The vz. 58 (or Sa vz. 58) is a 7.62×39mm assault rifle designed and manufactured in Czechoslovakia and accepted into service in the late 1950s as the 7,62 mm samopal vzor 58 ("7.62mm submachine gun model 58"), replacing the vz. 52 self-loading rifle and the 7.62×25mm Tokarev Sa 24 and Sa 26 submachine guns. While externally the vz. 58 resembles the Soviet AK-47, it is a different design based on a short-stroke gas piston. It shares no parts with Kalashnikov rifles, including the magazine. History Development of the weapon began in 1956; leading the project was chief engineer Jiří Čermák assigned to the Konstrukta Brno facility in the city of Brno. The Soviet Union had begun insisting that the Warsaw Pact forces standardize on a common ammunition. As a result, the prototype, known as the "Koště" ("broom"), was designed to chamber the intermediate Soviet 7.62×39mm M43 cartridge, rather than the Czech 7.62×45mm vz. 52 round, used in both the earlier vz. 52 rifle and the vz. 52 light machine gun. The assault rifle entered service in 1958 and over a period of 25 years (until 1984), over 920,000 weapons had been produced, fielded by the armed forces of Czechoslovakia, Cuba and several Asian and African nations. The vz. 58 was produced in three main variants: the standard vz. 58 P (Pěchotní or "infantry") model with a fixed buttstock made of a synthetic material (plastic impregnated wood, older versions used a wooden stock), the vz. 58 V (Výsadkový—"airborne"), featuring a side-folding metal shoulder stock, folded to the right side, and the vz. 58 Pi (Pěchotní s infračerveným zaměřovačem—"infantry with infrared sight"), which is similar to the vz. 58 P but includes a receiver-mounted dovetail rail bracket (installed on the left side of the receiver) used to attach an NSP2 night sight; it also has a detachable folding bipod and an enlarged conical flash suppressor. A successor to the vz. 58 was proposed in the 1990s; the 5.56×45mm NATO ČZ 2000 assault rifle has been suggested as a possible replacement but due to a general lack of defense funds within the Czech Republic, the program was postponed. Another recent contender is the ČZW-556 assault rifle and ČZW-762 light machine gun which both use lever-delayed blowback which has more reliable accuracy and performance over the gas operation. In 2011, the Czech army started replacing vz. 58 with CZ-805 BREN. While vz. 58 still