This is my opinion of people's opinions who are too critical of the CZ52:
-The gun is built like a tank and I don't care what anyone says about the chamber walls. I'll get into this later on in the post.
-My two CZs are tight as far as this gun novice can tell, but mine are in great shape for the most part.
-I have no problem with the trigger pull, but that could be because mine are in pretty good shape, or maybe because I'm not a weak wuss. I can, and have fired a few hundred rounds in a session and it is not my finger that hurts the most. Maybe I'm just used to it.
-The only times I have ever had problems firing them was when I used the 9mm drop in barrel and when I used some ancient surplus ammo. Using S&B ammo in the 7.62x25 I have never, ever had a problem with feed or ejection.
Now the problems people discussed.
-The chamer walls crap is bogus. The Czheck military ammo was loaded to fire over 1,600 feet per second and they took that abuse for years. The S&B ammo shoots at around 1,500 FPS and some of that Romanian and Russian surplus ammo I have heard only shoots at around 1,200-1,300 FPS so the TT has not seen nearly as powerful ammo to be truly compared as far as ruggedness goes.
-The tolerances may be partly due to some crappily made examples, but since they fired some powerful ammo in them for decades, many issued ones are going to loosen up I would think.
-The few kabooms I have heard about were most likely due not to slightly hot loads, but some VERY hot loads such as sub machine gun ammo getting mixed up with some surplus ammo. Also there has been some very suspect combloc ammo that has caused kabooms and failures that may have been loaded hot due to lack of quality control, or maybe the way the chemicals reacted the pressure of the burning powder was many times normal.
-"complex mechanism"?????? I am no gunsmith, but it seems straightforward to me and only as complex as a Browning locking system in a 1911.
-I have never heard of a good condition magazine coming apart in the middle of shooting, and I have never had that problem with any of mine, even the ones in poor condition. Hell, I can't even imagine how one could come apart in the well.
-The people who claim that most criminals, muggers or robbers don't wear armor and so there is no real need for such a powerful round, well they don't live in the Washington DC area. Sure it may be a true statement to say most criminals don't wear bulletproof armor, but there are many cases in the area paper involving a police shooting, an armed robbery/hostage situation, invasion and even muggings wear the criminal was wearing, or suspected of wearing body armor.
There are some things I do agree with however.
-Of my two guns, one will slightly dimple a primer when using the decocking lever, but it does not fire an primed, empty case. Enough to make me worry though and not use it on that gun.
-The grip is too thin for my big hand which lead to some discomfort. Some Hogue slip-on grips helped a lot.
-No matter how practiced one might be with loading the magazine, it is still awkward enough to be difficult to load in a stressful situation compared to something like an 1911A1.
-Over penetration may be a problem, but this hooey about if you reload your own softpoints or use special soft point ammo would set you up for a lawyer claiming you intended to kill is just an overreaction IMO. I would worry more about hitting someone with an overpenetration using any round much more than I would worry about the easily countrered and probably rare lawyer making such a ridiculous claim.....I say easily countered because both sides get to speak in a trial and using "special ammo" or homemade ammo utilizing soft point ammo is for public safety purposes and all pointing out that the special ammo prevents over-penetration was intended to save innocent lives. If someone's lawyer didn't bring that up, then it wouldn't matter what bullets were used because the person is screwed with a lawyer like that.
-The gun is a little too large and big I suspect for CC, but if I was in an open carry state and I wore a gun, I would be perfectly fine wearing one.
-The firing pin does break easily they say, but there are aftermarket makes and some designes that totally prevents this.
-With my one CZ I would carry cocked with the safety on, but I would not be completely comfortable. The big problem with carrying with the hammer down is that, on my pistols and my hand at least, the hammer is a bitch to cock with just the thumb.
Back to the topic. I would love to see the test results of the round in ballistic gellatin. I also would like to see a gellatin test with a human skull under a kevlar helmet.
The Box of Truth guys shot some pistol rounds at some Kevlar helmets and the only one to penetrate was the 7.62x25 round and it blew up the milk jug filled with water that was underneath, but that may not mean it still had enough power to penetrate the skull after going through the helmet.