Jump to content
Brian Enos's Forums... Maku mozo!

CZ Czechmate Review


Honkeymcgee

Recommended Posts

I recently purchased a CZ Czechmate and before I bought it I had a hard time finding much info on them.  So I wanted to post a somewhat in depth review of some of the things I wanted to know but could not find before I purchased mine.

 

I will start with what does the package come with.  The Czechmate is a great value for the price I feel because you are essentially getting two pistols.  It comes ready to be setup for Open or Limited.  The package includes 2 barrels, one muzzle attachment with a front site post for limited setup and a compensator for open setup, a rear sight for limited setup and a Cmore sight for open setup, a slide racker, three 20rd mags, one 26rd "big stick" mag, and several replacement parts such as an extra slide stop and a few pins.  It also comes with allen wrenches, a cleaning brush, and a bottle of oil.  Quite a nice little package for the price I think even at a full retail of $3,300.

 

I can not comment on shooting in in the limited setup as I have not used it in this configuration yet, because I bought it to get into open and really have no desire to shoot it in the limited setup unless it were in something such as a prs match where I may not want my red dot getting banged around.

 

The trigger is very light, I have not measured it but I did read in a couple posts that it measures under 2lbs and I think that's about right.  My only complaint with it is that the reset is not very crisp and noticeable.  The only thing I was really concerned with before I purchased it was how the trigger would be and I am not one bit dissapointed with it.

 

Shooting it is a blast.  This is my first open gun so I can not compare how flat it is to anything aside from my G17 with an RMR and very light 147gr loads.  I can say I feel it shoots pretty flat and several friends who have shot it agree it is a very smooth shooting pistol.  I am planning on adding a few popples holes and a couple side vents in the comp in the next week or so and will update after I shoot it a little with them.  The factory recoil spring seems a little heavy and I have a lighter one en route.  I will update after shooting some with it.

 

It comes with four mags total but only one with a capacity of 26 so one of the first things I did was order some springer precision base pads to convert the 20rd mags to 28rd.  They advertise 29rd with the grahams follower but I had trouble with the slide locking back using the grahams so I just run them with the factory follower and load 28rds.

 

I have made a few modifications since I got it.  First thing I did was extended the feed ramps on one of the barrels because I was having trouble with some bullets feeding due to nose diving in the high capacity mags.  This is because the top of the magazine sits below the bottom of the feed ramps.  Extending them down took care of this issue.  The second thing I did was use a throating reamer to allow myself to seat my bullets out farther.  If you want to run xtp profile bullets out in the 1.150-1.160 range you will need to do this.  The last thing I did was took the magazines and made a notch in the front of them after I had a little hang up in one match.  From what I could tell my rds were catching the top of the mag body on the lip of the brass causing me to have to pull the slide racker back a couple times in one stage to get a round to go in the chamber.  All of these I did myself with a dremel and a 9mm throating reamer.

 

I am using a DAA holster for an SP-01 which requires a small amount of sanding to get the trigger guard of the TS and Czechmates to fit but I was told by DAA right after I purchased my holster that they were releasing one specifically for the Czechmate within a week so that should be available by now.

 

The grip.  I have been shooting a glock for the last few years and when I got this pistol it felt so much more natural when I would bring it up to get a sight picture.  Finding the dot seems much easier than with my glock that I had for a year or two with an RMR before I picked up this pistol, which I have only had for a couple months.

 

That's about all I can think of right now, I will post update with any other info I think someone interested in one might be looking for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Send one of you big sticks to Grams Engineering and have him tune it. It will then run 28-29 with no more nose diving. all of the work you did on the mag and barrel ramp is only covering up the problem( the front of the mag is too wide)  It's an open gun you should never go to slide lock, if you are you are going to be slow.  You need this base pad for your big stick. http://czcustom.com/cz-parts-all/base-pads-extensions/cz-ts-extended-base-pad-silver-170mm.html?___SID=U

Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, SterlingSomeone said:

Great review. Any videos of you shooting it available? 

 Here's a link to a couple I just uploaded. I've only shot two all steel matches and two uspsa matches since I've picked it up. One of these videos is where I had the little hiccup with rds not chambering. 

 

Edited by Honkeymcgee
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, CZ85Combat said:

Send one of you big sticks to Grams Engineering and have him tune it. It will then run 28-29 with no more nose diving. all of the work you did on the mag and barrel ramp is only covering up the problem( the front of the mag is too wide)  It's an open gun you should never go to slide lock, if you are you are going to be slow.  You need this base pad for your big stick. http://czcustom.com/cz-parts-all/base-pads-extensions/cz-ts-extended-base-pad-silver-170mm.html?___SID=U

I realize I should never run dry shooting open but I just don't like that it doesn't lock back. I'm not quite that serious yet that I'm worried about one extra round. I have one more extension on the way for my last 20rd mag. Maybe I will put the Graham's in that one for my starting mag.  

I had read about sending it to Graham's also previously but I like to tinker at the house and got it worked out in my own little way haha, and it didn't cost me anything. 

Edited by Honkeymcgee
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well I got my 3rd basepad in today and went ahead and put the Graham's follower in. I have a mag full of dummy rds loaded with the bullet I shoot. 

Loaded up 29rds and they were nose diving so bad even when my extended ramps they would not feed. 

So I out the CZ follower back in and loaded 28, they all cycled no issues. 

Just my experience, I know I could send them in or tune them but I'd rather just run 1 less Rd and have it cycle good the way I have it setup currently.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sent mine to Bevin for his tuning and his springs and followers.  I have two 170 mags and both with work flawlessly with 29 rounds.  I think it cost me a grand total of $64 with shipping

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In case anyone else is curious, here's a bit more on how I tuned my mags. I'm out of town so a P09 mag will stand in for demp purposes.

2ec2298cb14aaedf3d75c44f3a0c26e7.jpg
The bottom of the tapered rib is the part that I squeezed. Logic being I wanted the column to start transitioning to a single stack arrangment earlier. The goal is to not have a gap between the top round and the one below it.
278ddb5481fb6a18b7310afb74ebc31d.jpg
I used drill bits since it's what I had, seemed to work fine. I lined them up in that in dentation, with a half inch or so extending past the indent. Using a vice, squeeze the mag at the drill bits. So you're pinching one end of the bits together and the vice is squeezing the other end.

I went a little bit at a time, checking between squeezes till the rounds gap went away.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A little update on what I had done to my mags with what I originally thought the issue was.  I was having the nose dive issue and while I think my couple of hangups the first time were what I previously described which was the brass getting caught on the mag lip is in fact what happened, when I made my little notch in the mags it amplified it.  At the house using some dummy rounds and racking them it seemed to work fine but yesterday I shot my first match since doing this and had issues most of the match.  My old loads with extreme bullets still ran fine but the PD ammo would not because of how the HP was hitting the ramps.

Before the rounds were wanting to dive down but the bullet was riding the lip of the mag and just got barely caught on the brass once or twice, once I made the notch in the mags is was allowing the bullet to dive down and hit the fit ramps damn near straight on against the flat face of the HP.

I had just found an old thread of busdrivers just this morning before he posted this and did exactly what he posted.  Just got back from the range and all three mags worked great!

I will be shooting a steel match tomorrow and try to get some videos of it.

So in conclusion the notch idea was bad and I should have function tested it on one mag before doing it to all of them(hindsight is 20/20 haha), but now that I got them tuned it being there isn't hurting anything which is good because I was thinking I was going to have to order new mags.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, leon1333 said:

the main problem with cz is that its not american made. get rid of it and go american, even better texas built

I will eventually. I was actually looking at ordering a DVC open but the CZ popped up for a price I couldn't beat. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, leon1333 said:

the cz's with a trig job are pretty sweet shooting and economical. i have shot a friends and won't shoot it again, bc it shot great. 

Haha, yea it does shoot nice. Eventually when I get a new open gun I might finally set the CZ up for limited and I'll just have an extra backup cmore/open gun. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finally got around to doing my porting on the barrel and comp. Ended up doing it all myself with a drill press, dremel, & hacksaw. Timing just wasn't working out with my machinist friend and our work schedules. 

Since I was not making a slide cut due to no access to a mill I just did two popped holes and kept them both in the comp area as well as extending the last port of the comp down to make a side port. 

Here are a couple pics and I will update on the feel after I shoot it tomorrow. 

 

20160904_114035_zpsn8tlhnnp.jpg

20160904_114014_zpsnzwlekbj.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, kneelingatlas said:

Looks good, can't wait to hear about it!

Shot it a little bit today but mainly just over the chrono and shot a group or two to ensure nothing had got thrown off. Honestly didn't even pay attention to the difference but it definitely didn't hurt anything.  It didn't seem to drop my PF at all though which surprised me.

I am shooting Area 4 this weekend and will post some updates after the match. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, kneelingatlas said:

They're pretty small and close to the muzzle, so I'm not surprised

I did 1/8" holes with a 5/31" in the comp. I could open it up a tiny bit if I wanted too but I will probably just stick with what I got.  It already shot pretty damn flat, just wanted a little something extra. Plus mines looks way more high speed now ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well no videos from Area 4. 3rd stage in I got myself a nice ole DQ.  Luckily it was only a couple hrs from the house and early in the match so I am back home enjoying the rest of the weekend. A costly mistake though. 

Stage started with hands on a door that you opened to activate a swinger. Shot the two targets to the left of the door area then reached for the door and didn't get out of the way quick enough. Hit my muzzle with the door it knocked the gun past 180.  :/ 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...