A CZ75 type 9mm has been on my wishlist for quite a while, but I've never taken the plunge. Several times I nearly got a Tanfoglio or a Baby Eagle/Jericho, but I always backed off at the last moment.
I recently stumbled accross police surplus Pre-B's being sold by Robertson Trading Post and Widener's at very attractive prices and jumped on a "transitional" with the commander style hammer and the squared trigger guard and the grips without thumbrest. I can appreciate the classic styling of the round guard and the spur hammers, but there is something extra sexy about the others.
The day after placing my order for $327 at Robertson's, I discovered that Wideners also had some without magazines for $275. Oh well, too late....
The pistol arrived in as-advertsied condition: slightly worn painted finish, excellent barrel. Supposedly the Pre-B's have a nicer trigger than the B's, but I dont have another to make the comparison to. In any case the trigger was quite nice.
Since I am incapable of leaving any gun as-is, I followed Camp's recommendations on Wolff gunspring weights from his excellent website http://www.hipowersandhandguns.com/: 16lb recoil spring, 15lb hammer spring, and replacement firing pin spring.
The recoil spring from Wolff is a bit longer than the original and snakes around a bit when installed. I had a doubt and called the technician at Wolff and he assured me this was normal and I could verify with CZ-USA. He said to make sure it doesnt tangle up when reassembling the pistol and it would operate perfectly fine. I'll take his word for it, but it still seems like its not totally kosher.
The firing pin spring from Wolff is double the length of the original, and there is no way to stuff it into the slide. I had ordered the "early model" spring, but apparently my transitional pistol was already designed for the longer spring. I'm too lazy to send it back to replace it so it will have to keep the one it has. I'm not sure what the lifespan of the firing spring is but i don't think this pistol was fired anywhere near it anyway.
The hammer spring...
There was a slight improvement with the Wolff over the factory spring in the end, but the swap was the most horrible experience I have ever had with a pistol. The design of the safety could only have been done in a drunken stupor (apparently corrected on the B models). There is a miniscule spring and a little metal square that must be held tightly in place in order to re-attach the safety lever. It took me countless attempts over the course of nearly three hours using different combinations of mini screwdrivers, pins, paperclips, tweezers, pliers, and string to finally be able to balance the whole thing long enough in the air and put it in before the mini-spring won the struggle and sent all the bits flying. Thankfully I was in a large tiled room with little furniture and good lighting and I have good eyesight, or the parts would have vanished completely and the pistol ended up in the middle of the Atlantic...
Looking back I really should have taken photos of the whole process in case anyone else is daring (or stupid) enough to attempt this. Now that it's all back together though, it would take a lot of incentive to convince me to repeat it.
My first range trip was a disappointment. Every round nosedived into the feedramp and jammed. I did squeeze off about 50 shots by racking the slide each time, but the pistol is essentially a single-shot at the moment. Accuracy was quite decent, about 4" groups at 25yds with cheapo 115gr FMJ Brown Bear 9mm.
I suspect a weak magazine was the issue. I will post an update after getting another magazine and giving the feedramp a quick polish.
No comments:
Post a Comment