CZ99 – A Good Pistol Developed in a Bad Time. Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, I wrote about the fascinating history of CZ99 which involved the shady international arms dealer, the collapse of Yugoslavia, and an unknown gunsmith who couldn’t tell the difference between numbers “8” and “9”. In the second part of this story, I want to talk about the intricate destiny of this design after Yugoslavia was sanctioned in 1992 and lost access to the US market. From the beginning, CZ99 was developed specifically for USA customers, and losing your main client is always challenging.

Sanctions forced Yugoslavia to get creative with exports. As a result, an Israeli company called K.S.N. Industries started production of a “Golan” pistol that was almost an exact copy of CZ99. Later on, some of those pistols ended up in the US market, which probably violated the sanctions.

Another interesting deal was struck with a South African company called Tressitu, which started manufacturing a pistol called TZ99. Some say the technology was transferred from Israel to South Africa, just like “Galil” which became the main service rifle of the South African armed forces under the name R4.

But if that was the case, the name of the pistol makes no sense. TZ99 indicates a clear connection to CZ99. It is likely that the South African company directly contacted Zastava and received a transfer of technology. South Africa had plenty of experience with sanctions before 1994 during Apartheid and didn’t care that much about violating sanctions.

Apart from licensed copies, there was at least one unlicensed copy of CZ99, produced in Croatia in the mid-90s. Since Croatia recently declared independence from Yugoslavia, they could not possibly receive an official transfer of technology and decided to reverse engineer the entire pistol.

It is called HS95 and has a few cosmetic differences compared to CZ99: smaller decocking level, and a different shape of a trigger guard. However, it retained the main features of CZ99: ambidextrous mag release and decocker/slide release combo.

This pistol was produced between 1995 and 1998 and never exported outside of Croatia. It is incredibly rare, but Ian Maccolum managed to visit the factory and film a video about this pistol.

One more derivative of CZ99 was produced in Yugoslavia outside of the Zastava factory. In 1993, Božidar Blagojević, the chief designer of the CZ99 pistol left the factory and founded his own company called NB I.N.A.T. (INTERNATIONAL NEW ARMS TECHNOLOGIES).

Those who speak Serbocroatian understand that the name of the company is a clever joke. “Inat” is the term that can be translated as “to do something against all odds in spite and opposed to someone else’s suggestion”.

In 1994, INAT factory presented its first pistol called BB-22 (BB stands for Božidar Blagojević). It looked almost identical to the CZ99, but with a few internal changes: it had an additional internal safety mechanism, the pistol grip was more ergonomic, and the trigger travel was shorter. The company still exists to this day and belongs to the son of the famous design engineer.

In 2001, the Zastava factory developed an upgraded version of CZ99 called CZ999. It has a more pronounced beavertail and cold hammer forged chrome-lined barrel.

The pistol grip circumference of CZ999 is smaller compared to CZ 99. Also, early CZ999 had a very unique feature – a special selector that allowed the shooter to switch between DAO/SAO and DAO actions.

After sanctions were lifted, CZ999 was sold on the US civilian market. Specifically for US customers, the factory developed CZ999 chambered for 40 S&W.

The next generation of CZ99 was developed around 2008 and was designated EZ9. This pistol has a Picatinny rail on the frame. There is also a compact version of EZ9 that has a shorter slide, but the same grip length.

This pistol is currently procured by the Serbian army, last year their Ministry of Defense showed an impressive display of a large batch of new pistols at the military exhibition called “Granit 2023”.

Perhaps the most successful derivative of CZ99 is a pistol called Arex Zero, produced by the Slovenian company AREX. TFB published many articles about it and James even went for a factory tour in 2017.

In recent years, one more descendant of CZ99 appeared in the Balkans – RS9 “Vampir” from the Republic of Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I already wrote about the history of this pistol on TFB. Earlier this year I had a chance to test a Gen 2 prototype of the “Vampir” and the full review is coming soon.