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CZ Shadow 2 Hammer Spring Weight


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Hello Friends,

 

I have CZ Shadow 2 right now and in the process of finding the perfect hammer spring that I can use to prevent light strikes when shooting. I already performed the following and still getting light strikes to the primer preventing to ignite and causing a lot of time in competition:

1. changing the recoil spring to 11lbs and clean the firing pin tunnel thoroughly

2. installed extended firing pin including the new spring with it

3. installed the 13 lbs hammer spring, then cut 5 turns (5 out of 10 were light strikes)

4. installed the 13 lbs hammer spring, then cut 3 turns (3 out of 10 were light strikes) - this is during the IPSC Production in Barrie, ON (Stage 1)

5. I was forced to put in a full 13 lbs hammer spring and was a success

 

With 13 lbs spring - i have 7.5 lbs trigger full in double action and 3.8 lbs of single action

 

I would like to to have at least 5-6 lbs of trigger pull in double action and  2.75 to 3 lbs in single action.

 

Friiends, What are the things that I missed to reach these target trigger pull of mine?

 

By the way, I am using reload ammunition with winchester primer, I also tried federal primer but almost the same.

 

 

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Is there anything you can do to more deeply and consistently seat primers in your ammunition?

 

Use the depth measuring ability on a dial caliper to check your loaded ammo. .005"-.008" is truly, completely, fully seated in most pieces of brass.

 

You shouldn't need nearly as much hammer spring as you are currently using, not to ignite federal primers 100% of the time. 

 

If you want to chase light trigger pulls, you have to really drive your primers down in there all the way:

 

IMG_0473.thumb.JPG.42626a2711e28d260e9f0f9266b44d61.JPG

 

The gold Winchester primers in the foreground are fully seated. They run 100% with 3.5# less hammer spring in my Tanfoglio than the CCIs in the background, which are so hard that a Dillon 650 won't seat them any more deeply than this. They're barely down past flush. 

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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On 2/13/2017 at 11:54 PM, MemphisMechanic said:

Is there anything you can do to more deeply and consistently seat primers in your ammunition?

 

Use the depth measuring ability on a dial caliper to check your loaded ammo. .005"-.008" is truly, completely, fully seated in most pieces of brass.

 

You shouldn't need nearly as much hammer spring as you are currently using, not to ignite federal primers 100% of the time. 

 

If you want to chase light trigger pulls, you have to really drive your primers down in there all the way:

 

IMG_0473.thumb.JPG.42626a2711e28d260e9f0f9266b44d61.JPG

 

The gold Winchester primers in the foreground are fully seated. They run 100% with 3.5# less hammer spring in my Tanfoglio than the CCIs in the background, which are so hard that a Dillon 650 won't seat them any more deeply than this. They're barely down past flush. 

 

Actually, these are the samples of the ammo that misfire from my cz shadow 2. I am not reloading yet but buying a reloaded ammo. As per the samples, i think the primer are properly seated or maybe the primer is hard like as you said CCI?

IMG_5022.JPG

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If it needs hit more than once, the primer might be seated flush... but it isn't FULLY seated. Strike #1 drives it down into the case and leaves a light dent, strike #2 or 3 sets it off.

 

Coming from Glock and M&Ps, I'd always believed primers being flush was what a seated primer looked like. That's the benchmark. Because a gun with a 3# trigger could ignite them all day.

 

"High primers bad, flush primers good"

 

Thats not the case with a hammer-fired gun. They need to be a fingernail's width below flush if you want to run a really light hammer spring in a double-action gun. Your gun doesn't bring the hammer back all the way in double action, so that first shot from the holster is very weak compared to firing with the hammer cocked, or a Glock.

 

In order to run reliably you have two options:

 

1. Go for light trigger weight: This means "designer ammo." Change primer brand, or ammo brand, and it usually means loading your own ammo where you can control primer seating depth if you really want to chase a light trigger. You have to feed the gun ammo that's easy to fire, since you aren't hitting the primers nearly as hard as a stock firearm does.

 

2. Go for reliability, and practice until you shoot a 7 or 8 pound DA trigger well. Run enough spring to detonate any primer in any ammo, and you'll have Glock like reliability in the CZ or Tanfoglio platforms... now just go practice a lot.

 

You can't have both. That's the hard truth.

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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Also, if you're in the US and allowed to polish things, you can go in and really clean the action up. Pins, channels, sides of hammer, pin holes? Everything in my gun looks like it's freshly dipped in wet chrome. Reducing friction internally will get more force out of the same hammer spring. I even lightly polish the inner & outer surfaces of the spring itself.

 

This generally lets you drop a pound or two of hammer spring weight vs the factory gun, with equivalent reliability.

 

But in IPSC, internal polishing isn't allowed. 

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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31 minutes ago, MemphisMechanic said:

But in IPSC, internal polishing isn't allowed. 

 

Clipping springs isn't allowed either so I don't believe the OP is worried about staying within the confines of the rules.  I've tested multiple configurations and trigger pulls on at least 5 different Shadow 2's and I do not believe you are going to find a 5-6 lb DA pull without some serious work.  Even the claimed 7.5 in DA is actually pretty good for just the 13lb Hammer Spring.

 

On my Urban Grey Shadow 2 that has had about 2,000 rounds through it a 13lb Hammer spring brought me DA 8lbs 2oz and SA 3lbs 3oz on my Shadow 2 Blue new out of the box unfired the 13lb yielded a DA of 9lbs 1 oz and SA of 3lbs 7 oz.

 

We've tried 10 & 11 lb springs from the IPSC Store as well as the 11.5 from CGW which brought the best results bringing the DA in at 7lbs flat and a SA of 2lbs 2 oz.  It was also 100% reliable with the Stock firing pin and firing pin spring.   The soft firing pin spring from CGW gave me issues that I didn't investigate fully but it almost felt and appeared like the spring didn't have enough force to force the FP far enough out for the hammer to get a complete strike.

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Thank you for the replies Memphis & Chili.

 

I just came back from the local shooting range and the following were the results:

 I tested my CZ shadow 2 with the full 13 lbs hammer spring, polished extended firing pin with the new FP Spring

   a. Canadian Military Ball Ammo 139 9mm (picture in the right (brass colour)) - light strike; second strike fired, the rest fired

   b. 3 out of 150 rds reload ammunition 124g 9mm failed to ignite or with light strike (picture in left)

   c. Win white box 115g Factory load --- all ignites

 

One of the shooter told me not to change the factory Firing Pin and Spring and I don't know if this was the case of this intermittent light strike in my new CZ Shadow 2.

Sample spent casings are shown for the patterns of firing pin impact.

 

IMG_5023.JPG

IMG_5024.JPG

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Whose lighter firing pin spring do you have in it?  Like I said I had issues with the CGW one and went back to the stock firing pin spring and firing pin in one of mine and it's been 100% so far with what I would consider fairly hard Russian primers.  In the other gun I've currently got the extended firing pin with a Rami fp spring and it's been 100% as well.

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Got nothing to lose by trying it with the stock firing pin and firing pin spring. I would also make sure you do not have the trigger overtravel screw set right to the razors edge. I'm not a big fan of clipping springs so if you are adamant the 13lb main is more than you'd prefer I'd suggest either ordering an 11.5 from Cajun Gun Works (they won't ship to Canada) or some 10 &11 lb springs from the IPSC store http://www.ipscstore.eu/en/cz/1078-eemann-tech-main-spring-for-cz-75-2000000010786.html

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Hi Chili, I found it but what is the connection of this aside from restricting the rearward travel of the trigger? I just want to share, that during my double tap practice, i experience where the trigger/hammer just drop down without even actually hitting the primer/firing pin, it seems that I just put down the hammer manually. I think it happened twice and just ignore it as maybe my trigger finger fault as i want to make a fast double tap. I came from 1911 before switching to double action trigger.

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I'm no expert so can't really explain the function well but know one of the common advice offered to someone with light strikes is to make sure the overtravel screw is not set too tight.  If I understand your next statement you said you had a couple of occasions where you pulled the trigger but it didn't make contact with the firing pin?  If so then your overtravel screw is likely removed too much of the travel.  The first time I adjusted mine on my Shadow 2 I got it where it was perfect on SA and it would not drop the hammer properly in DA.

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If your overtravel screw is adjusted to just barely permit the hammer to drop, then you can run into issues where the sear rubs against the half-cock notch on the hammer... and slows it down on its way forward to strike the firing pin.

 

If your gun has an overtravel adjustment of any kind, adjusting until it barely fires then backing out 1/2 to 3/4 generally works well. You won't notice a extra 0.1mm of finger movement when shooting, but the gun will!

 

I generally tell people to leave the screw out entirely when tuning it for reliability, then install it and adjust it after a few thousand perfect rounds are fired.

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how did you get one so early?

im not a fan of cutting springs.....  the is nothing consistent

i would try the cajun springs as mentioned above

 

something doesn't sound right

 

im running the 11.5 #  and it sets off sb, cci, winchester, federal primers  in a spo1  that i tuned up   the 8.5# was way to light and had lots of light strikes

 

i did have many light strike issues at first but i'm writing that off to break in/ poor reloads

 

you will get better response from the cz gurus if you post in the cz section

 

also call dave at cajun

 

 

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3 hours ago, biglou13 said:

how did you get one so early?

im not a fan of cutting springs.....  the is nothing consistent

i would try the cajun springs as mentioned above

 

something doesn't sound right

 

im running the 11.5 #  and it sets off sb, cci, winchester, federal primers  in a spo1  that i tuned up   the 8.5# was way to light and had lots of light strikes

 

i did have many light strike issues at first but i'm writing that off to break in/ poor reloads

 

you will get better response from the cz gurus if you post in the cz section

 

also call dave at cajun

 

 

They're Canadians.

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Hello Memphis and Biglou,

 

I adjusted the overtravel screw to minimum. Then i performed a lot of dry fire, polishing of internals including the strut and the trigger pull further dropped to 3.2lbs consistently. I did further change the firing pin spring to a lighter one from dlask.

 

I am Canadian. We are lacking of firearms spare parts supplies and hard to get anything from US now. I was able to get a couple of dawson sights by getting it directly from US and cross the border where it was very inconvinience ans costly.

 

Thank you for the response. I will be testing the pistol again tomorrow and will keep all of you posted.

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