Great review and history by Ian at Forgotten Weapons

Using the proper tools can make a huge difference in the quality of your work and that will shine through on your finished product. Perfection can only be achieved with the finest attention to every detail. Although many common tools may get the job done, every instance is a gamble and taking a chance of causing some imperfection. To get absolutely flawless results absolutely every time you really must use the best tools for that job! Most tools to work on a vz.58 are not expensive, but they require that you care enough to buy them. I will attempt to list the most common tools needed and how and where they are used. If you have spent countless hours refinishing a brand new rifle so that it is better than the factory produced, you really cannot take chances of messing something up. Having the right tools and a lot of patience... not being in a hurry is the way to go. When time is money and you need to disassemble and reassemble a vz.58 as quickly as possible, that speed will come with practice after several rifles, but to just do it a few times requires that you not be in a hurry if you want guaranteed perfect results. First and most important of all tools is an actual gunsmithing screwdriver set . They have parallel sided bits that are also sized perfectly to the screw you use them on. There is a perfect fitting screwdriver bit for every screw, but you just need a large enough selection of bits to ensure you have the right one. A vz.58 does not require anything out of the ordinary so a smaller and more affordable gunsmithing screwdriver set will work fine. The need for a gunsmithing screwdriver is this, standard screwdrivers have tapered, sloping sides and will slip and jump out of the screw slot. An undersized bit will over-torque the corners of the screw slot causing deformation. So in short, if you want to keep your screw heads perfect, you must use the proper size gunsmithing screwdriver. If you do not, it is virtually assured that eventually you will have a few if not several deformed and damaged screw heads. Next you will need punches . Purchase a set of steel straight sided punches or reverse taper punches. I also recommend a set of brass punches. These are used for removing and installing pins. A brass punch is best to remove the rear sight with a rag covering it to avoid damaging the sight if the punch slips. I do not recommend the use of other styles of punches. Next in an impact driver and long ratchet extensions with a gunsmithing screwdriver bit and a stout hammer. This is the best way to apply the torque needed to remove the butt-stock bolt if it is in there super tight. I use specially built jigs to hold the rifle tightly in place while I hit the precisely placed driver that extends all the way inside the stock. Any good solid way to hold the rifle will work, but use something like wood so that no part of the rifle gets marred by the force. Another tool worth the cost is an E-clip installation tool . This is simply a small tool that holds your tiny E-clip and allows you to push it into position on the trigger and sear pin. This tool is cheap and can be found at hobby shops. Another handy tool is a curved dental pick for removing the E-clips. I also recommend getting a dual headed small dead-blow hammer with replaceable heads . This is my most used hammer for almost all assembly and disassembly, most often using the hard plastic head and occasionally the rubber head. These are by no means all the tools I use, but these are the primary ones I can think of because they are used so often and have saved me so much frustration. There are more tools that can make the job easier and give the best results, but these six I have just listed are the most important ones. I would say that you can probably do without the rest, but personally I recommend having these six in your kit. Summary: gunsmithing screwdriver set punches impact driver E-clip installation tool curved dental pick small dead-blow hammer with replaceable heads Hopefully this information can be useful to you in your vz.58 projects. Some photos of a few of these tools can be seen in the gallery section of the Supanik website among the various photos there. https://www.supanik.com/photo-gallery?lightbox=dataItem-jiz0jzbo As always, if you have any doubts or would like advice or assistance, always feel free to email me. Regards, Chris / Supanik

I have decided to make this informative post to assist my customers who have purchased a one of a kind furniture set and want to install it perfectly without damaging their rifle or handguard, but have never done so and may be unsure about the best way to do it. The following method is the one used here in the Supanik workshop and has proven to give flawless results as all of my rifle builds will attest. Follow these instructions, be patient, buy the proper tools and all should go well. The lower handguard pin currently comes in two styles depending on whether you have a CSA made vz.58 or a Century built vz-2008. The CSA vz.58 has a tapered pin and the Century vz-2008 has a roll-pin. There is a difference in how they are installed and removed. The roll-pin of the vz-2008 is held tightly in the hole by spring tension and can be driven out in either direction with a punch. This is a rather simple and straight forward situation that does not need further explanation. The CSA vz.58 handguard pin is tapered, in a tapered hole and is held in by compression and friction. Remove it by using a punch on the left hand side of the rifle, driving it out to the right. To install it, drive it in from the right side. The more domed end of the pin is the head and is the larger end, it must be on the right when finished. To protect the finish of your rifle use brass punches in case they jump off the pin. When inserting a pin use a very large oversized brass punch. The pin does not go all the way in flush on a CSA, but the domed head protrudes slightly above the flat sides of the receiver, driven in to when the top outer edge of the pin is flush with the top of the hole. I like to use a plastic and rubber headed small dead-blow hammer that uses replaceable heads or a small ball-peen hammer. Make the final blows to set the pin using the oversized brass punch so as not to mar the finish of the rifle. If an oversized brass punch is not available to you, cover the pin with a rag or a layer of thick cloth for the final blows. If you inadvertently drove a tapered pin out the wrong direction, you have now enlarged the hole to the diameter of the pins head and the rest of the pin is now undersized and will not be tight. You can remedy this easily by replacing the tapered pin with a roll-pin. You may need to chase out the hole with a drill bit matched to the size of your new roll pin if the new roll-pin is too big for the existing hole, but the roll-pin should be just a few thousanths of an inch larger than the hole so that it will compress as it is inserted. So is you do need to drill it, use a bit that is just slightly undersized from the roll-pin diameter. If your tapered pin seems to fit snugly in place but walks out due to recoil when it is fired, it can often still be used by simply using an assembly grade thread-locker such as Locktite 222 purple. This is a strong enough bond to hold it in place, but can still be broken loose later in the normal manner without the use of heat or other means. It is the thread-locker with the lightest bond, but is more than enough for this application. Other situations to be aware of! Other receivers such as the ORF produced ones can be extremely brittle in the pin hole area due to many of those receivers being over-hardened late in the production run. Extra care must be taken not to use too oversized of a roll-pin in this hole or any other impact to the pin hole area or it can crack or even worse, break that section of the receiver. The procedure is the same as for the vz-2008, but this particular rifle will be less forgiving and will require extra attention to detail in how this operation is performed. Taking your time and having the proper tools will far outweigh the costs of being impatient, using brute force and with less than ideal tools that may result in damage. How do you know if you have an ORF (Ohio Rapid Fire) receiver? The left side of the rear sight will be marked "SHE 69". This happens to also be the arsenal code for a CZUB (Czeska Zbrojovka Uhersky Brod) manufactured guns made in 1969, but since all of those are original non-transferable machine-guns, there is no chance that what you have is anything but an ORF made receiver. They were also later marked Assault Weapons of Ohio after the remaining inventory of ORF receivers were sold off after the untimely death of the owner of ORF, so regardless other markings, it is the same receiver. Hopefully this post will be informative and help anybody attempting to replace their handguard do so without incident and will give them perfect results. If in doubt, you are always welcome to email me so that I can assist any way I can. Regards, Chris here at Supanik