It used a gas-operated, tilting-bolt action that was not unlike the FN FAL, which it predated by nearly twenty years. This gun, designed by Polish firearms engineer Józef Maroszek, was very advanced for its day. One of their plans was to equip their army with a bold new semi-automatic battlerifle. With Hitler’s Germany to the West and Stalin’s Soviet Union to the East both rearming with the newest gear, Warsaw understood that they needed the best weapons available. The Polish Army was in the 1930s largely equipped with leftover weapons captured or donated to it after the First World War. In pre-WWII Poland, the country was trying rapidly to modernize their military. What happened next involved an epic legal battle that included seizure of a prized possession, a lost piece of history, and a diplomatic crisis between Washington and a European government. When a firearms collector in Virginia decided to sell part of his collection, he got a knock on the door from federal agents.

Polish soldier with WZ.38m semi-automatic rifle.

Kbsp wz. 1938m