{"id":93968,"date":"2025-06-24T02:00:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T06:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=93968"},"modified":"2025-02-03T22:47:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T03:47:17","slug":"praga-i-23-prototype-belt-fed-predecessor-of-the-zb26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/06\/24\/praga-i-23-prototype-belt-fed-predecessor-of-the-zb26\/","title":{"rendered":"Praga I-23: Prototype Belt-Fed Predecessor of the ZB26"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iQ3Iv9wgi2c?si=XV0TKEtKPXpUvqgs\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Forgotten Weapons<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 3 Feb 2025<\/p>\n<p>Vaclav Holek&#8217;s first machine gun design for the Czech military was the Praga I, built in 1922 and based heavily on the Vickers\/Maxim system. However, it became clear that the military wanted something lighter and more portable, and so the next year he heavily updated the design to this, the Praga I-23 (for 1923). It remains a belt-fed weapon chambered for the 8mm Mauser cartridge, but the locking system has been much simplified into a tilting bolt arrangement. The recoil operation from the earlier model is also gone, now replaced by a long stroke gas piston. Some elements of the Maxim remain in the belt feeding elements, but the overall gun is much more a light machine gun than the mounted heavy machine gun that was his first design.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 40 of the Praga I-23 were ordered by the Czechoslovak military, and they were tested in 1924 (only 20 examples were actually delivered of the 40). The I-23 performed well, but it was again clear that it wasn&#8217;t quite what the military really wanted. Holek revised the design again to the model 1924, using a box magazine instead of a belt feed &mdash; and that is the gun that continued the path to the ZB-26.<\/p>\n<p>Video on the Praga I machine gun that came immediately before this model: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ByZvMvBnefo\" target=\"_blank\">Praga I: A Blow-Forward Bullpup Semi-&#8230;<\/a>  <\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to the VHU &mdash; the Czech Military History Institute &mdash; for giving me access to this fantastic prototype to film for you. The Army Museum \u017di\u017ekov is a part of the Institute, and they have a three-story museum full of cool exhibits open to the public in Prague. If you have a chance to visit, it&#8217;s definitely worth the time! You can find all of their details (including their aviation and armor museums) here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vhu.cz\/en\/english-summary\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.vhu.cz\/en\/english-summary\/<\/a><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>All the best firearms history channels streaming to all major devices:<br \/>\nweaponsandwar.tv<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/utreon.com\/c\/forgottenweapons\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/utreon.com\/c\/forgottenweapons\/<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/redirect?event=video_description&#038;redir_token=QUFFLUhqbWIxblVvaEJuTUpaUDZBXzFmVGh0VUp5STR0Z3xBQ3Jtc0tudzZMc0tFXzFVUmxGbjctNGI2VjEtY2FzRlJlcTRTS0ItTVA2U3dtM0pzeGpSOW1WQkYzQ0pBcUpaZXFwa1h2OTF4ZkNORWo0ZHpXZnJNYTJsM1VXUFlBQW1OYjRZRnUxMmNQbFNxX3VncWs2aHJPUQ&#038;q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.floatplane.com%2Fchannel%2FForgottenWeapons&#038;v=iQ3Iv9wgi2c\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/For&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forgotten Weapons Published 3 Feb 2025 Vaclav Holek&#8217;s first machine gun design for the Czech military was the Praga I, built in 1922 and based heavily on the Vickers\/Maxim system. However, it became clear that the military wanted something lighter and more portable, and so the next year he heavily updated the design to this, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,7,5,663],"tags":[534,140,1366,49,1197,1265],"class_list":["post-93968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-history","category-military","category-weapons","tag-czechoslovakia","tag-design","tag-forgottenweapons","tag-guns","tag-interwarperiod","tag-machineguns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-orC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93969,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93968\/revisions\/93969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}