cz owners, hipsters?

I got my first CZ for my 18th B-day present (a 52)

by age 24, I had two more (a 85B and a 50)

Were hipsters a thing in the mid to late 90's?

Got my first @ 66. Got a second a year later.

Fine pistols, both P-10c.

Conelrad

News to me

Who cares what people think, pay my bills you get a say.
Got my first CZ at 50, 22 years ago. Those that know me will tell you I'm far from being a hipster.

Its the whole "I liked 'X' before it was cool..." trope.
Hipster is a mostly dated term for a young Millennial from 10 years ago when we dared to have the audacity of being in our 20s and trying to figure out what our generation was all about

The CZ line of guns really is about the 4th or 5th top of mind brand of pistols when your brain starts to flip through the branding we are exposed to. They are fantastic shooters with a smaller market share in the US but are of undeniable quality.

My first exposure to CZs was when a friend of mine showed me one of the very early CZ-75s that he got from a friend of his. Back then you could find them for sale in West Germany and Canada; getting them from there into the U.S. was another story. The grip design felt great, reminding me of a Browning Hi-Power and I liked that it could be carried in Condition 1 with the safety on like a 1911. The reach to the trigger in DA mode was a bit much for my small hands but I really liked the gun overall.

Fast forward many years later and I finally found a gun shop that carried CZs (the sales clerk who did the ordering for the gun department liked them too), and I picked up my first one there, a P01. Got another one, a P07 a couple of years ago. Don't know if this makes me a hipster or not but I do love my CZs and look to get a couple more of them!

In the car world of Japanese sedans, you have Honda Civic/Accord and Toyota Corolla/Camry for the masses, but the "hipsters" are driving the Subaru Impreza/Legacy.

In the gun world of Euro traditional double action (TDA) autos, you had the Beretta 92 and the SIG P226, but the "hipster's" were shooting the CZ75.

Nothing wrong with a Honda or Toyota, or a Beretta or a SIG, but you know, everybody has one of those. Now a Subaru or a CZ will show the world I'm not like everybody else, well, other than the millions of folks that have Subaru's or CZ's.

I'm too old to be a hipster... my CZ97b is too cool of a gun to be carried by a hipster!

Just another stereotype about certain guns and the people who like them.

I have a vivid memory, of my late Father, calling fellow cops who carried Ruger revolvers "Young Hippies". This was in the late 70's or very early 80's. He was very definitely a S&W man.

I am 70 years old.
I have a P-07 and a Rami.
Hipster, I don't think so.
I own those CZs because they shoot great, are accurate, and I can, unquestionably, rely on them functioning, all the time, every time.
That's all I need.

For me, in the 90's, the CZ guns went from almost unobtainium to cool firearms from behind the Iron Curtain available to the masses for the first time. Sure, some CZ-75s had leaked out, and the occasional CZ-52 was in a museum somewhere, but they definitely were not common before '92-ish. This maybe part of the panache?

I got my CZ in 1982 and never had to brag about it. Other folks would see it and dash over to where I was to tell me how wonderful it was....then the wall came down and they became common....but still a great gun. For a bit I considered charging folks to handle it...seriously. Folks typically offered me $1600 for it and one guy bid up to $2400 with me saying over and over it was not for sale. I paid $350 in Germany.

It was a mystery gun and there fore magical AND the ONLY 9 sillymeter Col Jeff approved.

I bought it as the Army (which meant me) was changing over to 9x19 and I loathed the Barfetta 92. I was actually out for ( and did get) a P7 (remember it is 1982) and got to handle the elf gun of many shots and just bought it too (Nice being a bachlor officer with full ride live on the economy money). I carried the CZ in a 1914 1911holster when holster side arm was the uniform and the P7 concealed some where about me most of the time.

Occasionally once the CZ gawkers calmed down and wandered back to their stuff I would pull out my P7 PSP and they would dash back down to gawk some more....it was fun!

-kBob

I find CZ's interesting because of their long history of "doing their own thing" --- VZ-50/70 instead of Walter PP, VZ-52 instead of Tokarev, VZ-82 instead of Makarov, VZ-24 instead of Mauser K98, VZ-52 instead of SKS, VZ-58 instead of AK-47, etc, etc, etc. And they're pretty much all well-designed and do what they're supposed to do, not without a few quirks, of course. (Keep a spare firing pin on hand for the 52!!!)

If Beretta wouldn't have made their 92 series so friggin' yuge in the grip, I'd have never become a CZ "hipster".

BTW, I can't afford to be a hipster. The high maintenance hair cuts alone would eat into my ammo fund.

kBob said:

I got my CZ in 1982 and never had to brag about it. Other folks would see it and dash over to where I was to tell me how wonderful it was....then the wall came down and they became common....but still a great gun. For a bit I considered charging folks to handle it...seriously. Folks typically offered me $1600 for it and one guy bid up to $2400 with me saying over and over it was not for sale. I paid $350 in Germany.

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I remember those days, when they were generically called a "Czech 9".

My Rami just feels so good in my skinny jeans.

The majority of hipsters I know are liberal dimocrats. Therefore they are anti 2a.

Do CZ owners predominantly carry their CZ on their hip?

I almost bought a CZ52 in 1974. They were actually on sale at the Rod & Gun at Graff when it was "down town" in the tower. There was a plain military 7.62 T for about $85 and believe it or don't polished and blued ones redone by Frankonia and in 9x19mm unfortunately as I pawed over them the clerk casually mentioned that they were not importable and would have to be resold or abandoned when I PCS ed state side. Despite only making a bit over $400 a month take home (yes, in those days you pretty much had to be an E5 buck Sargent to make minimum wage, hey that good Army chow and that bunk with 18 square feet next to it counted too!) I actually had over $200 cash on me thanks to some newbees that thought poker had something to do with "luck" but the concept of buying a gun and abandoning it to the Army was horrific. Unlike the PPk which was in the same boat of "you can buy it but can't take it home" the CZ52 was not really concealable and not really prized by the NCOs that could take theirs home to Momma in Housing rather than having to lock them in the Arms room. I must have gone to the Rod & Gun three times during those weeks and the guy at the counter patiently let me play with the VZ52s while I tried to remember what WHB Smith had written about tearing them down and how they worked. Some folks still call me a Lair about the 9x19mm models. With those sleek lines , a polished blue finish and a then much more available chambering it would have been VERY appealing. I did ask Captain Smith our CO about them as the Rod and Gun was not rank seggregated and he sat there swilling beer with the rest of us and he said he would sign off on it if I wanted to take the risk (under E7 had to get POF form signed by Company/Battery/ Troop Commander and if living in in barracks deposit POF in arms room). But I was in a fowl mood, chicken that is.

oh this was the first time someone suggested I write a gun article. The Moose pointed out I could sell an article on a strange gun for about what it would cost to buy it and offered to do the pictures. Not having yet gone to college and been told I could right a decent story, if not spell or make proper word choices or sonstruction, I decided not to try.,

Young Guys!!!!!

Go ahead and try stuff. Most chances do not come around again and things do get more difficult as you age.

-kBob

In the military I carried on the belt in the afore mentioned M1914 standard GI holster in Garrison and about the community. I sometimes carried in the old 1911 rig (the old Cavalry swivel holster with leg belt) in the field or on alert as it was better for getting in and out of a Mutt with. I also had, and still do somewhere, a GI chest rig because I normally ditched my LBE when duty called for being front seat cargo in a OH58 Bell Jet Ranger. Also it allowed me to tease my pilot about his WWII issue S&W victory model that was still an air crew weapon in the early 1980's.

State side on Civie Street when I first got home I carried it a bit in a shoulder holster and on my belt in a bikini slide strong side, but it was just to big for Florida CWL carry when summer came except in the Floridian Marsupial method.... belly pouch.

These days I carry it in a nice gun rug from the safe to the car and from the car to the range and same all back in all honesty. My shoot me first pouch currently has a .45 ACP in it and a lot less rounds.

-kBob

I'm a long ways and many years from being a hipster, but I have 2 CZs.
My first one is a VZOR 70, and a couple years back, I picked up a used P-09.
If the prices ever settle down, I'd like to get a P-10c and a P-07