorded of him disassembling the gun and reverse the steps.

[@WalkaCrookedLine]

Having the sling swivel attached to the bolt handle seems a really poor feature. Can't use the sling in your targeting stance as Ian mentions; also seems the thing could easily be bumped out of battery when carried slung. In extreme cases the sling might pull the bolt back far enough to catch a new round and double feed. Ian describes the safety as blocking the hammer, so I suppose an accidental discharge isn't really possible with the safety on, but still.

[@ianbabcock6802]

Where would you mount a scope?

[@ButForWhy666]

Would probably make a damn good hunting rifle, if you could find a way to mount a scope on it

[@gannonwoods2456]

Considering that it was very easy to field strip, why would the Germans not want to convert this to a military arm? They tried to use the G43 but that was a flop. Seems to me that the big thing would be to take the gun, put another sling swivel on the slide, there by making the one on the bottom the charging handle. Then just make a larger magazine for it. Was it more expensive to produce? certainly would not be the tooling because the Germans were willing to create a new factory for the G43.

[@ayebraine]

Hahaha, it's so funny that Ian says "CHEKLOslovakia" instead of "Czechoslovakia" over and over again for some reason! )) (Just as trivia, the actual pronunciation I think would be closer to "Chekhoslavakiya", with "kh" as a very soft "h". Yeah, every time you see it in Slavic words, it's not a brutal manly "KHHH!" =)

[@TigeroL42]

Why on earth would you connect the sling swivel to the gun mechanism..

[@mattsamoto4451]

That gas system and front furnature kinda reminds me of a BAR.. from the front. looks heavy for a sporting rifle. Then again this is antiquity

[@douglasfulmer5483]

Sling swivel as a cocking mechanism? Sounds like it would hurt, and destroy the use of a sling. Look at that gorgeous wood. I usually like polymer, but.....

[@smartlp3010]

So is there a reason they never got into Military use? I mean yeah sporting rifle but what exactly prevents the projectile of a sporting rifle from killing a human?