Cz 52

[AJ Dual]

Got one, finally. I've wanted one for a long time. A local dealer had one in the case for $145, I figgured with extra for shipping, and the wrath of my wife if she found it on the porch, the extra price over mail-order was worth it.

My impressions:

I thought the bore was very dark but with crisp rifling, but it cleaned up great, nice and shiny. It was just powder crud.

I was surprised how heavy and large it was. For some reason I allways thought CZ 52's were smaller.

Takedown is easy, almost like a Glock, and the roller-locked action is easy to figure out. My guess is that the lip of the magazine floorplate is the intended tool to pull the roller locking wedge forward? Worked well for me.

It came with the obligatory extra mag, the flap holster, and the cleaning rod.

The parkerized finish is rather worn and semi-thin looking, but all over the gun, not just on the edges, so maybe it had allways been thaty way?

This is my first pistol with a Euro style butt heel magazine release. I have no idea how a Czech officer was expected to reload under stress! But, I suppose they were used to it.

That's about it. Just thought I'd share.

Andrew

[Sesh]

Andrew,
Your guess is correct about the mag floorplate. One of my two CZ52s came with a cheap photocopied manual and it shows the mag being used for just that purpose.

Go here for owner's manual and parts info...
http://www.makarov.com/cz52/

[AJ Dual]

Thanks, I downloaded that PDF.

I looked at the Makarov.com CZ parts, that slide release looks handy. The internal one is kind of a pain. Especially when you'd like to lock it back without the mag in it, like at the range when they call cease fire and clear, etc.

I really shouldn't bother though, I'd rather keep it original. I have modern pistols if I want ergonomics. I keep trying to learn from what I did to my sweet 1952 Russian SKS way back. I'm trying to focus on C&R collecting, not buying C&R's to turn them into cheap versions of modern guns.

My 8mm Turk project is enough.

Although I think I'll have to play with the .223 Timbs in my 52 at least once.

Andrew

[Sesh]

I agree. I want the guns to look as they did when in service. I may try to do something about the heavy trigger-pull on one of them and leave the other fully original.

Hey I thought your username looked familiar and then I saw the West Allis. Didn't I talk to you about the local gun shops on the FAL forums a while ago?

[AJ Dual]

You probably did. I didn't even notice your location tab!

Who were we talking about, Shooters, Badger, or Fletcher? Was I bitching about the snotty older guy at Shooters and the $800 CTME?

BTW, been watching the deals at Dunhams lately?

I just picked up one of the Romainian .22 trainers on thier Thanksgiving day after sale for $49 at the HY100 West Allis store. It was crowded as hell in there. There were five people in line for the .22's when I got there. Mine's in nice condition, minor stock dings, stamped 1982! I wonder if it's actually C&R?

Some of thier C&R stuff is a rip off, but decent on sale, and prices are as good as mail-order C&R when you add the shipping and hand-pick fees from SOG, AIM and whatnot. And you can at least take your pick.

I also got a beautiful FR-8 there, almost 100% except for a stock repair. Had a complete brand-new unsharpened bayonette, and cleaning kit in the tube. THe only finish wear is on the bolt and I've done it.

I've been watching thier MAS 49/56's, they were $350, now $299, and I'm waiting for about $250 before I'll bite. I figure that's SOG's price, plus shipping and a hand-pick fee to match my in-person inspection.

While shopping at a store sometimes defeats the purpose of being a cruffler, you don't have to worry about UPS leaving a gun where your wife will see it first. :)

Andrew

[Sesh]

Yeah, it was the cranky old guy at Shooter's.

My buddy is a C&R and bought one of the Romanian .22s somewhere on the internet with his C&R license.

As fas Dunham's goes I picked up a M91 there. I didn't have head space gauges but I shelled out the $40 for the great czarist crest on the receiver. After trying like six different bolts and bolt heads in various combinations, I still can close on the no-go too far for my comfort. I still may clean it up just for a display piece. The same buddy brought head space gauges and a bore light to Dunhams and made the sales guy haul out something like ten M91s and went through them until he found one he liked. For $40 and some clean-up work he has a real nice M91 now. Those sales people have no idea what they are selling. If you know what you are looking for, and take the time to dig, you can get some good deals.

[Gearhead222]

Dear Sirs-I have had my CZ-52 for awhile and done some work on her.They are fun guns,especially when you shoot the subgun ammo.I bought some MP-41 Hirtenburger Tokarev ammo awhile back when SG had some battle packs.Still,parts can be difficult to find,and they have a tendency to loosen.I have already staked and redrifted the trigger pivot pin and tightened and restaked the hammer axis pin nut.Also had some oversize trigger pivot pins made by Fragger over at the SKS board.The Dealer's Warehouse still has some parts,as does Makarov.com.But some of the critical parts,like the pivot pins, are getting rare,since the armorer's kits have been pretty well picked through.The Falco holsters that Carl Bloss sells at Makarov.com are sweet!Still,I would buy another Makarov if I had to do it over again.The trigger pull can be improved with one of Makarov.coms firing pin kits,but they overide the firing pin safety.You do not want to take the sideplate off of one of these to drift the trigger pivot pin all the way through.Trust me!Rube Goldberg could not have designed a more complex trigger!My .02 worth:)-Gearhead.

[AJ Dual]

Thanks Gearhead, I'll keep that in mind. But it works out well as I intend it as more of a keeper than a shooter though. I stick to my Glocks and HK for "high milage".

Sesh, how off is the headspace on your Mosin? I thought that it wasn't as critical due to the cartridge head spacing on the rim, rather than the neck.

I suppose it's not a disaster since you can allways use it for parts, or as a wall hanger for what Mosins are going for right now. When somethings wrong to the point of being a show stopper, you just buy another.

Or, if you reload, just size the neck, and don't size the length, leaving the length where it fire-formed in that rifle's chamber. Mark or separate out those cases for that particular rifle. From what I understand, people who shoot Brit .303 do that, just to save a step when reloading.

[Gearhead222]

Dear Fellow Members-Gonna stick my nose in here on the headspace issue.Have you tried firing it from a tire or had your gunsmith fire it?Headspace guages are one form of metrology,but so are case deformations or lack thereof.The basic 1891 action is somewhat crude but very strong.That plus the fact that the gun headspaces on the cartridge rim makes for loose tolerances.During the Winter War,the Finns swapped out their bolts with the Russian bolts many times because the Russian tolerances were looser and made for a less jamming action in the arctic weather there.I have ALL of my guns test fired by my local gunsmith,who determines by case deformation weather the gun is shootable or not.I'm not an expert,but have a 1915 Tula barreled action that I mated with a 1916 Ses. that shoots 3-4" at 300 feet.Also have an 1896 Ses. that shoots 1 foot groups!:)A 1943 VKT M-39,2 Izhevsk M91-30's,a '52 Radom and '48 Izhevsk M-44's round out the collection of Mosin-Nagants.Hope this dollars worth helps:)-Gearhead

[Sesh]

Thanks for sticking your nose in Gearhead. The range I'm a member at would take a pretty dim view of firing from a tire and I only know one gunsmith in my area and he gets real uptight if you ask him to work on anything out of the ordinary. Hey Andrew, do you know any gunsmiths nearby that would do this?

Between my friend and I we own about 9 Mosins plus parts. We tried swapping all the bolts and bolt heads in every combination we could. The best we could get was that the bolt handle came close to closing all the way but not quite. I didn't think to measure the distance. I was tempted to shoot it anyway but caution got the best of me. All my mosins and the finn have always properly checked out on the guages so I haven't faced this problem before.

Thanks for the advice guys.

Sesh

[neilwest]

1. Can someone post a Picture of the CZ 52 so I can see why I want one.

[AJ Dual]

Sorry Sesh, I don't know of any gunsmiths ofhand, since I've never needed the services of one. (Not that I'm a gunsmith, just that I have no broken guns.) The first I'll probably use will be my hoped-for krinkov build.

But if you have that many Mosins that seem to be out of spec, I think there might be something else at work here. Now if I understand correctly, I would just go with the bolt that closes the least, assuming you can get your other combinations to headspace OK thereafter, and not worry further. Rimmed rounds are different than shoulder headspacing rounds and are much more forgiving, although they obviously have thier limits too.

What your looking for with headspce is two things: if the cartridge case can jump, known as "slapback", and strike the bolt face where an overly long chamber, especially when measured from the shoulder. The second is the case has too much space to expand and can separate causing a gas/powder burn leak.

When you're dealing with a rimmed round, there is much less opportunity for slapback, and the case is only going to flow forward as long as the excess headspace is within reason. The worst that often happens is if you reload and keep full-length resizing, brass life is reduced greatly. But if you only neck size and keep one set of brass with one rifle, there is now no headspace problem at all with that particular combination of brass and rifle.

It's like trying to kick in a door, and in the analogy the bolt face is the door, and the lugs the lock. If you stand back a foot and kick the door, it's much easier to break the lock than if you try to break the lock by only pressing harder with your foot already placed against the door.

I would be more likely to take Gearheads advice and pull some bullets from your choice 7.62x54R rounds, measure the case length with an outside caliper micrometer, then measure case length of some sample fired rounds, and get some advice on the difference. You'd also want to take into account any physical signs in the case, like split or bulged necks, flattened shoulders, backed out primers, or primers flowing into the firing pin channel.

I'm not saying that just because it's a rimmed chamber rifle it's perfectly safe, but large headspace isn't allways reason to throw out the baby with the bath water on a rimmed gun.

My $.02

As to why anybody'd want a CZ 52? It's a cool collectable, ammo, 7.62x25, is pretty common in bulk, and it's actually a rather potent handgun. Pricing around $125 plus shipping from the major distributors to a cruffler is a plus.

http://www.gunsnammo.com/index_files/crpistol_files/Cz-52.jpg

Although some of my reasoning is that with a .223 sabot in the .30 cal (7.62) round AKA .223 Timbs, I can give the big 'ol finger to those who won't let the FN 5.7mm or the .224 BOZ to play with.

http://www.owlnet.com/quality/223%20Timbs.htm

Here are some .223 sabots in .30-30 and in .30-'06 so you have the general idea:
http://www.ammobank.com/images/rem/r30069.JPG

[Sesh]

Wow Andrew,
thanks for the in depth reply. Just to clarify, I don't have "that many Mosins that seem to be out of spec". It's only the M91. Everything else has always headspaced just fine. Thanks for the advice on rimmed rounds. When I get the time I'll have to find a place to fire this from a tire or sandbags or whatever and then get out the caliper.

Neilwest,
in addition to the reasons given so far for owning a CZ-52... it impresses (scares) people at the range. Mine also throws brass with alot of force and I can bounce them off the ceiling and nail my buddy next to me.

Ooh and a Krinkov build, let me know how that turns out Andrew. I've done several FALs and an AR-15 but I'm new to the AK scene.

[AJ Dual]

Sorry, I wasn't clear, looking back I meant that that many bolts were still out of spec with that ONE mosin.

My brain allways seems to run ahead of my fingers.