Eargesplitten

Oh good. Guess I just never shot any other pistol enough times to see it.

Last time I was taking apart my SP-01 I noticed that the stock plastic guide rod is a little bent. I haven't had any function problems aside from with a couple magazines that clearly need their springs replaced, but I'm concerned what that could be a symptom of. I bought it used, the PO put what looks like an 11lb CGW spring in it, going by the yellow paint on the spring. I don't have room to set up the reloading press that I bought, so I've been shooting mostly S&B, I'm wondering if the ammo is too hot for the recoil spring and it's putting extra stress on the frame and guide rod, the guide rod being the only part to show issues so far. I'm planning on picking up a CGW guide rod since I was already picking up some other parts from them, should I get maybe a 12 or 13lb spring as well, or is the plastic guide rod deforming just something that can happen over time? I haven't checked how far the gun ejects, and I don't have any ranges I can go to right now due to the current situation, but like I said it has had zero failures aside from sometimes not feeding or locking open on a couple of worn out magazines.

Follow-up question since I realized there are dozens of places that sell music wire springs and all you have to know is the dimensions and the weight you want. Gun springs are generally measured in load, right? Not spring rate? When a shop sells an X pound spring, that's what it takes to compress it completely? I found a couple with loads between 16.7 and 18.7 pounds that would fit, just need to figure out how much shorter this spring should be to get rid of the stacking.

I'm working on a TZ-99, which is like a Zastava CZ-99, and want to replace the hammer spring because it's excessively heavy and I suspect part of that is to brute force past the terribly rough finish quality on all of the parts, which I've remedied with liberal use of sandpaper and polishing compound. The problem is there's only one option, it's scarce in the states and the first result searching for it is someone finding a workaround for light strikes it caused. I was looking for alternatives meant for other guns, but the problem there is that the hammer spring is 48.25mm long, seems to be an uncommon length. ID and OD is the same as my SP01, but it's about 14mm shorter (measured with calipers). I saw that David at CGW actually recommends just cutting full-sized hammer springs to fit the subcompact RAMI, I was wondering what sort of finishing should be done after cutting a spring, since it would be missing the flat coiled base at the bottom or top. I could heat it up and bend it into shape, but I would be worried about ruining the existing heat treating. I was also wanting to make sure that I understand how hammer springs are measured. The pound rating is what it takes to compress the spring an inch, correct? The equivalent to k in hooke's law? So if I was cutting off about 20% of the spring to match lengths, I would add 25% to find the new rating of the spring? Since cutting a spring in half doubles it's k value, cutting 20% off (leaving 8/10ths) would result in it having 10/8ths the k value, or 1.25 the original. Or is the pound rating measured in some way unrelated to the k value? Thanks for the help, I realize this is a somewhat unusual question. Not a lot of people working on $250 South African knockoffs of late cold war Yugoslavian designs.

I made a thread for this question in the gun springs forum but I might as well ask here. Does anyone have weights or uncompressed lengths of the hammer springs from the Alpha? I have a TZ-99, which is a licensed copy of a CZ-99, which is an early version of what the Rex pistols are based off of. The hammer spring is absurd, so I'm wondering if picking up an Alpha spring would give me a better trigger pull.

Does anyone have the spring weights (bonus if you have uncompressed length) for any of the Arex Alpha hammer springs? I've got a TZ-99, which is like the South African cousin twice removed of the Arex pistols, and I like it a lot aside from the hammer springs being comically stiff. Pull is smooth but very heavy, cocking the hammer by hand is about as heavy as a stock Taurus revolver. I'm wondering if the springs from an Alpha would fit as a cheap little upgrade. It's not a competition gun, just a fun range gun.

Thanks for all the answers. I think I'll look at either the Patriots or the Loks first, that way if they don't work out I can get a better idea of what I want and I'm only out $40-50 instead of $80 like the aluminum ones.

I picked up a used cajunized SP-01 Tactical yesterday and it's fantastic, but on the downside I get the feeling that my shooting is going to suffer from how small the grips are compared to some other guns. I've got big hands, and I can almost hit the mag release with my trigger finger if I reach in as far as I can after dry-firing. What are the thickest grips you can get for these, is there something to make them closer in size to a large-frame Witness? If not, I might just 3d print some, would there be any gotchas for keeping them Production-legal? Possibly also IDPA SSP-legal. Plastic is unlikely to add too much weight over the ones that already came with them, and if it ends up at risk of doing so I could always just reduce the infill percentage to make them lighter.

Fair enough, I really wasn't shooting for speed. And to be frank I'm not exactly a great shot. My groupings are decent for a newbie, but my rapid fire is hopeless. I need to get out and do some competitions, but I need to gear up first. Belt, holster, mag holders, etc. And new gun, currently I only have a Bersa Thunder 9 UC that, while much better than the reputation would suggest, bangs up my thumb knuckle with the safety with the stock grips. I only got through a few magazines before my thumb started hurting enough that my groupings doubled, and it's still sore when I put pressure on that part of my thumb a week later. He bought the G29 living in Florida spending a lot of time in the swamps, he was looking for the most carriable hog gun he could find since they can get aggressive and you're likely to be in bad breath distance by the time you and the hog realize each other are there. He doesn't carry it anymore up in Colorado. He's not worried about bear and mountain lions will be on top of you before you know they are there.

Thanks. I shot a friend's G29 and it was surprisingly not bad even with the full-power loads he put in for the second magazine. I guess it helps that despite being the "subcompact" 10mm, it's really about the size of a G19. Due to being a horrible gun hipster I'd probably be tempted to go for the Grand Power P40L though. Especially with the rotating barrel to help with the extra power.

Thanks, I had a feeling there might be something like that. I wasn't sure how important bolt faces are with a pistol vs an AR or similar.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I'm having a hard time getting a clear idea from Google because of the small vs large frame thing. Assuming a large frame, what's needed to convert from 9mm to 10mm? Do you need a full slide or is it just barrel and magazines? Maybe recoil spring too? I know EAA sells 10mm conversion kits, but it seems like if you buy those new you're looking at nearly as much as a whole new gun. Is the extractor going to pose a problem? I've never worked on a Tanfo before and I don't have my CZ anymore to look, I can't remember if the extractor is in the sear cage, I assume the difference in rim size could pose an issue there. Is it easier to convert a 10mm into a 9mm? I know there are some models of gun that just need mags and a drop-in barrel for .40 to 9mm but vice versa is more difficult. I'm looking at getting a large frame Stock of some type or Limpro for a practice and eventual competition gun, currently looking between those and a Shadow 2 since Grand Power's optic ready model isn't in the US and it's going to be a like kind and quality insurance claim so getting a cheaper model is just leaving money on the table. I've wanted a 10mm Witness since I was a teenager, so if it's possible to do a conversion relatively cheaply that would be a point in favor of the Tanfo. The bigger grips of the Tanfo seem like they could be nice because it still feels like it fits my hand well (my current 9mm's safety recoils into my thumb knuckle if I do a high grip which means my accuracy goes downhill after about 100 rounds), but there's no reason I can't buy/3d print bigger grips for the Shadow. Second-ish question, is it true that you can't do .40 in a 10mm Witness like you can with a Glock due to the longer firing pin? My understanding is the Glock 10mms can fire .40 safely because the firing pin is short enough that if it slips under the extractor the FP won't hit the primer, but with an EAA the FP is long enough that it will still hit the primer while the round is sitting loose in the barrel, which is bad for some reason I don't understand but accept is bad because I accept the concept that explosions going off in the wrong way in your hands is generally a bad thing. Cost of practice 10mm is significantly higher than practice .40, and cost of full power 10mm is even higher, which is a consideration since I don't currently have any space for a reloading setup.

I’ve heard Global Ordnance has the new distribution deal, is there any news about the X-Calibur Match hitting the US? Seems like it would be a pretty fantastic CO or production option with the slide cut for optics and coming in right around 41oz. But I only see it listed for sale in Canada.

Very cool. I wonder if someone with a spare Glock connector can test whether it works. They seem to be available for $260 online, so if you can fit all the Glock springs and bits it could be a pretty fantastic deal. I especially like the VP9 grip adjustments. How much polishing did you need to do, and where? There isn’t any way to make it work with Glock magazines is there? Given how much of a difference there is in the grip I’m assuming no.

I have been interested in Grand Power pistols for some time since I’ve always loved weird guns. However, I finally got my hands on a stick P1 (previously only handled the X-Trim) and was kind of disappointed with the trigger. SA is fantastically crisp, but DA has a lot of uneven stacking (I think that’s the term, the weight goes up and down a few times) and doesn’t seem any lighter than my Pre-B 85 with partial polishing on the trigger bar. The SA is heavier than expected too, the X-Trim was noticeably lighter. Maybe that’s just the lack of a FPB on the X-Trim. On the other hand this is a brand-new gun while my 85 is well-worn. Will the trigger smooth out over 500-1000 rounds or so? It doesn’t seem like there’s much of an aftermarket, are there aftermarket springs somewhere like for CZs? Are there parts to polish inside? My understanding is fit and finish is much better on GPs than CZs so I wouldn’t expect the same gains that I got polishing my CZ. I’m mainly interested in the P1 and P11 because I already have the 85 for a full-sized pistol and I’d like to have the option of carrying it if I ever decide to get my CHP. I understand that’s not the primary purpose of this forum, but I don’t have a ton of money so I like what I buy to be able to do double duty between the fun and unpleasant aspects of gun ownership. A P1 or P11 also gives me more divisions I can shoot in between the various sports. Although even the K100 is a good inch shorter than my CZ. I’m also possibly interested in a Q100 or Q1S but I understand their striker triggers are love it or hate it and I haven’t had a chance to get my hands on one to see which it is for me.

I had lost my CZ-85 TRS and ended up finding it, but not before ordering a new one from Numrich. It showed up yesterday and I realized it looks significantly different from the one that was in the gun, as well as the ones sold by CGW and CZC. It's much more open, I'm not sure what that would do to the trigger return, it seems like it would have a similar effect to the RP-TRS that CGW sells but I never did all that well in physics class so I could be wrong. Numrich: https://www.gunpartscorp.com/products/1753050I CZ sold by CZC: https://czcustom.com/cz-parts-all/cz-springs-all/cz-75-trigger-return-spring-trs-new.html The one already in the gun looked like the latter, the one I got from Numrich is accurate to the photo on their site. Should it still work? Would it be significantly different? I've had to take the thing apart and put it together several times in the past couple days and I'm not inclined to do it again just to test it out, even though it seems like the new one would be a lot easier to get in. I already broke one safety detent (chipped off the part you pull at with a probe) so I'm running on one out of two.

Thanks. I'll play around with it some more. It's possible that it was just the way that I was pulling while using more trigger finger that was causing the pain. I'll try focusing extra hard on pulling straight back and see if maybe I was pulling off-center, which is easy to do like that. Edit: Not disturbing the sight picture is much easier with a lot of trigger finger, like he said. Makes sense, vice is stronger than fulcrum, and less wiggle potential in the finger. And that's a stock DA CZ trigger, not exactly light. SA and it's easy. And yeah, after doing it I could release the magazine with my trigger finger.

Double posting for conclusion: turns out I was using too much trigger finger. The angle of rotation when it was on the first knuckle was causing the pain, if I use the pad of my finger it's fine. I had always heard to use the pad of your finger but I thought it was okay to do otherwise when the trigger was too heavy/slick to do so effectively. Guess I just need to get a stronger grip, my pad slips a little bit when pulling in DA.

Should I be concerned about the finger pain? I'm worried about giving myself the finger equivalent of tennis elbow. I'm also on the computer all day so I use that finger a lot for typing.

I’ve started doing a lot more dry fire practice. I’m still very new so I’ve been focusing on just holding the pistol well and pulling the trigger without disturbing the sights. I’ve been “shooting” DA with a stock CZ-85, since I figured that any small mistakes I might miss in SA will be amplified in DA. The problem is that after maybe 5-6 days of this I’m getting pain in my trigger finger. I’m worried that I might be doing something wrong and causing damage to my tendons. I’ve noticed that my trigger finger has to sort of rotate down as well as pulling back because of the way the trigger travels. Is that possibly it, or am I just overtraining since instead of timed drills / draws / transitions I’m just pulling the trigger over and over? I would guess I’m pulling the trigger maybe 50-60 times in a night from DA, which doesn’t seem like it should be that much. Maybe another 10-12 in SA. I could be off, though. It’s just something I do time to time with Netflix in the background or while a game is loading. One thing I had been doing per someone’s recommendation to build up endurance was just holding the pistol out at arm’s length and pulling the trigger until my arm or finger wore out, which really doesn’t take nearly as long as I expected. I’ve stopped all dry firing since I noticed the pain, since it really doesn’t feel like muscle pain.

Thanks. CZC is a bit cheaper and I need a factory part from them anyway so I guess I’ll start with them.

Has anyone had experience with both the CGW and CZC hammer springs? I was planning on getting a CGW ultra-lite kit, but I also need a magazine brake top pin and only CZC has those in stock. I know the weights are slightly different, CGW has a 11.5# whereas CZC has an 11# and a 12#. I also feel a bit weird getting the RAMI firing pin spring rather than one specifically made for the extended firing pin and lower weight hammer spring, but if that's something people do that works I guess it's no odder than using (for example) a Cougar D spring in a Beretta PX4.

I've got a transitional model CZ-85 coming in that was made in '93 or earlier (says Czechoslovakia) and it has seen better days. Are there any parts I should expect to need to replace immediately? I'm thinking of picking up some springs from CGW if I want to improve trigger pull, but I'm not sure if there are any little bits in there that I should expect to break immediately. It looks like it was a police surplus pistol, the finish is almost all gone but the bore looks fairly good from the pictures. I've wanted a CZ-85 since I was a teenager and this one is a steal even with the condition it's in, so I'm very excited. Seems like without the FPB it's also well on its way to having a fantastic trigger for competition when I eventually get out on a Saturday.

Has anyone shot both of these? How do they compare? I would assume the trigger is similar, how much does the aluminum frame and different barrel length/frame size impact the shooting of it? I found a cheap Cajunized P-01 and while I had been mainly looking at the P-07, it seems like a great deal and the old style magazines are also miles cheaper than the new ones, so that's a bonus. It's got the professional package from CGW in there, my understanding is it brings the trigger to a crisp 8.5/2.5-3 with the 18 pound spring usually? If needed there's a gunsmithing school about 45 minutes to an hour away that apparently does good work for cheap (Colorado School of Trades) depending on whether I feel like getting the tools to do any remaining polishing/grinding myself. I also only have the budget for one gun both for range/competition and carry, so the slightly smaller frame is a bit of a plus there. I had always heard good things about the original P-01, but never got my hands on one.

Thanks. It looks like he doesn't have any 15 round full-sized magazines for the PX4, but that's a good option for other models. Turns out the gun sold just a few days before I went back for it, so it's probably a moot point and I'm kicking myself hard right now.