CZ Czechmate now in the US
I am such a CZ fanboy. Love these guns. Finally reaching our shores is the CZ Czechmate. A great addition to factory produced open guns. The comp look well mated to the slide and while the price seems high at first glance, it comes with a lot. A big stick, 3 other mags, two extra barrels, slidestops, red dot sight, etc. Awesome package.
This would be awesome for USPSA open division. While not up to the 30 rnd mags of the STI, it would still be able to compete very well for most shooters.
What an awesome looking gun. But like I said. I am a CZ fan.
Here are couple of photos from Matt at CZ-USA.
CZ says the Czechmate comes with :
ambi slide racker
c-more slide ride sight 6moa dot
2 spare serial matching threaded barrels
1 26 round magazine
3 20 round magazines
mag loader
aluminum grips
aluminum magwell
comp hammer
4 port comp
barrel nut with removable front sight
rear fixed sight
2 slide stops with finger groove
4 without finger grooves
czechmate frame is different than TS grip is undercut, frame has notch for c-more mount,
cleaning rod
cleaning brush
If interested give CZ a call at 1-800-955-4486 ext 321
more info you can follow the thread at CZforum
My fantasy for the day? CZ calls me up and says “Hey, you want to take one for a spin?” haha. Hey it’s Friday.
Shooting
Well Saturday afternoon I am out sweatin’ in the garage helping my wife clean up the mess we have when a friend from my early shooting days calls up. Says he is coming down with buddy and thinking of shooting the match, I should come along. Tell him I can’t cause I am short on gear, he says “taken care of”. Finish off the garage, which I must say is a big improvement from what it was, and get what I got ready for the match.
Meet up Sunday morning, saying my hellos, and there is my buddy. Big smile, big handshake. We chat it up a bit and he hands me a gun ( an old Don Fisher custom 1911 ), mags and ammo; says we are signed up and ready to go.
Awesome day. A lot of laughs at our bad shooting, watching him learn how to use a palm (stagescore) for scoring was too funny. Getting a chance to compete again after my time away was great. It came back to me pretty well. My shooting was good, I shot only 5 Ds for the six stages with no misses or penalties. My movement while not speedy was decent. No real missteps, hit all my reloads, two malfunctions which I will blame on my friend.
I ended up winning single stack division by about 12% and came in 8th overall at 72% of the limited and open division winners.
Pretty awesome day. I was hot, tired and sore from cleaning the day before. But it was great.
______________________
OK, been sitting here thinking about the day’s shooting and the feeling I had.
I remember walking through each of my plans. My friend would ask and we would go over the steps, the target order, the reloads. On my pre shoot routine, I can remember seating the mag and engaging the thumbsafety as this was different from shooting production division. I remember seeing the serrations on the front sight and the unusual glare on it. Later I noticed it was a ramped from sight. ahha. I do not remember the reloads. On reflection I only noticed two. One where the last round in the mag hadn’t fed properly and was hanging up under the extractor. The second where the round was slightly out of position when it entered the magwell preventing the mag from seating. So my awareness was in the moment as I remember seeing those and I still see the picture of them but the 15 or so other reloads I do not remember, or I remember them as effortless and so of no significance. I do not remember the feeling of recoil, but do remember seeing the sight lift; maybe it was the glare on the sight that made that memorable, I have a movie in my head of the sight lifting and resetting.
Nothing felt blazing fast, but nothing faltered either. I only won one stage in single stack, but had no misses for the day.
Anyway…
Shooting USPSA
Just for fun. A match video shot by GM shooter and photographer Dave Re of me way back in 2008 from the Double Tap Championship in Wichita Falls, Tx. If you get a chance to shoot the match, DO. It is a great match with a lot of challenging shooting and great competition. Robert Porter keeps improving this match every year and it is never a disappointment.
USPSA ( United State Practical Shooting Association ) shooting is a lot of fun. How can running and playing with guns not be. I have been doing this since the late 1980s, shooting open, limited, limit 10, production and single stack divisions. I gave revolver a try once, but I guess that is not really fair. I have been shooting production division lately, which has limits on the amount of customization you can do to the gun.
I have been shooting a CZ for the past few years. For this match it was the tricked out SP01 with an awesome trigger. The gun ran great for this match and I really have not had any problems with platform. I have tried a Beretta Elite, Glock 34, Smith M&P and I keep coming back to the CZ.
If you want some fun and get better at your gun handling skills, find a local club and try out USPSA shooting. You’ll be hooked.
Shooting a CZ
I have been shooting a CZ pistol in USPSA production for a few years now. The small grip fits my hand extremely well and the guns point perfectly. With some love the triggers are fantastic. A 5# double action with a smooth light stroke is attainable as is a 2# single action. If you don’t know how to do this yourself Angus Hobdell or Matt Mink are two really great guys that can do this for you.
I usually do some reliability work which entails re-profiling the slidestop, beveling the breechface, polishing the middle rail on the slide’s underside and polishing the extractor.
There is a pretty good sight selection available for CZs. Plain black front, fiber optic front, high visibility fixed rear and adjustables. My favorite is a plain black serrated sight. I take the plain black and thin it to .100, then serrate it with a 25lpi file. This is pretty coarse, but really sets the front sight off from the finer serrations of the rear sight. For a rear sight, I like the CZcustom tactical rear sight.
Grips for the CZ are plentiful. CZcustom, Hogue, Denis Marschal and Omega are a few of the choices. Again my favorite is from CZcustom. The flat aluminum grips are the best. No other choices for me. These are flat, and allow my hand to get a tight, high grip on the gun. Perfection.
