The Czech vz. 61 Skorpion: A stinger full of 32 ACP
Going to be assaulting house to house to liberate the decadent West for the glory of the People? Plan on leaping from a low flying plane and parachuting into a small third world country to meet interesting people (and kill them)? Or maybe you just want to pack more than a pair of socks in your bug out bag when jumping from your knocked-out T-34? Well odds are the Czech vz. 61 Skorpion was invented with you in mind.
In the late 1950s the military of then-Czechoslovakia was a close ally (whether they wanted to be or not) with the Soviets. Trapped behind the Iron Curtain in 1945,
Czechoslovakia was Communist and a member of the Warsaw Pact military alliance. Sharing a western border with West Germany while simultaneously having dozens of Soviet Red Army divisions garrisoned on their soil, the country stood to be the default front line of a Cold War ground war.
Along this border were thousands of Czech border guards who needed a compact sub gun. Besides these guards, the Army needed a personal defense weapon that could be issued to support troops who didn’t need a full size rifle. The Skorpion was designed to fit this need.
Read the rest in my column at GUNS.com
