Revolver ZKR 590 Grand

Hello,
please, the only mention of this weapon is in the classic of all classics, Mr. ZUKA. Somewhere I caught the recollection of a certain member of SPETSNAZ that he shot a prominent Afghan during the Russian invasion in the early 80s, because it was an exceptionally good weapon (in his opinion).


However, I haven't come across more anywhere. Just some advertisements for sale here and there, but no TTD, let alone photos.
It should be a 22 LR vz 77 revolver, or however you spell it. I apologize for the errors in the raisonné.

Revolver Grand is (was) at the airport in Caslav. Designation vz. was not used, it was led only as Revolver Grand 22.LR, which does not mean that it is correct. There were (are) two pieces, I guess, I would have to look in the ISL or in my weapons search records.

The designation is most likely nonsense. Properly it is the SMA-590 Grand, revolver was produced in about 16000 pieces, and production ended sometime in 1969. Pattern 77 thus, even the time. The production was in rážích .38 Special, .22 LR, and supposedly even in the .357 Magnum. The narration of SPECNAZ is probably unlikely, the revolver is a lot of exportoval and pull with each other unnecessarily weapon in the nevýkoné caliber .22 doesn't seem much of a bargain, even if it the must have got. Grandy in the caliber of the .38 were mainly 2, 4 and 6 inches in caliber .22 then 4 and 6 inches. Developed was and revolver Major in caliber .22 LR but as far as I know was not produced in series. A small amount of Grandu in the caliber of the .38 was used allegedly by the police, others have gone into svazarmu and the army but not as a standard weapon, but as a weapon for terčovou shooting. So they probably got into Čáslav..

Exactly, together with ZKR nevímzhlavykolik (I think ZKR 551) in 38 calibre, revolvers in 7,62 Nagant calibre and Margolin pistols in 22 LR and 22 SR calibre. I suspect that these are "loot" from Pardubice and got there from the closed Hradecky unit.

thanks for the clarification, similarly it was Placed, even with the same variety of types. Otherwise, if I appeared with a reprint of period manuals, so there might be some data. The next should be in SR where this revolver was written in 1999 and 2005..

ten revolver na Naganty je TOZ 36, pokud se nepletu...

And then, yeah. It didn't seem to me in those ads once (is that right???). It seemed small to me, because I vaguely remembered that Zuk wrote about 38.
And the pattern was also only there, so it's possible that it's people's creativity.

Similar to the fireman's helmet of 52 or 53, the same as the army helmet, but black, advertised as, to quote the advertiser, "night variant".....


And if it was in service, at least in a small way, with the police, would there be a link somewhere to wear it? After all, even when they were in plain clothes, they didn't carry it in their pockets?


And I won't comment on the Spetsnaz, it's quite a fairy tale, as Mr. Bitaxe writes. But I suppose it could have been a larger calibre.

Take this with a grain of salt, I came across a mention in a police magazine once and there was a mention that Grand revolvers with a two inch barrel were used by some plain clothes police officers (probably criminals?) and carried in an underarm holster (a pants holster was probably not appropriate). The reason why this happened was not addressed there.

OK, and could you elaborate a little on the target shooting in the military? I mean, the point and everything. Is that part of the training, or was it a competition?


If my sixth sense tells me the revolver is quieter on target, or why is it used?


Or is the whole history of this weapon just a tradition and a business move of the company to produce a revolver for the sake of some prestige and competition?


I'm not a shooter at all and have no experience, but if I was thinking about buying a firearm for the feel, this is always the first one that comes to mind. And in .38, of course. I don't even know why, I guess it has some subjective thought of a lower status among what was produced here after the war. Or maybe it's just that it's a revolver, I don't know, it just makes me feel something like nobility, I've only seen the drawing in Zuk.
And I am under no illusions about the technical condition of many pieces, kept until today in various remains, i.e. as inventory of shooting rings and so on, wherever.


And a link where the reprint of the manual could be found?

www.strelci.com
It's the first link on the net if you google the correct name, tery ZKR 590 Grand. The manual is all there.
As far as I know production was planned in the 60's as an extension of the range for overseas. It ended with the "tightening" of the regime after the Soviet "visit". It was used, as far as I know, in the military for conditioning (i.e. sport) shooting. The older ZKR 551 revolver was produced as a purely competition revolver. Whether a revolver or a pistol is preferable for competition depends more on the discipline and the particular type. But if I remember back to this time in the union, it was a problem to get any quality gun, so the Grand was quite up to the mark at the time.

A revolver as a personal weapon was considered after the war, but of course it didn't work out- I suspect it was to be the Grand. As a target weapon revolvers were used for shooting competitions min. within the unit, however for training we use pu vz. 56 (ZKM 451) and Margolin, of course because of the ammunition (38 Spec and even less "sporting" Nagant are unavailable), last time I had ZKR even with loaded ammunition on shooting about 6 years ago.

And yeah, I took a 22 LR Grand with me...we had two of them

The TOZ-36 has the same ammunition as the old Nagant, but with a smaller powder charge (the cartridges can be replaced with the original ones) and the later TOZ-49 has shortened cartridges. But it is a fact that probably the older Nagant cartridges are not in the army

Pěkně se doplňujeme, mám radost.

Revolvers ZKR 590 Grand r.0,38" with barrel 2" (2,5"?) were used in small quantity by Stb units (at Ruzyně III.c department) in air traffic protection. They used supercaliber ammunition called SHORT-STOP, unable (usually) to shoot through the fuselage - the projectile was a silk bag, sewn with beads, twisted into "S". There were 2 types - weaker with yellow plastic cap of the "projectile", stronger with red cap. The reason for using the revolver was the absence of this ammunition in any other caliber than 0.38Spl.
A friend bought a revolver with a 6" barrel from Svazarm - it had a regulated sight "loosen-pull" system sideways, up to the height of the bolt. Because the barrel length (nodal points) was miscalculated, it worked more like a dropper. He shortened it with a saw to about 3 1/2", made a cut, and now it goes "one hole".
The 0.22LR Grand was used in Svazarm for the SP 30+30 discipline for those who were also shooting a revolver in the VPr 30+30 discipline. The Margolin pistol was better, but had a different method of grip.
The "Moscow" ZKR 551 (first introduced at the 1960 World Championship in Moscow, where Kudrna made a world championship with it) was made in 0.38 Spl and later 10-12 more were made in 7.62 Nagant - I think there was a monograph published in Wed.Rev. It was a machine for dozens - in both calibers. The Soviets didn't have a similar weapon at that time, based on their experience with the ZKR 7,62 they built two types of target revolvers TOZ: vz. 36 for the classic 7,62 Nagant cartridge, without ejector of empty cartridges and later, to save brass, they shortened the cartridge and cylinder, added an ejector and created TOZ 49 (I won Pardubice bambitky with it). Rarity - a single cartridge for a single gun Who wants to shoot with it now (the cartridges cost 1 DEM), must put a cylinder for SW 0,32 Long cartridges and use those. The Russian ones are long gone. See the ammo section. Cat in a lady's hand - recoil is not noticeable.
Shooters with TOZ 36 had a trick for the shootout - on the first shot of the shot they put instead of the target "wadcutter" (Vo=190-200 m/sec) a regular "combat" NAGANT cartridge (Vo=about 285 m/sec). The purpose was to "throw off" the opponent with a much stronger shot. Shooters with the ZKR 551 could not use this trick because the drilling (depth of field) of the barrel was built only for a weak "wadcutter", the stronger ogival would tear in the grooves and then the accuracy was gone for a long time.

To the ZKR revolvers I will only add that the ZKR-551 was still in the arsenal of the Slovak Armed Forces in 2011 - in this year the army sold about 19 pcs of these revolvers (designation 9 Revolver vz. ZKR-551) at a total price of 2519€.