M1A4ME

I'm in the habit of using the slide release. All my other pistols work that way (CZ's and 1911's). It just seems "right" to me.

I use a lot of IMR4198. Works great in the shorter barreled rifles. I also have a couple AR15 pistols. Works great in them. I do have a Noveske Pig on the 8.5" barreled pistol. Thought I had a picture of the 8.5" but can't seem to find it. This is the 10.5" with a different model "flash can" on it.

I bought one set up that way. I put an original/stock slide release back in mine.

I can't speak for velocities. I can say that I load 140 grain Missouri Bullets Co. lead (and the coated lead) bullets for my .40 S&W pistols. I use Herco (6.5 grains works in my pistols but you'll have to confirm if it's safe/reliable in yours). I get the same point of impact for this load (from 12 yds. out to 20 yds. anyway) as I do for the 135 grain Nosler hollow points sitting on top of an almost max. load of Blue Dot. I got the Blue Dot load from the Nosler website. Both loads are accurate and, as I said, they shoot to the same point of impact, so they may be moving close to the same speed. I shoot them in a P07, a P09 and a TS. "Old" shotgun powders, I know, but I've got quite a bit of them and they work.

It's got to be turned exactly the right way to work. I keep telling my oldest son to use his darn phone camera. Take a picture of things before he starts taking it apart and every little bit while he's taking it apart and then he can refer back to the pics when he's putting it back together (he had a little unnecessary fun last week replacing his brakes on his G37X). I start the block in and push on it slightly while inserting the firing pin. Once you've got the block turned correctly and pushed into the slide correctly the firing pin will insert all of the way. Then you can put the firing pin retaining pin back in - pay attention to the way it should be oriented, too. Did you get a new one? CGW sells a replacement (and easy to install/remove trigger pin and a stronger version of the firing pin retaining pin. I put those in my CZ's if I feel the need to work on the parts to make them smoother (some don't seem to need it and some do).

You have to be careful with that one. Once the punch goes through the frame it can get cocked off at an angle (BTDT). After that one I turn the frame so I'm looking into it and that helps me keep the punch tip on the pin. Isn't the trigger pin (original CZ pin) a one way in/one way out pin? Isn't the head on one side larger, or slightly tapered? Also, if the punch tip broke, is it still in the hole or did it fall out/come loose? If the punch was a smaller diameter than the pin/hole (it should have been - but sometimes the straight part of the punch isn't long enough for the depth of the hole you're using it in and the tapered part will hang up in the hole in the frame (BTDT, too) then it may just be wedged between the sides of the hole and something it's against inside the frame. You might be able to loosen it with a thin bladed screwdriver and get it to fall out. Then you could go ahead and use another punch to finish driving out the trigger pin.

I bought 500 to start with. But I save every cracked neck/shoulder .223 piece of brass. When I get a little can of it sit down in the sun one cool spring/fall morning and work up some for with a tubing cutter, resizing die and case trimmer. My pile of 500 is slowly growing, but slowly growing is better than slowly dwindling.

Of the five that I've installed over the years (different brands of 1911's and different brands of safeties) I've only had to file on the safety one time.

I had the dead trigger thing on mine on the second day after I bought it. Didn't really understand the set up but I bought an APEX CAEK kit for it and installed it and it was wonderful, for about a year. Then back into the dead trigger thing as well as light strikes. I bought a stronger (Glock) striker spring and installed it for the light strikes but it didn't help. What fixed that was getting the trigger bar adjusted to get the striker safety full lifted out of the way before the sear released the striker. What fixed the dead trigger issue was stoning the sear to a sharp flat surface, like the factory sear. I also had a .357 SIG FS M&P and saw that the rear corner of the sear was very sharp vs. the APEX sear. I had already replaced the sear spring and that didn't help so took the APEX sear out and stoned the rear corner nice and sharp and put 400 rounds through it with no issues. Prior to that I was having two or three dead triggers/light strikes per magazine. That 400 rounds occurred over three range sessions and I'd look at the sear while cleaning the gun and that rear corner stayed nice and sharp. I don't shoot the M&Ps anymore though. While fighting with the M&P I bought a CZ P07 and found it was not only more reliable it was way more accurate. Been buying CZ's ever since.

I second the P09. My wife darn near confiscated my P09 in .40 S&W after a range session when she was shooting rings around her XDM 3.8" 9MM. That was the last time the XDM went to the range. I had to buy her a CZ 75 Compact in 9MM (the P09 really is too big to conceal carry, especially for a 5' 4" woman who isn't very big at all) in order to keep my .40 P09. The P09 in 9MM recoils so lightly that I have to keep looking at the holes in the paper and thinking about the noise to reassure myself that it really is firing. My P09 9MM is very accurate. Scary accurate. There's a guy on the CZ Forum that used to use his for Bullseye shooting. He's got some video's on YouTube of him shooting it from a rest at 100 and 200 yds. and some of his groups are better than a lot of people can do with a rifle at the same distance.

I bought a GII Recon last winter. In spite of everything I did to change it around it has fed/fired/ejected every round I've put through it (SA surplus). I think I've finally got it where I want it and I've got some brass ready to start working up loads. PITA changing stuff around though. Somebody used rockset on every nut/screw except the barrel nut (really - rockset on the threads for the DPMS quad rail, on the jam nut for the quad rail, the set screws on the gas block, the gas tube was even glued into the gas block with rockset before they put the roll pin in, and of course, the flash suppressor - I can understand that last one, not the rest though.) I've changed the free float tube, the gas block, and the gas tube, as well as the buffer, buffer tube/spring and stock.

I had an issue similar to these years ago. I took the metal off the top of the shell holder instead of the bottom of the die. I figured a shell holder was cheaper to replace than a sizing die.

I'd clean/oil it prior to shooting it, even new. Most of the CZ's I've bought new seemed to be pretty clean, but the last one I bought (CZ 75 Compact) has all kinds of thick gooey junk on the outside of the frame and I'll be the inside isn't ready to go either.

So far, I've only shot SA FMJ through my GII. Originally it had the factory gas block on it. Then I installed an adjustable gas block on it. I've not seen marks like that on my brass with either set up. I also changed buffers around, early on. No differences seen. Does it leave a mark just from chambering the rounds and then ejecting them by hand?

Absolutely!!! Just like the picture shows. I had the same issue/did the same thing when I installed a new hammer in my last CZ 75 Compact. The "race" hammer you bought would have a very shallow notch that the back of the sear catches in. That reduces trigger travel/makes a nice crisp short trigger movement vs. the stock components. That means the front of the sear doesn't rise up as much when the hammer is cocked and that arm that sticks out from the front left side of the sear won't allow the old safety (or even a new one) to turn back under it to move to the SAFE position. Removing that metal on the safety allows it to clear the front arm on the sear. I'm very happy with mine.

Sometimes you can get a Mecgar that is a little bit larger, somewhere in the dimensions. I bought 8 of the 19 round ones (17's with a plus 2 base). Two of them were so difficult to insert in my CZ 85 that I elected not to use them. I had my youngest son check them in his CZ 75 SA and they worked fine. Two of the 19 round mags. he had were traded back to me for the two my 85 didn't like and they worked fine in my 85. Pistol issue or magazine issue or just the normal variation unit to unit (mags and pistol) seen in any manufactured items?

Does it chamber in the rifle? I have an AR15 that had chambering issues when new (the other 7 or 8 worked great, but the newest one had a very tight chamber). The Lee dies were the worst (for failure to close the bolt), the Pacific/Hornady dies were a little better. I pulled out the new RCBS X dies (that were a Christmas present from my wife that I'd not yet used) and they gave me brass better than either of the other brands of dies. One other thought. If you lube the inside of the case neck, does it make a difference in your pass rate in the Lyman case ga? Good luck with it.

Mine (EDC, not competition) have the BUIS milled into the slide between the ejection port and RMR. At the time I was told that was the only way the P09/P07 could be set up with a milled into the slide RMR. Since then I have seen pictures of these pistols with the RMR set farther forward and the BUIS behind the RMR. I do not know who to contact to have a P09 slide milled that way, but it's being done. If that's what you feel you need, don't give up on the idea, just keep looking/asking questions till you find a shop that does it the way you want it. For my part, the iron sights in front of the RMR work fine. I don't notice the BUIS (they're there, my mind just ignores them/fails to take notice of them) while shooting the dot. I can switch to the BUIS, but it is a switch, not a confusion of "which one do I shoot with?"

RMRs on the P07 and P09. Dual illuminated models. Amber dot is great, green dot not so great (even difficult to see) if I'm in low light and the target is in bright light. The amber dot doesn't suffer from this problem. DP Pro on the CZ 75 Compact. Looks funny (big sight on a slender slide/pistol) but it works great. DP Pro on an AR15 pistol (mounted, but not yet sighted in or shot enough to say if I like it or not). The CZs have the slides milled to get the sight lower and the P07 and P09 also have back up sights milled into the slide. The Compact uses the Leupold iron sight on the back of the DP Pro.

On the CZ Forum someone posted it was a shipment of left overs from another foreign contract, only 500 guns brought here. But I keep seeing them at gun shows, month after month. I went to a dealer in my area who is a "CZ guy" and he had one in the display cabinet. I couldn't resist and told him we needed to start doing the paperwork on it. He turned around, to walk away, and I asked him what was wrong. He told me nothing was wrong, he was just going to the stock room to get another one that didn't have some else's finger prints on it already. I was surprised that he had more than one and said so. He grinned and said he had several of them. I persevered and kept my purchase at one. There may be a lot more of them over here than initially reported.

Absolutely. I charge 50 cases. Then I look in them with a bright light to confirm they all have powder. Then I pick 5 of the 50 that look different to me, or just random picks if none look high or low, and weigh the charges on the scale. Sometimes things get loose, sometimes something changes and the random scale checks keep me (and my guns) safer. Extra time? Sure. But I feel better about it and that's important.

I'm a Blue Dot fan. Does very well in my CZ 9MM (115 grain hollowpoints) and CZ .40 S&W (135 grain hollow points). Seeing the powder in each case is easy when the powder almost fills the case. I like small groups and I get them with these loads. I'm about to try some 124 grain hollow points in the 9's, so we'll see what shakes out there.

Expensive? I sat my range bag on the table one day, pulled my cell phone out (brand new, too) and clipped it to a pocket on the bag, so I could hear it if it range and proceeded about the business of stapling up targets, loading the range magazines, getting ready to shoot, etc. I'd put out three targets and started shooting one of my AR15's, trying out some new loads and seeing how they grouped. As I worked right to left I eventually got to the far left target and squeezed off a round. My youngest son hollers out, "Man, that was COOL! I gotta get a picture of that.!!" I turn around and look at him to ask WTH he's talking about an he just repeats "That was so cool!" I ask, again, "WHAT?" And he's digging his phone out of his pocket and repeating how cool it was and I'm about to get up and get his attention and he points out in front of the table. I don't see a thing out there in the grass, brass and dirt. Then he asks where my phone is and I turn to look at my range bag and the phone is gone. Not a mark on the bag/pocket, but the phone is gone. No one there but us so I got up, went out in front of the table and picked up the three or four pieces I could find. You just can't see stuff like that up close when you're shooting with a scope. These days, the range bag goes on the concrete beside the table.

One of the worst things about CZs is no matter how many you get, you keep finding these reasons why you need another one. And another one. And...... I think I'm on my 3rd "last one." I almost went to a shop the other day to look at an SP01 (may still if they don't sell it).

Or make your own if you can't find "exactly" what you need. I had a couple screws strip out on a bipod mount on the bottom of a rail on my 18" AR15. I went to Lowes, bought some of the same thread (Lowe's has displays at their hardware section where you can try different nuts with your screw to figure out the thread size/pitch) screws and then used the drill and file to reshape the screw head. When installed, you can't even see the shiny part where metal was removed from the original screw head. A couple weeks later I found the exact size/shape screws on line and ordered a couple packs to put away. The ones I made are still on the rifle.