School me on buying an Open gun

[JDIllon]

My first and last open gun is a CZ Czechmate! When all the custom guys are sending there guns back and forth to get them tuned ( shooting). The CZ just keeps on going. It shoots Major and Minor well, comes with all you need at half the price! Do yourself a favor and look at and buy the CZ Czechmate and never look back. Just my .02 JD 

[StefVanHauwe]

I also recommend to check out the Bul Armory Open Race Guns: the SAS2 Ultimate Racer and/or the SAS 2 Bullesteros, both in 9mm. They come out of the box, ready to shoot. Price/quality = good and high value, certainly when compared to the custom race guns. In fact, if you're serious about competing in open, I recommend 2 race guns, 1 for training (and back up) and 1 for matches.

[regor]

4 hours ago, JDIllon said:

My first and last open gun is a CZ Czechmate! When all the custom guys are sending there guns back and forth to get them tuned ( shooting). The CZ just keeps on going. It shoots Major and Minor well, comes with all you need at half the price! Do yourself a favor and look at and buy the CZ Czechmate and never look back. Just my .02 JD 

 

I personally agree with this and have a pair of Czechmates that I've been shooting for the last 1.5 years and done well with. I personally really value that the skill bar for working on them and swapping parts is really low so I never have to worry about being MIA while my gun spends 3 months with the builder waiting on a fix. I encourage everyone I talk to interested in Open to give it a look but I make sure to be honest about three things up front: (1) you need to tune the mags to get them reliable, especially the 170s, (2) they don't play nice with JHPs, I had feeding issues with my big sticks even after tuning but after switching to RN those problems have completely disappeared for ~10k rounds, (3) the safety ergonomics are not for everyone and they should try mine out before they buy one.

 

I'm also very up front that I do everything I can to help the gun run reliably; plunk test every round that comes to the match, visually verify primers are fully seated, clean my mags every few matches, preventatively swap big-stick springs, etc. From what I have seen, my Czechmates run more reliably than the Atlas, Nevermiss, & JPL guns that I see regularly at our local matches, but I really don't know what those folks do as far as preventative prep for reliability, so I can't say definitively that Czechmates are more reliable than those builds, only that mine with my prep is more reliable than theirs with their prep. I certainly don't feel held back and don't regret my choice. In any case, I would much rather have a new Czechmate than a used 2011 of questionable build quality/origin/usage, which is probably what you're going to get for the price of a Czechmate. It's not going to hold most folks back and dramatically lowers the barrier of entry. 

[d3ydx3]

5 hours ago, StefVanHauwe said:

I also recommend to check out the Bul Armory Open Race Guns: the SAS2 Ultimate Racer and/or the SAS 2 Bullesteros, both in 9mm. They come out of the box, ready to shoot. Price/quality = good and high value, certainly when compared to the custom race guns. In fact, if you're serious about competing in open, I recommend 2 race guns, 1 for training (and back up) and 1 for matches.

Already bought one... see above posts.

[JDIllon]

I’ve shot my Czechmate for over 5 years with no problems. Just regular cleaning and a snake through the bore after each shoot. I had 2 Czechmates for couple of years as a backup,but never used it. I go to events every weekend and see a lot of problems with other open guns. I’m sure there are a lot of other good guns. But it sure seems like some of them are really high maintenance. Do your home before buying! Having a gun that spends more time in for tuning than on the range shooting is not good! Beware of guns that have lots of bling! JD 

[StefVanHauwe]

On 5/1/2021 at 1:03 AM, JDIllon said:

I’ve shot my Czechmate for over 5 years with no problems. Just regular cleaning and a snake through the bore after each shoot. I had 2 Czechmates for couple of years as a backup,but never used it. I go to events every weekend and see a lot of problems with other open guns. I’m sure there are a lot of other good guns. But it sure seems like some of them are really high maintenance. Do your home before buying! Having a gun that spends more time in for tuning than on the range shooting is not good! Beware of guns that have lots of bling! JD 

You're right. I also clean and lube my open guns after every training and match. So far, no issues with any of them.

[d3ydx3]

Latest update... I'm still using AA7. Switching from the Winchester 124 FMJs to the Everglades 124gr JHP V2 bullets seems to have reduced the cornmeal significantly. Still dirty, but a lot less cornmeal. I'm still seating at the same 1.160" OAL. The Winchester FMJs were around 0.595" and the Everglades JHPs are 0.575-0580", so I don't think there's a notable pressure difference to get more burn. In fact, I would assume there is less pressure. My only guess is the FMJs had some type of lacquer/wax coating on the base of the bullet that I suspect might have caused the cornmeal.

Edited May 22, 2021 by pealandco