{"id":26330,"date":"2025-02-03T06:36:30","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T12:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/03\/praga-i-23-prototype-belt-fed-predecessor-of-the-zb26\/"},"modified":"2025-02-03T06:36:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T12:36:30","slug":"praga-i-23-prototype-belt-fed-predecessor-of-the-zb26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/03\/praga-i-23-prototype-belt-fed-predecessor-of-the-zb26\/","title":{"rendered":"Praga I-23: Prototype Belt-Fed Predecessor of the ZB26"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mejs-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allow=\"autoplay\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iQ3Iv9wgi2c?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>All the best firearms history channels streaming to all major devices:<br \/>weaponsandwar.tv<\/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 &#8211; 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:<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ByZvMvBnefo\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/ByZvMvBnefo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to the VHU &#8211; the Czech Military History Institute &#8211; 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 3-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><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/utreon.com\/c\/forgottenweapons\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/utreon.com\/c\/forgottenweapons\/<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.floatplane.com\/channel\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/shop.forgottenweapons.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All the best firearms history channels streaming to all major devices:weaponsandwar.tv 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&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/03\/praga-i-23-prototype-belt-fed-predecessor-of-the-zb26\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Praga I-23: Prototype Belt-Fed Predecessor of the ZB26<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}