The Vz. 58 is a 7.62mm 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 1958"), replacing the vz. 52 self-loading rifle and the 7.62x25mm Tokarev vz. 24 and vz. 26 submachine guns. The vz. 58 externally resembles the Soviet AK-47 but is internally a completely different design based on a short-stroke gas piston.
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 prototype, known as the "Koště" ("broom"), was designed to chamber the intermediate Soviet 7.62x39mm M43 cartridge, rather than the Czech 7.62x45mm 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 the Czechoslovakia, Cuba and several other 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 (wood impregnated plastic, 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 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.
