CZ52 failure to return to battery?

[LoneCoon]

I have a CZ52 that I've worked on as a project gun for a while now, getting pieces and parts whenever I remembered or had a few extra bucks. I replaced the grips, the firing pin and spring, the recoil spring (16.5lb), and the rollers.

The problem I've been having is that the gun fails to return to battery. It will fire four or three rounds, then fail to fully return. all that's require to bring it back to firing order is to push the slide forward with my thumb.

My guess is either the recoil spring is to heavy for the ammo (Chechnya surplus) or the magazine springs are weak and fail to properly chamber the ammo.

Any thoughts or ways to test for failure?

 

[wnycollector]

I had the same problem with my tok...it turned out to be a bad mag spring!

 

[Funderb]

the spring helps it return to battery. Id look at the mag.

 

[jjohnson]

Mag

Well, start the process of elimination.

The new spring should be okay - look at the mags first. If you don't have more than one mag, get one. Mark each mag. I use a scribe to number mags but you can use surgical tape on the bottom and put numbers on that, or whatever method you like. Keep track of failures and which mag... if the failure rate is 'even,' it's NOT the mags....

I assume you kept your old parts? Easy enough to do the same thing with those. Put the old recoil spring back in.... keep track... and so on.

I'd do the mags first, since they're the likely culprit, but I'd check ammo the same way, more than one brand (S&B and milsurp). I always mark mags anyway, since many of them will need a new spring one day. It's annoying to take half a dozen mags to the range and discover "Oh, now which one was it that I wanted to cull out... :banghead:"

 

[chris in va]

Make sure the ammo isn't slightly too large. I bought some surplus stuff for my 52 and it did the same thing you describe...partial chamberings.

Turns out about one in ten rounds were considerably larger in diameter. Mic that ammo!