The Czech's should have put the charging handle on the left when they designed this gun.
That would have been my preference as well, like my L1A1 FN FAL's charging handle. May look into alternatives down the road for my Vz2008.
FALs were probably one of the first modern rifle's with the left hand charging handle... FALs in general are exceptionally ergonomic/user-friendly, excluding the length and caliber (some also complain about mag insertion, but I like tilt and rock as I don't have to worry about my mags falling out...).
The VZ58s' charging handles are on the right as that was one of the mandatory project requirements from the get-go. The whys here are b/c they didn't want the rifle to get hung up on or otherwise have any malfunctions while on a sling/transition from a sling. Slings on this rifle were intended only for carry as best I can gather.
I'm guessing that this is the very same reason why the Garand, M1 Carbine, M14, M1A1, Ruger 10/22, Ruger Mini 14, etc., actions also all have the right side charging handle.
Well, and at the time of design, warfare doctrine had recently moved from the 1000 yard capable rifles of world war 1 to the 300-500m rifles to world war 2, to post world war 2 the sub/intermediate caliber rifles which were predominantly designed for w/in 300m.
And then current history, we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan with most troops were equipped w/ 20" barreled M16 rifles, with the M4 14.5" carbine not being widely adopted by the US military until 2002 (think less than 20k in service prior to Iraq Invasion). The type of urban conflict in Iraq in particular is what led to the widespread adoption, perhaps even fanaticism, of short barreled ARs....
And even now, the M4a1 improvements have not been fully implemented military wide (and despite proven reliability gains and drop in mods available, the M4a1 is still not short stroke piston driven, nor is it running a better performing short(er) barrel cartridge like .300 BLK...).
So still, in a lot of ways, the VZ58 remains ahead of it's time -- if you give it a fresh outfit.
