Just before eight in the morning, the Saturday 22nd of October saw the first flocks of visitors interested to view the premises of Česká zbrojovka. Following a simple registration, the first group set off to the tour soon after quarter past eight. And there would be 41 such groups throughout the Open Door Event. “The interest shown among people is really great”, states the Human Resources Manager of Česká zbrojovka, Ing. Ladislav Koníček, satisfactorily. “When we held a similar event five years ago, we had around seven hundred visitors. Our current estimate would count with more than one thousand people wishing to see the very grounds of Česká zbrojovka." This estimate set in the morning proves as correct later on. The “Open Door” to Česká zbrojovka was entered by approximately 1600 visitors.
One group after another were passing through the research and development centre, the machining centre, the investment foundry, the main production workshops and the automotive lines. Great interest then sparked over the presentation of key firearms within the portfolio of Česká zbrojovka designed for hunting, sports shooting, as well as the military range and the CZ75 pistol series. The visitors have the opportunity to “touch” the firearms and see some parts of the production process within individual processing lines. And their investigative questions were kindly answered by members of the presentation team led by their team manager, Mr. Jan Gibek. The information about pistols in CZ series, besides other, were given by the top expert in the field – the excellent IPSC shooter and a member of the shooting team representing Česká zbrojovka - Martin Kameníček.
The event dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Česká zbrojovka was a sheer success. As even the media discovered, the satisfaction thrived not only among the former employees, who had the chance to find out, how “their” arms company had changed, as well as visitors interested in some “jewels” as the CZ 805 BREN assault rifle.
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Právo daily newpspaper (18. 10. 2011):
“I had never been there before. I am fairly surprised they’re letting us in. I am interested in every aspect of their production. Especially the new super weapon, the CZ 805”, said Květoslav Novotný (41) from Uherské Hradiště.
“ I can still remember visiting the factory as the apprentice from Mesit, when I was a competition shooter at their in-house range. It’s a pity that we’re not seeing the range today. There was a time, when I managed to achieve silver in a shooting contest,“ recalled Květoslava Pasovníková. “I have brought by grandson, who would like to use the study programmes under the company’s auspices. I retired twelve years ago, but I used to work at the factory for forty years, operating NC machinery. I was working on CZ 75 pistols and hunting rifles later on,” explained František Slinták (71) from Nivnice.
