Brno Rifle Serial Numbers

Zbrojovka Brno a.s. was founded from the original Austro-Hungarian artillery workshops as the Czechoslovak state-owned firearms factory in 1918. From the repairs of railway cars and military rifles, the company gradually switched over to the production of the components of telegraph and telephone equipment, equipment for railway garages, and tools. The assembly of Austrian Mannlicher rifles was replaced by the production of German Mauser rifles and later the production of rifles 24 according to the company's own design. In the years 1924 - 1925, the buildings for the production of rifles, machine guns, and cars and for the needs of an engineering shop and a tool shop were built. Also the civil production was expanded, including cars, bicycles, industrial scales, slicing machines, aircraft engines, machine tools, and special tools. Zbrojovka Brno became a model for perfectly organised companies with a modern and precise serial production; the company introduced its own original tolerance system for own production and the use of measuring instruments, due to which it became one of the pioneers of the standardisation in Czechoslovakia. In the second half of the twenties, Zbrojovka Brno became one of the largest producers of rifles in the world.
In the thirties, the company started the production of standard and portable typewriters under the Remington licence. In the years 1934 - 1938, Zbrojovka became a world-renowned holding. Zbrojovka Brno expanded its influence also by purchasing the shares and gained thus capital interests in enterprises with similar production not only in Bohemia and Moravia but also in Slovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. During its boom, Zbrojovka Brno had more than seventy facilities and operations. In the forties, the production of tractors, motorcycle engines, and hunting and sporting firearms was introduced. At the beginning of the seventies, a new building of the tool shop was built. In the eighties, Zbrojovka Brno produced office, communication, and computer equipment, diesel engines for Zetor tractors, and special and general utility tools. The hunting and sporting firearms formed only a smaller part of the volume of production.
In the nineties, a radical structural change was accompanied by the termination of the operations within the unpromising lines of production and the reduction of the number of staff. Zbrojovka Brno has been transformed into a joint stock company with a strong concentration of owners.