7.62 x 45 mm

The 7.62 x 45 mm cartridge is an intermediate cartridge developed by the Czechoslovak military as a machine-gun and machine gun ammunition, but as part of the unification of ammunition in the Warsaw block, it was replaced by a less powerful 7.62 × 39 mm cartridge.

7.62 x 45 mm
Producing country	Czechoslovakia
Cartridge	7.62x45 mm
Type of weapon using a cartridge	machine guns and machine guns
Service History
Operating time	1952-1957
Used	Czechoslovakia
Production history
Years of production	1952-1957
Specifications
Cartridge weight, g	sixteen
Cartridge Length, mm	45.0
Real bullet caliber , mm	7.83 mm
Bullet weight, g	8.4 g
Liner parameters
Sleeve length mm	45 mm
The diameter of the neck sleeve, mm	8.66 mm
The diameter of the barrel muzzle, mm	10.14
The diameter of the base of the sleeve, mm	11.30 mm
Diameter of sleeve flange , mm	11.30 mm

German intermediate cartridges of 7.92 × 33 mm were familiar to Czechoslovak gunsmiths, since during the German occupation of the Czech Republic, the Zbroyovka-Brno arms factories in Brno and the Selje Bello factory in the city of Vlasim produced these cartridges. After the war, the Czechoslovak military came to the conclusion that it was necessary to create a new, more powerful cartridge. As part of the program to create their own small arms system for an intermediate cartridge at a factory in Brno in 1949, developed a cartridge 7.5 × 45 mm - “Z-49”. However, on May 26, 1950, under pressure from the USSR, the General Staff of the Czechoslovak Army decided to switch to the Soviet caliber of 7.62 mm and began developing an intermediate ammunition of 7.62 × 45 mm - “Z-50”.

The ammunition had a bottle-shaped sleeve with a groove, and it was allowed to equip it with any type of bullets. The basic equipment used a pointed-pointed bullet weighing 8.4 g, having an initial speed of 744 m / s and a muzzle energy of 2325 J. The cartridge 7.62 × 45 mm, although outwardly it looked like a cartridge of Soviet manufacture, but differed from it in size and exceeded ammunition 7.62 × 39 mm in power.

In 1952, under the new cartridge, Czech gunsmiths developed a machine gun and a self-loading carbine, and an automatic machine was also developed for it. However, due to the fact that Czechoslovakia entered into the organization of the Warsaw Pact, it undertook obligations to transfer to the unit’s common ammunition. On July 6, 1957, the Czechoslovak General Staff decided to adopt the Soviet cartridge 7.62 × 39 mm into service with the army. At the same time, the Z-50 ammunition was removed from the army’s armament, and the already released weapon was adapted for a 7.62 × 39 mm cartridge.

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  Comparison of the cartridge 7.62 × 45 mm (left) and the cartridge 7.62 × 39 mm.