Back in 1976, a new handgun was introduced to the marketplace – all over the world, with the exception of the United States. It wasn’t allowed to be imported directly for some reason – I’m sure it was all about politics. The CZ-75 was really something to brag about, and I really wanted one, for many years. Some folks found that they could secondarily import the CZ-75 from Canada. Unfortunately, they were paying upwards of $1,000 for those guns, and back then that was a huge sum of money.
The original 9mm CZ-75 was a full-sized combat/duty gun. The original CZ-75 was a double-action/single-action (DA/SA) design with a safety lever, so that it could be carried either hammer-down, or cocked ‘n locked.
The reviews written about the then-new “Wonder Nine” CZ-75 were off the charts. It was a gun that felt really good in the hand, and the trigger pull was amazing. One fairly new thing was that the slide rode inside the frame rails, rather than on the outside of the frame rails, like most semi-automatic handguns do. This actually made for a much more accurate gun – was true then, and is still true today.
Some makers in oher countries decided to copy the CZ-75 design. However, most didn’t do a very good job. I owned several of these lackluster clone imports and I didn’t find one that was totally reliable. And, I won’t keep a gun that isn’t 100% reliable. Part of the problem was, the tolerances weren’t held tight enough. Try as I might, I couldn’t gunsmith any of those CZ-75 clones to work — and I’m a fair hand at working on firearms. Today, other CZ-75 clones are being made that are much better guns, and have proven to be reliable.Continue reading“CZ-75D Compact, by Pat Cascio”
