Quickie range report CZ-52

Bummer. I've seen good CZ52s, and I've seen bad ones. More good than bad. You're just not having luck, between this and your PA-63 grips.

(Get a Polish Tok! Your luck has to change!)

I picked up a CZ-52 back in March. First time I took it to the range, two pins on the reciever (the large one through the slide lock, and the smaller one through the trigger) came out, and the pistol pretty much came apart in my hand. Several other CZ-52 owners told me that they'd had similar problems. I took it back to where I bought it, and the gunsmith there replaced them with visibly larger pins. I haven't had any problems with the extractor pin, but if you do replace that one, you might wanna consider replacing the others, as well.
-erem

How many dot's do you have on the slide?

Anyway, with the pins try stakeing them or try roll pins or oversized ones. I never had a problem with My 52.

Also the Tok's aren't as strong for that round and will break over time, the 9mm's are ok. Bren

Sounds like you could have a broken firing pin too.

I've had the same luck with the 70 rnd boxes (think its Yugo).
About 10 duds per lot. Definitely stay away from it, try S&B when you get it fixed, its been 100% reliable for me.

There's a lot of surplus 7.62x25 ammo out there with incredibly hard primers. The stuff that came on 10-rnd stripper clips always hung for a second in my CZ-52. S&B and most other surplus ran very well. I'd blame it on the ammo until you have an opportunity to try it with stuff you know is good.

If the pin hasn't broke yet, it will.
The 52 is an interesting enough gun to keep around. It's worth upgrading, it really is.
I'd get the aftermarket "Match" firing pin, maybe a stronger spring for the hammer, and make some custom grips for it. Blued? Interesting. Post some pics of it if you can. I'd like to see that. I've never seen one blued.

Mine was a mat blued model, someone along the line blued batches of them instead of the park finish, thats why I want to know haow many dots, mine had three which ment it was refurbished/arsonalled 3 times.

The FP's can break but you can buy stonger ones.

The decocker can fail and these guns can go off when they wear down.

The surpluss ammo is corrosive so use some ammonia and water 4-1 right after shooting it or use Butches bore shine.

There is one brand of commercial KABOOM ammo out there and you know by split cases, I think it was marked 52 or52 with a star. Look at the mak sight, the info is on there.

The aftermarket rollers were soft but I think they fixed that.

CDNN sold wood grips real cheap and they have some sharp checkering but look better.

Hope this helps. Bren

Pictures!

..please?

It works now. Wheres the background?
John's right about pins. My original FP has fired well over 2K rounds and is still going strong. The trick is to not dry fire.
Seems I dont even need the stainless steel replacement I bought.
If it aint broke, why fix it?

All i get is a red X.Maybe it would post as an attachment you click to open?

Email or PM me with the photo and I'll post it for ya!

I got em this time!
I LOVE 52's.In fact im picking up my third today!!!

Loctite on the extractor pin ain't a bad idea...

My extractor pin started easing itself out of it's hole after a couple magazines of shooting. Couple drops of red Loctite and it's stayed in place ever since.

I haven't broken my firing pin yet, just over 1000 rounds of surplus ammo and my own handloads using Starline brass. I don't dry fire the gun, and I did buy a spare replacement firing pin, just in case.

I don't use the decocker function of the safety, mine doesn't completely stop the firing pin when it drops the hammer, which to me is a bad idea when you're trying to make the weapon more safe...

What I did do was ditch the bakelite grips in favor of some walnut Hogues:

Guns like the CZ-52 with steep grip angles should be fired with ONE HAND. Try it!

I bought my CZ-52 in '95. It was my first handgun. It's probably eaten 2000 rounds or more. It always worked, except for failing to go into battery on some of those cheeseball surplus rounds with the split necks.

Plenty accurate. I shoot it at 100 yards and can harrass 2-litres with it. The dinky sights actually help for that.

It shoots a bit low, but dead on center.

The pins stay put, but the sideplate nut works loose sometimes. (A sideplate? On an autopistol?)

Trigger pull's great. Decocker still works fine. (I had it for a year before I even KNEW it de-cocked.)

The roller recesses in the slide are SLIGHTLY peened. They weren't when I got the gun, but got that way after a couple hundred rounds, and then stopped.

I think I need a new recoil spring. Mine's a bit kinked, (It came that way.) and it acts a little sluggish sometimes.

When I got the gun, all it had were some holster marks in the green finish. The slide was un-peened, the feed ramp handn't a mark on it, (Now it has a nice copper racing stripe.) it was completely clean inside, even the slide-contact points on the frame were still gray. It came in a box marked "very good plus", for $140.

I started feeding it Norinco Yellow-box 7.62 Tokarev ammo for $6/60. That's the Stuff that Klintoon banned importation of because it goes through body armor. Copper-washed steel case, copper-plated steel jacket, it's a little inconsistent as the loudness/flash varies some, but the gun always liked it and never choked.

It always drew inquiries at the range, as it has an impressive blast and 1-foot diameter fireballs. At the indoor range, the bullets would splash into sparks on the bullet trap. It's the only gun I've seen do that. No-one knew what it was, but they're a little better understood now. I guess I got on the bandwagon early. When I got arrested (I'm sorry, "detained".) on suspicion of being suspicious with my 52 in the trunk of the car, (Picked up 2 days earlier after the Kaliforny 10 days on ice. Grrr.) the Sheriff had no clue what it was, and was mighty suspicious of it's lack of a maker's logo. "CZ", even my mangled pronunciation of "Ceska Zbrojovka" and "It's a surplus Soviet military gun" didn't clear things up, despite the presence of the original sales receipt in the case with it.

I tried to research the gun's history at the local library trying to locate ballistic specifications, but information was very scarce. That's fairly typical of guns from behind the iron Curtain. I found one picture of it in one book that said only that it was Czechoslovakian military issue, and noted the caliber's origin from 7.63 Mauser.

The only other reference I found was a listing in The Standard Catalog of Firearms from 1985, which listed the value of a "very good to excellent" condition gun at $1500! I guess before the big supply arrived, seeing these guns outside of the Soviet Union was really rare! That made me VERY happy about my purchase, as any gun valued THAT highly could not have been any sort of substandard crap despite it's slightly rough exterior. The fact that it had passed the rigorous testing that all military guns receive that I'd just been reading about while learning about my new hobby (Guns in general. This was gun #4.) also helped confirm the 52's outstanding good-deal value.

I got it for ten cents on the dollar. There's got to be a group of collectors somplace who are just STEAMED that their "difficult to obtain, rarely seen, unusual-design Eastern Bloc Military pistol" is now available for basically free. The lack of an import stamp is just not going to cover it. I like reading about other folks "discovering" these guns for the first time and finding out what I did 8 years ago. I'm still surprised more people haven't jumped at the chance to buy these guns that used to sell handily for ten times their current price.

I bought it because I liked the look of it. I've always wanted a PPK a la James Bond, but they were going for about a grand. The 52 looked like a PPK on steroids, and the price was amazing. Now I know a LOT more about all sorts of guns, but I still don't have a PPK. (I bought a PA-63 instead. It fills the niche.) I found out about the unique action, the high-intensity cartridge, the amazingly flat thinness for a full-size service gun, the slick no-sharp-corners/edges feel of the gun that lets it slide into tight pockets like it was oiled and a lot smaller, and the surprising durability and accuracy through all the ammo I could afford until the supply dried up because of Klintoon's anti-gun politics.

This is the gun that I initialy learned to shoot a handgun with, although my proficeincy should be credited to my Colt .22 Auto by virtue of round-count. Trigger control, sight alignment, and grip rigidity practiced through a couple thousand rounds of ".30 Czech Magnum" at 100 yards made for a fun learning curve. I'll never sell it. I need another one. I need a couple, actually, for projects. Got some dangerous plans involving 9mm bullets, .223 brass, and hard chrome.

But first I need a firing pin. Mine FINALLY broke!