CZ 2000 at a Glance

Caliber: 5.56x45mm Length: 910mm Weight: 3kg

System LADA is a weapons system family that encompasses guns of different designations that utilize the same cartridge, and have the same system of operation. In this respect system LADA follows the template of Kalashnikov’s AK weapon system, which the AK-74 is the current main representative of. Like the current AKs, system LADA was originally designed for the Russian 5.45x39mm round.

With the cooperation of the military academy in Czechoslovakia the research and development of system LADA started in the mid 1970s at ZVS-VVU Brno. It took almost ten years for all the technical, military, and economical evaluations to be completed. The Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense approved the final feasibility of project LADA at the end of 1985.

In January 1986 ZVS-VVU in Brno started development of system LADA with experienced weapons designer Ing. Bohumil Novotny as the project manager.

The design team faced a major hurdle from the outset of the project since in order to design system LADA for the Soviet 5.45x39mm round they would need exact data, and specifications about it, but during the research stage neither the round nor its specifications were made available to them. The team needed to know the exact dimensions of the round, and its manufacturing tolerances in order for them to design the chamber of the CZ 2000. Even in the later stages of development the designers were unable to obtain an official schematic of the round (although these were later regularly supplied by the USSR), and relied on a few rounds obtained illegally by CZ Uhersky Brod from a Soviet officer of the Soviet occupation forces. The designers measured these rounds to find out the data they needed about the round in order to design the chamber.

An interesting discovery was made when they measured rifles acquired from the USSR. Although these rifles were supposed to be 5.45mm caliber the barrels of these rifles had an actual caliber of 5.41mm, which is near the smallest allowed dimension of the tolerance limit, which was not provided by the Soviets.

System LADA is made up of three guns an assault rifle, submachine gun, and light machine gun. After completing all the drawings in 1986 based on the final project from 1985 the first prototypes of the assault rifle, and light machine gun were produced. Factory testing of the assault rifle, and light machine gun was completed by mid October 1987 with satisfactory results. The rifles however did not comply with military requirements in regards to weight, or accuracy of the rifles. The lifetime expectancy of the light machine gun also did not meet military specifications. Because of these factors the military did not approve system LADA for military testing. The ministry of defense also made a new requirement that system LADA magazines be interchangeable with those of the Soviet AK-74, RPK-74, and AKS-74. The weight, accuracy, lifetime expectancy, and magazine requirement problems were solved by August 1988, and successful testing at the factory was completed in the fall of 1988.

CZ2000 Short Version

The designers only encountered one problem, one that they had never encountered before, the barrels would crack in extremely cold temperatures (-78F) two reasons for this was later discovered. First these were the first barrels with the whole bore including the chamber to be forged. Since the chamber has a significantly larger diameter than the bore itself the different behavior of the material caused a problem. Second the steel supplied for the manufacture of the barrels contained a lot of impurities, which combined with forging further reduced the quality of the material. These findings led to a change in the way the rifle was produced, and it was decided that the bore and chamber should not be forged together. Also it was decided that a stabilizing heat treatment should be used after forging, and that harder quality control requirements on the material being used should be put in place.

The problems with production were solved by May of 1989. The final factory tests, and military tests took place in November 1989 with satisfactory results, and by February 1990 all technical documentation for a trial production series was ready.

After political changes in Czechoslovakia at the end of 1989 it became clear that the Soviet 5.45x39mm cartridge would not have a future in the Czechoslovakian Army. In order to make the LADA project feasible it was necessary to redesign the weapon for the 5.56x45mm cartridge used by NATO. Therefore at the beginning of 1990 ZVS-VVU started the project of redesigning the CZ2000, which was approved by the ministry of defense during 1990. Bids for the project were accepted from CZ Uhersky Brod, and Zbrojovka Vsetin (now defunct). CZ Uhersky Brod was chosen for the project as a more suitable manufacturer because of their experience, and also for its higher degree of readiness to quickly start production.

The decision of the committee also meant that CZ UB was responsible for the financing of the whole project, and besides the request for a new caliber the need for the rifle to also accept M16 magazines was requested. To comply with the latter request however the entire receiver would have to be redesigned, which wasn’t done because of time and financial reasons. The only change to the rifle was the change of caliber, and changing the light machine gun’s full auto setting to three round burst like the submachine gun, and assault rifle versions. The magazines for the submachine gun and assault rifle were also changed from metal to see-thru plastic. The original metal forty-five round light machine gun magazine was scrapped in favor of a seventy-five round drum.

By the fall of 1991 all development was finalized, prototypes produced, and all technical documentation for testing production series completed. Thus by the end of 1991 the LADA system was ready for production in both 5.45 Russian, and 5.56 NATO calibers, but for financial reasons of the Czechoslovakian Army the LADA system never entered regular production.

CZ2000 Side

CZ2000 Side

CZ2000 Top

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