- Hey guys, I'm Will Dabs for Firearms News Magazine.
And today, we're gonna talk about
something extra special cool.
This is a do it yourself.
Home-built semi auto version of the Czechoslovakia
an Sa 26 submachine gun.
Now we live in the most well armed country in the world.
And while our gun, our gun loads
can seem fairly, fairly onerous.
We have a pretty wide selection of weapons to choose from.
It's just that the vast majority
of them seem to be AR-15s and AR-15 variants.
So, if you're a gun nerd and you want something,
that's inexpensive to shoot just a fun planking platform,
and something that'll really set you apart at the range.
One of the best ways to get there is to build it yourself.
Now, in this case the Sa 26 has a fascinating background.
in 1948, Czechoslovakian gun designer
whose name I cannot pronounce
first came up with this, this basic weapon.
It's a family of four different guns,
Sa 23, 24, 25 and 26.
The first two, with Sa 23 and 25
those were chambered in nine millimeter.
And you could tell at a glance, which ones they are
because the pistol grip is perpendicular to the bore axis.
The Sa 23 has a fixed stock.
The Sa 25 has a side folding stock.
Now, these weapons were designed
in the immediate aftermath of world war II.
The Chuck, the Czechoslovakian arms production capability
was one of the best in, in Europe.
And it really wasn't a remarkably advanced design
an over hung bolt fed through the magazine
made the gun very, very compact.
It's actually technically Bullpup if you
if you really apply the, the term literally.
But this weapon inspired the Uzi,
Uziel Gal came out with his autonomous
Uzi submachine gun in 1950
and it was inspired by a lot of
the features on this Czechoslovakian weapon.
Now, once the Czechoslovakia was absorbed
into the Warsaw pit
they went back and converted this weapon
to take 7.62 by 25 millimeter combo,
bottle note bottleneck rounds.
And so that's the, Sa 24 and Sa 26.
Sa 24 is that 7.62 by 25 gun with a fixed stock.
Sa 26 is the same gun with a folding stock.
And this is an Sa 26.
You can tell that, the 26 and the 24
because there's a slight forward can to the pistol grip.
Now, if you wanna build one of these yourself
there's some interesting legalities
that you have to address.
Firstly, you gotta find the parts
Recon Ordinance in the pages of firearms news
still sells parts kits
for about 160 bucks is very reasonable.
They used to be just dirt cheap
but they are a little more picked over now.
Indianapolis ordinance produces the build kit
that gives you the receiver blank, the semi auto bolts,
the instructions and the parts you need
to make this into a legal semi auto gun.
And then barrels can be pretty hard to find.
I got my barrels from a place called Re-mil, Re-mil.com
and they're sold out now,
but that won't last.
Now, to build this as a rifle to include the folding stock,
you have to comply with 922r
which is fairly complicated, included the details in the
in the magazine article I did about this gun,
but you can Google it if you want,
but you can get there from here
and obviously to make a rifle in America,
you have to have a lem 16 inch barrel.
So, from Re-mill, I got a 16 inch nine millimeter barrel
as well as this little stubby dummy.
So, here in a moment when we shoot this thing for real
I have to put it the long barrel on it, but super cool gun.
It took me most of a Saturday
to put this thing together with a little help.
I'm a really crummy welder.
So, I did most of the receiver bit by hand,
but I had a friend who came in and helped me do the welding.
The build kit from Indianapolis ordinance
is extremely user friendly.
This is a relatively complicated build though,
compared to just assembling an AR 15,
which is very fairly straightforward,
or building an AR 15 out of an 80% lower,
which is a little more complicated.
This does involve a fair amount of cutting
and you can do this with a drill press,
and a Dremel tool if you want to
a mill machine makes it easier,
but you can't build this without a little welding.
And I don't weld very well,
but I had a friend named Erica came
and helped me do the welding.
The Sa 26 is convertible between nine millimeter
and 7.62 by 25.
Simply by replacing the barrel.
I have found that generally the last round
in the magazine doesn't get picked up in 9 millimeter,
but that probably has something to do
with the caliber change.
And this can to the pistol grip,
but the ergonomics are really superb.
Folding stock
the butt plate pivots up and down like this really cool
Retractable charging handle.
Just a lot of really advanced features.
This doodad here on the side
of the fire arm is actually a magazine loader.
So, you can put a stripper clip
full of ammunition right here and slide the magazine
up from the bottom and load the magazine in a hurry.
So once again, if you wanna really set yourself apart
at the local range, have something that no one else has.
You will not be finding this in your local gun store.
So it, it is a relatively advanced build
but I built this one, aside from the welding
with pretty much hand tools,
as I said a milling machine makes it a lot easier
but it's not an absolute necessity.
So, that's enough Jabber about the gun for now.
Let me go get my eyes and my ears,
and swap out into that lem 16 inch barrel
and we'll run a few rounds down range.
(gun shots)
(bright upbeat music)