For Target Shooting... Double Action or Single Action, or Both?

I prefer the triggers on single actions.

There are a lot of CZ75 variants.
The original is DA/SA with a safety so you can use it SAO. But if you want the DA first shot, you must manually lower the hammer, it does not have a decocker. This can be scary, but a lot of USPSA Production shooters do it every stage of the match.
I left mine handy at home in a manually decocked state until I went to Sig Sauer with mechanical decocker.

There are SAOs, and there are DAs with decockers, but no manual safety.

The question is, what does "target shooting" mean to you?

Single Action is a much lighter pull and should result in more accurate shots. The CZ 75 is DA on the first round, if you chamber a round and drop the hammer (carefully). This allows for safer concealed carry with safety off since the DA trigger pull is longer and heavier - much like a revolver Subsequent shots are SA since the hammer is fully cocked with each shot. I prefer to carry my CZ 75 in this mode as opposed to carrying in condition 1 - round in chamber, fully cocked with safety on.

I have a couple of CZ DA's. Excellent guns. They are no match to my 1911's when it comes to triggers. I can shoot the 1911's better.

Home defense . . . I will assume "target practice" means training just in case the worst happens and having fun making small groups of holes in paper.

People disliked SA/DA pistols because they claimed they had trouble getting the first shot off accurately. I'll wager a major part of that was due to the fact that few actually practiced with the double action trigger. Load a magazine, rack, or drop, the slide and start shooting, the pistol shoots single action. Most folks that bothered to start in the standard carry configuration (holstered, hammer down, and safety off) still only shot one round out of fifteen in double action.

And, they blamed the pistol.

I like DA/SA pistols, but you have to practice with double action and the single action modes to be proficient.

Double action

lysanderxiii said:

Home defense . . . I will assume "target practice" means training just in case the worst happens and having fun making small groups of holes in paper.

People disliked SA/DA pistols because they claimed they had trouble getting the first shot off accurately. I'll wager a major part of that was due to the fact that few actually practiced with the double action trigger. Load a magazine, rack, or drop, the slide and start shooting, the pistol shoots single action. Most folks that bothered to start in the standard carry configuration (holstered, hammer down, and safety off) still only shot one round out of fifteen in double action.

And, they blamed the pistol.

I like DA/SA pistols, but you have to practice with double action and the single action modes to be proficient.

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I'm guilty of that. Then, I decided to sit down and learn the DA trigger and now I've come to like DA/SA for carry/hd purposes.

For a general range gun that might serve as HD a DA/SA is fine. You can use the SA pull primarily for range days and the DA can be a nice safety measure for storing the gun for HD, and chances are if you have any time at all you'll pull that hammer back if needed.

Still I recommend practicing with both, dry fire and/or a laser practice system like iTarget Pro help a lot and can be done in 10 minute blocks all the time.

For the CZ I highly recommend finding a decocker version, the basic 75 requires manually lowering the hammer on a live round if you want to use the DA, a process I greatly dislike myself, decockers are so much safer.

I am mostly a revolver guy but I do have some semiautomatic DA/SA guns.
With a DA revolver I almost never manually cock the hammer, I have SAs for that.
With a semi, I just shoot them from that DA start. Unless it's a SA like my 1911s.

I enjoy shooting SA the most and am generally more accurate with SA. However, if I’m having difficulty maintaining consistency, nothing cleans me up like a session dedicated to shooting a DA revolver. The DA literally forces you to get all the fundamentals right to shoot it accurately. I like shooting my 625JM for that purpose the most.
When I go back to a 1911 or other SA pistol, it becomes exceptionally easy after my session with the DA revolver.

Scrod314 said:

I was looking at some pistols to us for mainly target shooting and home defense. One that I liked how it felt (CZ 75) was DA/SA. Any thoughts on what action I would want for target shooting? Probably going with .40 SW since I have a huge supply. Thank you.

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CZ 75's are not available in 40 S&W. Only the TSO is. And 40 S&W wouldn't be my first choice for bullseye shooting either.

I have a CZ Shadow 2 in DA/SA and another Shadow 2 in SAO. Both have excellent ~ 3lb. triggers with the SAO being the slightly lighter....but they're obviously 9mm.

If you're dead set on a 40, I'd recommend a Glock 35 competition model Gen4 and tune the trigger to your own liking.

I haven't used a DA/SA pistol in a while. When I did carry one I spent a lot of time dry firing & live firing using the DA trigger to become proficient with it. The only one I've had was an old Ruger P-series. There are some nicer guns out there. The straight back pull of the 1911 trigger is easier than a DA/SA. Learning to shoot a DA trigger well will make someone a better shooter though.

Learning to pull the trigger without moving the gun is the only thing that makes you a better shooter. Trigger types have little to do with it.
Neither does aiming.

I do not pull the trigger, I press the trigger. If you are going to use a DA/SA semiautomatic pistol learn how to use as intended. The same applies for DA revolvers. Thumb cocking is for individual's that can't shoot double action rapidly and accurately.

If possible I always cock the hammer on a DA revolver or DA/SA auto. My arthritis is not up to a 6 lb. trigger pull. Except for small CC guns I only have pistols that can be shot single action.

I prefer either striker fired pistols like the Glock or SA like the 1911, for all purposes. The main reason is I personally like consistency, meaning one trigger being the same whether it is my first shot out of the holster or the 15th. You don't get this in a transitional DA pistol. The most serious thing you may (hopefully not) need a pistol for is defense. It makes the most sense to me to practice heavily with that pistol, or one that is darn close to that pistol. I have an old "beater" Glock 17 with over 100K rounds through it. It has needed a few repairs over the years due to the intense wear and tear I have subjected it to. It is strictly a range/training pistol, and I rarely give it the good cleaning and maintenance that a defensive pistol should receive. But it rarely if ever gives me any problems (even filthy and firing whatever cruddy ammo I obtain) and it is "darn close" in every way to the other Glocks that I carry and otherwise have at the ready for defensive use- all of them in a high state of cleanliness, with the appropriate amount of lube, good magazines, and quality HP ammunition.

lysanderxiii said:

Home defense . . . I will assume "target practice" means training just in case the worst happens and having fun making small groups of holes in paper.

People disliked SA/DA pistols because they claimed they had trouble getting the first shot off accurately. I'll wager a major part of that was due to the fact that few actually practiced with the double action trigger. Load a magazine, rack, or drop, the slide and start shooting, the pistol shoots single action. Most folks that bothered to start in the standard carry configuration (holstered, hammer down, and safety off) still only shot one round out of fifteen in double action.

And, they blamed the pistol.

I like DA/SA pistols, but you have to practice with double action and the single action modes to be proficient.

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Everything you stated is correct. For much of my career in the military, DA pistols (M9) were the standard. As an instructor, a lot of time and ammunition was expended teaching our students to properly use the DA feature at the presentation, followed by the transition in SA after the first shot, through whichever engagement that we were drilling. Also, the matter of decocking at the end of the engagement and re-holstering (also very important). When our pistols were replaced by striker fired pistols (Glocks) the need to drill in these steps and the resources required to do this disappeared, in the same way that the need to know how to speed load a revolver disappeared whenever they became obsolete most places. Besides being able to streamline our training by eliminating the DA pistol, we obtained a more robust, more functionally reliable, and lighter pistol than the one that we replaced, that hasn't seen the numerous issues of the older pistol. In the not too distant past, "big army" (and probably other branches of the US MIL, eventually) adopted a Sig striker fired pistol to address the issues that were common in the M9.

Patocazador said:

If possible I always cock the hammer on a DA revolver or DA/SA auto. My arthritis is not up to a 6 lb. trigger pull. Except for small CC guns I only have pistols that can be shot single action.

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I totally understand the reasoning, but that is not the best way to train, if you are using those handguns for defensive work. Thumbing a hammer means that your pistol is in your hand(s) but you have compromised your grip and wasted valuable time making it ready. At the risk of sounding like a parrot, people generally default to whatever they have trained when under stress.