Nature Boy said:
It looks a lot like a CZ75D
what’s the history on this model? I know nothing about it.
I know your memory has been jogged, already, but...
CZ made Colt Z40 in the Czech Republic. Nothing was made by Colt. It was apparently intended for the U.S. LEO market. (I've never heard whether CZ was going to ALSO offer the CZ-40B, or whether that was just a natural offshoot of Colt dropping out of the venture.)
Colt was going through all kinds of management and production problems at the time and made a lot of screwy decisions. By the time that Colt backed out of the deal with CZ,CZ had already produced about 800 of the Colts, and all but maybe a handful were DAO.
You'll find the the COLT Z40 listed in the Fjestad Blue Book. Fjestand said 750-800 were made but few made it to the U.S. I'd assume that some did, as it was intended to be a police handgun, and the Europe has never been big on the 40 S&W round except, maybe, for IPSC competition. The U.S. is probably the best market for the Z40.
I've only seen one Colt Z-40 at a gun show, and that dealer wanted more than twice the 40B price. Some consider it a collector gun (i.e., it IS a rare Colt), but I think it's just a rarer CZ-40B in DAO and not really worth the premium because of a questionable Colt marketing decision). I don't remember whether it had a blued finish or the CZ polycoat. The Blue Book says blued.
The Colt Z40 is supposed to have a really nice DAO trigger. (There was also supposedly a handful of DA/SA Z40s made with safeties..)The internal components of the 40B were pure CZ-75B, but the grip frame was similar to the 1911. It fit the hand just like a 75B, so the grip was well done
As noted by WVsig, CZ had a knack for building components in large numbers and assembling them into complete guns later. Because they sometimes had large supplies of different components, and were known to throw together unusual components (perhaps for test marketing), that allowed CZ to create unusual models. I've always considered the 40P a "Frankengun."
Production of the 40B started and stopped in 2002, and because of that, CZ had a "compact" .40; the 40P filled that gap and there was still a lot of interest in .40 S&W in the U.S. Creating the 40P may have been a marketing decision or maybe just an an effort to reduce a large inventory of parts. According to the Fjestad Blue Bo imported about 1,500 40Ps from 2004 thru 2006. CZ did a second (and final) production run of the CZ-40B in 2007.
The 40P sold in the $300 range, but so did the earlier CZ 40B. (I think I paid $275 for my 40B, plus shipping on the 'net.) The prices have continued to slowly increase, due to all of the market pressures on the international markets and currencies during that period . The price shown in the Blue Book for the Colt Z40 is $800 NIB and $775 in 98%.
- While the 40B slide will mount on the P-01 frame, the 40B slide will not function on that standard P-01 frame. The 40P frame is slightly different than the standard P-01 frame, internally. (I don't think the P-01 slide works on the 40P frame, either.)
- Unless someone has found a work-around, the Kadet Kit, a .22 top end designed for the various models CZ-75/85 models, won't work on the the 40P or 40B frames
- The Fjestad Blue Book says the 40P has a polymer frame, but everyone I've ever seen or heard of used modified P-01 frames, which were forged aluminum. (That's an unusual error for Fjestad.)
I had one of the original 40Bs and it was a good gun, but I found that I was NOT all that enthused with the.40 S&W round at the time, and eventually traded the 40B away. I wish I had kept it. I've had a bunch of CZs over the years, and still have several, but the 40B was the the only CZ I've regretted trading or selling. I'm now comfortable with the .40 round, and have a number of .40 S&W handguns -- but none of them are CZs. I'll eventually find another 40B. I do have a FNS-40 and ir reminds me a lot of the 40B in how it fits the hand and shoots, but it's striker (not hammer) fired.