I took a friend out today, a die-hard large frame guy and had him shoot my Bulgarian Mak. He'd never fired a 9x18 and had his reservations.
200 rounds later chasing 2-liter pop bottles all over the side of a hill at 50' or so he handed it to me and said "I guess I should take this home and clean it for you". He asked how to strip it and 3 seconds later I handed him the pieces..he smiled and said "I want one".
Then I showed him the Uncle Mikes IWB holster and told him to Dremmel off the lanyard loop and look at this nice little CC set-up for around $230 and he said again "I want one". Then I told him the prices for ammo and the fact that those were around the 5000th rounds through it that I could vouch for and he said "You wanna sell it?".
I'll tell you, I love my CZ82, but for CC and pure ease of operation, the Mak wins. If your gonna carry outside the waist band, the CZ wins hands down, but inside the waist band, given the weight difference and slimmer handle, the Mak takes it.
One last thing...I let him fire a clip of Silver Bear HP and we went and found the bullets (3 of them). Expansion was pretty good for cheap ammo and would definitely do more damage than FMJ in a "soft" target. (I've fired over 250 rounds of Silver Bear HP through it and not a single failure of any kind).
The Mak isn't as reliable as a wheel gun obviously, but I can't think of another autoloader that I'd put in front of it in regard to reliability.
200 rounds later chasing 2-liter pop bottles all over the side of a hill at 50' or so he handed it to me and said "I guess I should take this home and clean it for you". He asked how to strip it and 3 seconds later I handed him the pieces..he smiled and said "I want one".
Then I showed him the Uncle Mikes IWB holster and told him to Dremmel off the lanyard loop and look at this nice little CC set-up for around $230 and he said again "I want one". Then I told him the prices for ammo and the fact that those were around the 5000th rounds through it that I could vouch for and he said "You wanna sell it?".
I'll tell you, I love my CZ82, but for CC and pure ease of operation, the Mak wins. If your gonna carry outside the waist band, the CZ wins hands down, but inside the waist band, given the weight difference and slimmer handle, the Mak takes it.
One last thing...I let him fire a clip of Silver Bear HP and we went and found the bullets (3 of them). Expansion was pretty good for cheap ammo and would definitely do more damage than FMJ in a "soft" target. (I've fired over 250 rounds of Silver Bear HP through it and not a single failure of any kind).
The Mak isn't as reliable as a wheel gun obviously, but I can't think of another autoloader that I'd put in front of it in regard to reliability.
