Shooting the CZ52Well, the weather cleared up long enough for me to get out and shoot the CZ52 today. I didn't really do any accuracy testing, just wanted to get a feel for the thing, pitting it up against my trusty 1911 to see how they compare.
I took two boxes (100 rounds) of the Sellier & Bellot 85 grain FMJ (advertised at 1647 fps) for the CZ52. I took 50 rounds of Magtech 230 grain FMJ for the 1911. Last Friday I bought a
Gun Mate ambidextrous hip holster for the CZ52, as the flap holster shipped with it is pretty much useless. The CZ52 fits this holster just about perfectly, and its magazine fits in the spare pocket just as well. Ten bucks well spent, I say.
I guess I'll get the obvious out of the way. The two guns might as well come from two different planets. Opposite sides of the ballistic spectrum, different types of operation, different manual of arms, different ergonomics... I don't know if it would be possible to make two more different guns, at least, two that were designed for the same purpose.
I started out by searching for a place to shoot that wasn't going to be A) too muddy to get to, and B) too far from town I case I did get stuck. Fortunately, the Missouri River Shooter's Association is setting up a new sports shooting complex about five miles north of Great Falls, so I decided to go check it out. Unfortunately, they've only gotten to the "digging pits" stage, which means that there was not any formal place to shoot, nor was anyone out there actually working on it. I decided to drive out past the place and look for a promising, secluded site behind a butte. Didn't take too long to find one, though I did have to put the truck in 4WD and scale a pretty decent grade to get to it. No prob, really.
Being as this was entirely informal, I decided to start by setting up a piece of cardboard against a fence post and shoot at it until I got bored. I loaded up the CZ52 and just started hammering away.
First impressions: The sights are okay, not the best I've used, but they are easier to pick up than those on my GI M1911A1. The 1911 feels
much better in my hand. I suppose I'm biased, but I honestly can't think of why anyone would argue otherwise. After firing the CZ52 I did find myself pointing the 1911 high, as its bore-to-grip angle is more obtuse than that of the CZ52.
It's loud.
The trigger is, as expected, a liability in terms of speed and accuracy. 8 pounds is just way too much, pulling groups way apart in rapid fire. Where I can generally keep double taps within about 8 inches of each other at 7 yards with the 1911, I'd be really hard-pressed pull that off with the CZ52 the way it is. Still, slow fire is accurate enough for union work, especially at long range. More on that in a minute.
Recoil feels comparable to a 125 grain .357 Magnum load from a 4" revolver, maybe a little less. In other words, while it doesn't recoil with a lot of energy, it does do it pretty fast, which makes it feel like it's recoiling with more energy because you have less time to soak it in. Also, recoil seems to come straight back into your hand, with relatively little muzzle flip, I'm guessing because the barrel does not have to swivel down to unlock. Berettas tend to do this as well. If the trigger wasn't so friggin' heavy, this pistol would kick ass in rapid fire. The low arch of the backstap against the web of my hand did not cause the problems I thought it might, but it definitely feels weird being there.
It's loud.
I can't fucking stand the heel magazine catch on this gun. It is held closed by pressure from the mainspring (the spring that pushes the hammer forward when you pull the trigger) and it doesn't cam to an "open" position like other pistols with this type of mag release. Its rest position is "locked", which makes mag changes
really difficult to do in any timely fashion. As if that didn't suck enough, when the slide locks back, there's almost no pressure against the magazine spring, meaning that when you hold the stupid little mag catch open, the mag will not eject itself (drop free). You have to yank it out of the gun while holding the catch open. Stupid. Not a lot of engineering brainpower put into that little function. This, to me, was the worst thing about the gun.
Being left-handed, the safety is difficult to operate, but that's just the way it is with any gun that doesn't have an ambidextrous safety lever. I'll just have to take my southpaw and *sniffle* cope. Speaking of the safety lever, the decocker works as it should. Tried it several times, nary a discharge. I still don't like the idea of using it, as a lot of articles I've read suggest that it's possible that the thing could fail.
Have I mentioned that it's loud? Not a .44 Mag by any means, but a bit more than I was expecting. About like a 4" .357 Mag, again. Definitely no question that you're shooting it. You do get a nice, solid air pressure thwack to the face and chest. I'm sure it throws off a decent fireball at night. Sure to scare off the hardest of hard gangstas. Fun fun.
After I got bored shooting at cardboard, I decided to go for some longer range targets, namely a good-sized dirt clod at about 25m (which was divided into small, unworthy chunks in three shots), a big rock at about 50m, and a much bigger rock up the hill at I would guess somewhere between 80 and 100m. Shooting the CZ52 at long range is pretty fun. As you might guess, having a fast muzzle velocity for a handgun, it shoots really flat, and I found it to be dead-on at about 50m, smacking that rock without much effort, hitting 14 of 16. Using the hood of my truck as a rest, I decided to take on a bigger rock about four times as big and twice as far away and about 100 feet up the butte. After spending about four rounds to adjust for elevation, I repeatedly smacked the rock over and over. I'm not sure how many times I reloaded (I would guess four times), nor am I sure of my success rate. It was so fun to be able to do it that easily with a pistol that I didn't keep track, but I'm sure I hit at 75% or better. This is something that would be very difficult to do with a 1911, as the slow, fat .45 bullet drops so quickly.
The CZ52 did not malfunction once. It ate all 100 rounds without so much as a hiccup. Of course, it is a well-used pistol, so that shouldn't be too suprising, but you never quite know what to expect with these surplus deals. It's better than I could expect from my 1911, which tends to three-point jam on a semi-regular basis when I use one Colt magazine I have. No problems with my modified Colt mag or the Kimber mags.
After about an hour of shooting, I packed up and went home, satisfied that this CZ52 was a good buy. About the only things that bother me are the mag catch, the lack of ammuniton availability (which isn't a big problem if you don't mind mail-ordering), and the too-low grip (which is easy to forget about). New grips would be nice, but that's just an aesthetic thing. A set of Novak sights would also be nice, but the stock sights work well enough for me to put that off for a while.
I found the gun very easy to clean. Either the S&B ammo shoots pretty clean, or the gun just doesn't get that dirty. I did, however, find some brass shavings on the bottom of the slide that had me concerned. I couldn't figure out how they got there. The breech face looked good, the extractor looked good, the barrel looked good, the magazine looked good... The only thing I could figure was that it came from the bullets, which have brass-coated jackets. We'll have to see.
That's my story. Generally, I think the CZ52 was worth every penny. Let's hope it lasts.