Václav Holek

Václav Holek (1886 to 1954) was a Czech firearm engineer who applied for more than 75 patents. Born in Malé Nepodřice in southern Bohemia, he trained as a gunsmith, studied in Písek and worked in Vienna and then Prague, where he took part in refining Holland and Holland system shotguns. From 1918 he worked at Zbrojovka Praga, where in the spring of 1921 he constructed a light machine gun that became the Czechoslovak Army PRAGA vz. 24 and the predecessor of the ZB vz. 26, whose licensed British version made at Enfield became the Bren. After moving to Československá zbrojovka in Brno in 1924 he developed the ZB-53 machine gun, which Britain produced as the Besa, and later designed several semi-automatic weapons, of which only the Vz. 52 light machine guns reached production.