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Not 100% sure (Stu might know), but think if you were to convert to DA/SA by just changing out the trigger and adding a disconnector it would then just be considered a 75B and GTG in production division where you wouldn't get beat up for shooting 9mm. Since the exact same frame and slide combo (other than the different rear sight which is an allowed mod) is found on a couple run-o-the-mill CZ-variants CZ currently offers and produces, I don't think it would be a huge deal. Then you wouldn't need a new gun and not only would you be GTG to shoot cocked n' locked in IDPA ESP as before, you'd also be able to shoot in SSP hammer-down, DA first shot.

I'm no fan of Ruger's semiauto products, but I don't think that's really a fair statement when you're talking about the most-copied handgun on the planet. If they truly were 'innovative' and not imitative we'd be complaining that their design was non-spec/non-traditional and either couldn't use other branded parts or just wasn't a "true" 1911. Remove yourself from the competitor mindset and be average-guy gun buyer walking into a store looking for a 1911. A poly-framed double stack STI or a Para LDA wouldn't even get a second glance in comparison. Remember, a lot of 1911 purists decry the use of beavertails and skeletonized hammers and triggers, or lowered ejection ports. It's JMB's way or no way, they would say. In this regard I think Ruger has captured the current market-accepted flavor of the 1911. We'll just have to see what happens next! I wasn't referring strictly to just this latest offering... For the last few years it's been pretty much the same thing; the SR9 is a Glock-copy, the LCP ripped off Kel-Tec, the SR556 wasn't original and didn't cause the earth to shake, and now a 1911-like-everyone-else, besides the LCR which is indeed innovative it's just been copy after copy. Honestly, the craziest thing about this, but maybe a whole other topic is how out of all the 1911-platform-clones produced by everybody how little innovation there actually has been. I love 1911's buy I'm not one of those preaching JMG's original design was pure perfection and without flaws, you'd think the producers would apply some more forward-thinking engineering ideas rather than just sticking to staying so traditional. I mean just look at many of the threads that pop up in this subforum, gangs of us fighting with trying to make shorter OAL rounds function in a 100 year old design made to work with a longer OAL round, you'd think somebody would've tried scaling the design to match the scale of the shorter rounds like .40 and 9mm by now, but short of Springfield's EMP no one's really bothered, so we keep playing with springs, measuring feed lips, and all the other stuff to overcome the engineering shortcomings and challenges... There are other things too, for examplebesides the AFTEC, or going external, no one has really tried to improve upon the things that could be bettered... Oops, sorry for the tirade.

Meh. Costs as much as 2 RIA's almost (who's frames and slides are not soft and just fine if not better than most btw), but doesn't seem twice a good. Seems at Ruger imitation is the new innovation. Weak sauce IMO.

CoC No. 2 is on the way, grip, and overall better sight-tracking and shooting consistency just seems to increase steadily along with my grip strength... Yet another "thanks benos forum" occurrence.

The funniest thing about this whole thing is that after trying pretty much every grip available for the CZ's think I'm going to just end up running the factory rubber one's or maybe even the factory plastic one's... doh!

Ahh, a fine Shorty's product (probably just re-branded Jessup though). Think my point is grip-tape from a skateshop is best, good stuff is thin, really grippy and lasts, where as stair-tape from the hardware store is usually thick and more coarse than really grippy.

Ha, Jessup brand isn't really necessary, it is the best though!

You're welcome, glad to help. This is really just a "public service announcement" for fellow shooters really, just picked up a set of the "thick" AL grips from Czcustoms and while they certainly look cool they didn't quite deliver the kind of grip I was looking for, I've had the "aggressive checkered" one's in the past too and they are really good but still not quite what I was after. Grip-tape is the way IMHO, actually ends up grippier in most ways than the "lemon graters" as the grip-tape doesn't require any squeezing-force to bite as the checkering does, flesh touching it is enough for it to do it's thing, and it doesn't start to bite into your hands like the aggressive checkered ones do towards the tail end of prolonged 300+ round range sessions. The screwdriver-shaft-method of getting it to stick and not peel does indeed work great with sections on Glocks too (I've done it a bunch), also works awesome on 1911's, one of my favorite 1911 grip options is the smooth grips covered using the method described above...

Step 4: Cut out the outline you scribed with your screwdriver using a razor of some sort at a 45 degree angle or so. If you went around the panel enough times with the screwdriver shaft this will be quick and easy, that said, try to use a sharper blade as that'll come out cleaner. Step 5: Voila! You're done and they look as if they were born that way. Go around them once or twice again with the screwdriver shaft to make sure they won't peel up and to clean up any less than perfect cuts, cut little X's over where the screws go in so they won't bubble up around the screw recesses when you mount them on your pistol and tighten them down. Now go buy your kid a new skate deck with the money saved from not having to go buy another set of grips. Go shoot.

Decided to post this "how to" as it seems most shooters haven't spent any amount of time kick-flipping down sets of stairs in their youth as I did and seem to suffer from chronic ugly grip-tape jobs... If you want to know how to apply grip-tape properly, just ask a skateboarder. Step 1: Decide you need more grip and know that 3M stair-tape is lame and that heading to a skateshop and dropping $5 for honest-to-goodness Jessup brand grip-tape is what you want to do. Step 2: Cut the grip-tape to larger than you'll need to cover the whole grip panel and spend a minute to make sure it gets attached all the way around. Step 3: Scratch all the way around the panel with the shaft of a screwdriver (or something like one) making sure you're actually scratching out the true perimeter of where you want to cut and not other rises and shapes unless you wish to do so on purpose. This will not only make it possible to match the shape of the panel perfectly, but it will also keep the grip-tape from peeling up at the edges and will make it way less of a PITA to cut in Step 4. This is the step that any good skateboarder knows, and most shooter guys don't, nothing is more lame than jacking up your brand new skate deck before you've even busted your first ollie.

I've got a Blade-Tech that's listed for 75/85/75SA and it fits my 75 Shadow perfect (same dimensions as a 75SA). The bottom of the holster seems fit to the 75SA slide profile, it's not molded inwards where the regular 75/85 slides get narrower.

That's known to be a Phantom thing, not really a Mec-Gar thing, ...lots a chatter about that issue with Phantoms over on the czforum, something to do with the polymer frame.

IMHO the Mec-Gar AFC's are superior in a few ways: stronger springs that last, better and tougher coating, and I even prefer their followers as they seem slicker to me and bright blue equals safer handling over black. I've got a couple that have seen a fair amount of use over some months and the springs still feel stronger and livelier than the "fresh" springs in the new 19rd mags that came with my new Shadow. That said, I'm looking to trade a few as I've ended up preferring the base-pad and profile of the factory 19 rounders for how they work with my grip style and have just resigned myself to ponying up for +10% springs now and then to avoid trouble.

Ha, kinda came to a similar conclusion on my grips being too thin to get my support-hand on-board and have a set of the "thick" AL grips on the way (they're "thick" in name only as they're still thinner than all but the factory wood, plastic and rubber ones. I had a set of the aggressive checkered ones before and really dug how they worked for me, thinner but still allows one to get some meat on the gun, decided that's probably the best width for me, the VZ's are much closer to the "thin" AL grips, just a bit less flat of a profile)... I also agree the gun is lighter then stated, think mine comes in around 36-37ozs.

You're welcome, hope to see you out there.

I'm using a Blade-Tech DOH minus the dropped offset part, so think it's just their "SRB" belt holster now, it's the one for the 75/85/75SA and fits and works perfectly (think they list one made specifically for the 75SA ,but I can't really see how it could fit any better, bet it's the same one). My home club(s)'s range is about an hour from Clarksville (or closer depending on how fast you drive). Check out ntps.org to see if there's a USPSA event happening and/or mctsclub.com to see if we've got any IDPA or "run n' gun" matches (basically USPSA/IPSC-style matches featuring higher round counts and less rule) going on while you're around. Everyone is really friendly and the range is pretty sweet these days, we got hammered with flooding around this time last year so lots of work has been put into bringing our play area back, only bigger and better, there have been quite a few bays added and this season we're having our first ever GSSF event, our inaugural sanctioned mid-major IDPA event (Music City Cup) and of course Tim C. and the rest of the USPSA guys have been running the TN Sectional event for a few years now quite successfully, and have earned the reputation of running a great match. As far as matches are concerned we're pretty lucky, it's rare for there not to be a match of some kind within driving distance of the Nashville area on just about any given weekend and Clarksville is just north of us. C'mon out!

The more I shoot mine the more I like it. Runs like a Glock and has the trigger of a nice 1911, has better ergos and handles recoil better then either too IMO, what more could you want. I'm going to swap the safeties out for the smaller and higher one's like come on an 85 Combat and then swap out the slide-stop for the slightly more extended "stepped" version like comes standard on an SP-01 and standard Shadow at some point. Everything is fine as it is stock, the changes are just personal fit stuff really. I think I prefer the smaller safeties as I feel as though I can get slightly higher up on the gun and get a bit more out of the way on the grip panel allowing more room to really get my support-hand locked in, and the longer slide-stop makes it a hair easier to drop the side without shifting my grip when reloading from slide-lock. If anyone knows an 85 Combat owner that wants the SA-style safeties and may want to trade me, please let me know...

As was mentioned, CCW on benos doesn't come up too often and opinions vary widely I'm sure, that said, I'm not into pure "race guns" very much either and any gun I own gets carried (some more than others). I may carry my 75 Shadow at some point as I like to carry, practice, and shoot matches with the same gun if I can and I don't see any issue in the 75 Shadow's case as far as using it as a carry piece as long as one really understands how they work, they were duty weapons first after all. Though, cocked n' locked is probably the safest condition to carry a Shadow variant in IMHO as it's just about the same as a 1911 in condition one minus a grip safety, gives you the thumb safety and the half-cock/hammer-catch notch which is all they've got, hammer-down DA first pull would mean trusting a firing pin spring more than I'd be willing to, also, I'd want to be 100% sure I could set off my carry/SD ammo or go up to a stronger hammer-spring if I were to carry one. YMMV x 100 here.

Aside from the usual back and forth that goes with a topic like this, since this is a "strictly trigger comparisons" thread I'm surprised no one has brought this up yet: For those with experience working on them (as well as other different guns and actions for basis of comparison), how the heck does S&W get away with calling the M&P's trigger action a DAO/safe-action-type? When the gun is chambered the striker is cocked and captured by the back of the sear, you pull the trigger and the trigger bar moves back, the sear tilts and drops, the striker is released, and BANG! There's really no cocking of the striker of any consequence taking place during the trigger pull, if one wanted to count that slight "bump" on the back of the sear as cocking the striker as it rocks back, therefore supplying the "DA-ness", I'd say that's dubious at best as there's no way around the fact that the striker after the gun has been racked is already cocked to a point where it has all the power it needs without that itty bitty bit of help. Those of us who've seen or performed trigger-jobs on them know that smoothing down that "bump" just lowers the pull weight and does not induce light strikes as it would if it was a critical and essential ingredient to the firing mechanism's system imparting enough spring-load to provide enough striker-force to ignite primers... As far as I can tell an M&P is a single-action gun. IMO a Glock's trigger, being that it's a DAO/safe-action trigger has a point where it can be brought to that is quite good, but it has it's limitations inherent to it's design (for example: going to a reduced power striker spring to decrease pull weight with the side effect of less reliable primer ignition and a less powerful reset). I see the M&P as a single-action striker-fire design that is hobbled by a soft feeling reset (perhaps maybe even intentionally, if the reset was as solid as a Glock's an M&P might have a propensity to "striker-follow" not unlike like a 1911 that experiences hammer-follow and/or trigger-bounce). In full disclosure, I prefer a good tuned-up Glock trigger over even the best M&P's as I prefer a more authoritative reset then even heavily breathed-on M&P's can deliver and have experienced a couple broken strikers and other things with M&P's which make them much less reliable than a Glock in my view, that said, I'd say an M&P does indeed have a distinct advantage in breaking shots more crisply and cleanly (as it should being that it's single-action). I don't really have a dog in this fight as I've found I'm more fond of CZ and 1911 triggers, though I do still carry a G26 regularly.

Wow, great thread. Really has me saying to myself "Why have I been screwing around aiming at the center of these big targets when the smaller one's have been there every single time too? That's really the one I want to hit". Reminds me of hearing that good Navy pilots landing on aircraft carriers try for the 3rd arresting wire out of 4 as it's the safest and most efficient, wires 2 and 4 are acceptable, while the 1st is considered dangerous as it's closest to the edge of the deck and if one came in too low or caught some wind they could smack into the stern of the ship... most, especially the good one's catch that 3rd one consistently.

Well, worst case you'll need to put in a 15lb hammer-spring, in my experience that'll set off pretty much everything and will really only add pull weight to the DA, SA should stay about as nice as with a 13. Not sure if you have comp hammers in your 75's, but if you're familiar with Witness's, your new blaster's SA should be as good or better than the best Witness Match's trigger out there, and that is a very very good thing.

The 75 Shadows come with an extended firing pin (at least allegedly, I don't have any other CZ's around to compare mine to), so hopefully you should be better off than what you're used to using a 13lb hammer-spring and standard length firing pin. Congrats on the new blaster, you're going to dig it.

Anyone know if the VZ G10 grips for the CZ's are legal?

Aimed-pair.

That's a sick gun too, if easier dealings within IDPA's rules is your aim (as was mine), maybe consider picking up a second-hand 75B SA and adding the CZC hammer, 13lb hammer-spring, ditching the FPB, and adding a DA trigger and disconnector to make it DA/SA. Then you'll have a bad-ass bargain range toy, possible Limited minor gun, and you can slap your Shadow's slide on top of it to satisfy the rules for sanctioned IDPA matches.