Okay, so a big thank you to Walt at AEI for providing the opportunity to obtain one of these little “bastards”. I mean that in the nicest way as it is a hybrid of a CZ40B upper on a SP01 frame. I received it on 23Dec and had it out for a test on 24Dec. Before I get into the range results, I have to say I was impressed with the little fella from the beginning. CZ did their usual packing job as in the box were all the goodies, wrapped in plastic and oiled for protection. After a thorough cleaning it was time to scrutinize it a little bit. All in all I was very impressed with the fit and finish and ease of operation. The grip was excellent for a double stack. It points well and the sights are easy to bring onto target. Initially I thought the elongated mag looked goofy and planned on using a flush fitting mag, but I soon found that for those with bigger mitts, that little bit extra actually felt good and proved to be functional. The only thing I found a bit disappointing was the rough trigger and travel/creep. This was no surprise as it has been documented before on other CZ forums. I expect that like the Ruger P345 it will smooth out with use but I am sure a good polish of the internals may greatly assist for the interim. The pull in DA was a bit strong at first but the SA had a crisp release, after the creep..Sorry, but I don’t have one of your fancy schmancy trigger pull gauges to give you a reading but it was lighter than I had expected, compared to my S&W MP40 and Glock22.
Okay, so on to the range with a variety of ammo to feed the wee beastie. I set the target at 15m and chose to shoot without a rest, just a standard Weaver stance. I must say that I was immediately impressed with the fire control/ The factory rubber grips coupled with the frame design made for an extremely easy shoot and rapid recovery for followup. Although the 40S&W is no powerhouse, it can be quite snappy in certain guns, but this thing made it very comfortable and extremely manageable. Mag changes were effortless as the mags drop free and reseating the fresh mags was about as natural as it can get.
I fed it all sorts of ammo, from WWB 165’s & 180’s, to Combat Master 180g, Remingtons, and threw in some heavy home load 200g pinstrikers just to see how it handled the heavier stuff.
The first shots on the first target were basically to see where the POI was compared to the POA. Surprisingly the POI was pretty much the POA at this distance so I had to raise the sight position to accommodate. Target #1 was 25 rds using WWB 180g initially(10rds),165g(5rd) and BDX/CMaster 180g for the 3rd mag load(10rd). The WWB proved to vary wildly with everything from a bang to a BANG to a BOOM telling me that it is very inconsistent loading. The results showed it as there was a considerable spread. The BDX/CM stuff grouped beautifully with only my flinch affecting it a little bit, and it actually impacted slightly left of center(5x) for the most part. Was I pleased? You betcha. I imagine the results being much better if a rest had been used.
The second target was also set to 15M . Granted, it is a significantly larger target but I also wanted to try it with a faster pace of fire and followup shots. This way they would hopefully show impact on the larger target surface to see how far off I was. A total of 75 rounds were fired at this target. Again, WWB proved to be inconsistent in both the 180g and the 165g with the 180g the performing better of the two. The Combat Masters proved to be the most consistent and delivered the best results without question. Even the heavy load pinstriker(200g CMJ’s) performed well, although impacting slightly higher.
What appear to be fliers on the upper end of the target were in fact the faster followup shots which were due to “operator error”, jerking the shot instead of squeezing…My only complaint, and not really a complaint is with the trigger travel and creep. It seems a bit excessive but one can become used to it fairly quickly. Of the 100rds fired(not a lot but just enough to get an idea of how this thing was going to perform), there were zero FTF’s or FTE’s. All ejected rounds landed over the right shoulder in a pile behind me.
Okay, so keep in mind that a shooter with younger eyes and steadier hand would have done very well with this gun, but I have to say that I am very pleased with the results. I have many other guns with which to compare this to and for out of the box performance, I am very impressed. If one wants to “tweek it”, I am sure it will do very well indeed but if it aint broke, why fix it? If CZ’s reputation for performance and longevity hold true on this gun, I would say it would be a welcome addition to any shooters’ collection. It’s a great little gun that will shoot anything you feed it.
If you see one for sale, you may want to grab it. I hope Walt at Arms East can acquire more as he has a winner on his hands with this little fella..
Cheers
dB
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