CZ P-07 begins beautiful relationship; EAA Witness-P .45 stumbles

One outa two is superlative if you're at the plate in baseball swinging a bat. It's the only sport where you can fail three times out of 10 and be a sure shot for the Hall of Fame, assuming you can play average defense and not make your teammates lose the game.

But as King James would say, one of two kinda sucketh with pistol purchases. First the good news.

My new CZ P-07 9mm is a great little pistol (at right in top photo), a 3.7"-barrel polymer-frame compact with 16 rounds in the mag and best of all, it's a great shooter. I put 100+ rounds through her today without a bobble, flub or error of any type. Her sights are pretty much right on the money at 50 feet, where I was shooting from at the range today. She's batting 1000 so far.

I also tested a couple of new magazines for my Sig P229 SAS Gen2 .357 Sig (at left in the top photo), which of course were flawless. They're factory mags, but as Reagan said, trust but verify. Sixteen of the holes in and around the head of the full-size Blueman target (second photo) are from the CZ P-07 and the other 12 are from the Sig P229. The big majority of the holes in center mass are from the P-07 with one magazine of 12 from the P229 in the same area. So that's really two out of three, a good launch for the P-07 and continued excellence from my P229 and a pair of new mags.

Now the bad news. The holes in the Blueman's left arm are almost all from the new-to-me EAA Witness-P Compact .45 ACP for which I traded a full-size .45 ACP, a GKK-45 FEG Hungarian-made Browning Hi-Power clone. I'm not going to ship it back and demand my FEG be returned, but its days as a .45 ACP will be brief.

The rear sight is drift-adjustable but the front sight is fixed so there's nothing I can do about the problem of it shooting about 6 inches low, other than use a bit of Kentucky elevation. I can tap the rear sight to the left and fix the left-right problem, but that's not its only problem.

It's a polymer-frame compact with a 3.6" barrel and it is quite snappy with recoil. Plus the milled surface of the trigger was slapping my trigger finger with each shot, just as my S&W 29 .44 Magnum did when I first got it. I replaced the trigger on the Smith 29 with a smooth combat trigger and solved that problem and I may do that with the Witness-P also.

But what I will most definitely do sooner rather than later with the Witness-P is order a .38 Super conversion slide and magazine. I'm hopeful the .38 Super sights will be a bit closer to point of aim and I'm also hopeful it will be a much better shooter in a different caliber. To make it a hat trick in .45 ACP, the Witness-P choked twice, once on each mag load, which only holds eight rounds. If it can't digest .45 ACP 230-gr. FMJs, it probably won't be any better with hollow points, more likely worse.

Perhaps the slimmer .38 Super or 9x23 rounds will be more to its digestability. I'll be ordering that conversion slide next week, so I shall see. The third photo shows a lineup of pistol rounds I've shot, from left, 9x19mm, .38 Super, 9x23mm, .357 Sig, 10mm, .45 ACP and .44 Magnum.

And if the Witness-P doesn't improve dramatically with .38 Super/9x23, then I'll do what any good football player would do. Drop back and punt. I do work in a gun store and it turns out not to meet my expectations, I can put whole kit and kabooble up for sale and move right along.

Two full-size pistols depart, two compacts arrive

The new small guys are in the house and the old big guys are almost all gone.

At right is my new-to-me EAA Witness-P Compact .45 ACP, which arrived today. It has a 3.6" barrel with a polymer frame and a set of mahogany grips cut and glued on with something called Gorilla Glue by the previous owner. It's not the neatest glue job I ever saw, but the wood does look nice. And it's definitely better looking than the plastic polymer grips underneath, plus the wood grips fill my hand pretty nicely.

Best of all, it's an EAA so I can buy a .38 Super slide for it and shoot not only .38 Super but 9x23mm in it. I shot both in my briefly owned Lone Wolf G20 "experiential" conversion barrel, that wouldn't feed right. That's another story that didn't end well. But both .38 Super and 9x23mm are improvements over standard 9x19mm and I'm a guy who believes more speed and longer bullets are better than slower, shorter bullets. That's why I love .357 Sig and 10mm as well as .45 ACP and 9mm. IMHO, .357 Sig is a really fast 9mm and 10mm is a really fast .45 ACP. Kinda sorta.

I know 10mm is not a .45, it's really a long .40, or more accurately the current .40 S&W is a short 10mm. But what I'm driving at is that 10mm was initially developed as an alternative to .45 ACP, a larger than 9mm round that had faster ballistics than .45 ACP. The "experts" thought it would replace .45 ACP. Shows how wrong "experts" can be. But I still love 10mm for the same reason I love .357 Sig. It's faster than .45 ACP with close to the same grain weight slugs and the foot-pounds of energy delivered are higher. Same is true with .357 Sig over 9mm, it's faster with same grain weight slugs and the foot-pounds of energy delivered is way higher. Plus both 10mm and .357 Sig are flatter shooting at longer ranges than .45 or 9mm.

And I like .38 Super and 9x23mm for the same reasons, speed and energy.

So I have carry pistols in all my favorite calibers, 9x19mm, .357 Sig, 10mm and .45 ACP and as soon as I can afford a new slide, .38 Super or 9x23mm.

I've got a Lone Wolf barrel in 9x25mm for my G20 and I could get one for my G29 too, but even I gotta admit 9x25 is way too much overkill for a carry pistol. It's so freaking loud I'd be deaf to shoot it in self defense without hearing protection. Walking around with ear muffs ain't an option.

Over at gtalk, one poster reported using 9x25mm on a deer and he said the round literally exploded inside the critter. I can see me sitting on the stand in court trying to explain why I used such a huge overkill round in defense.

So I acquired the EAA .45 ACP/.38 Super/9x23mm as a swap for my formerly owned GKK-45, the next photo. It's a great shooter, but being all steel with a 5" barrel, it's not a good candidate for daily carry unless you're big as Godzilla. I'm a pretty large guy, 6' 3" and 265 lbs., but I ain't big enough to carry that monster around.

Next photo is my new CZ 75 P-07 Duty, showing off its replacement ambi-safety levers. The gun shop guru changed out the decockers for safeties so now I can carry the P-07 cocked and locked, which is my personal preference over using a decocker.

Essentially I purchased the P-07 with the money I got for the sale of my Steyr M357-A1 .357 Sig pistol, but it's more accurately the replacement for my soon-to-be-formerly-owned CZ 75 SP-01 Custom, which is the last photo.

The SP-01 Custom has been sold through gunbroker with payment scheduled to arrive Thursday, upon which I will ship it out. It's a full-size pistol like the GKK-45, with a 4.7" barrel, being replaced by the 3.6" barrel P-07, both being 9mm.

And technically speaking the aforementioned Steyr M357-A1 has already been replaced with another .357 Sig, a Sig Sauer P229 Custom Shop Sig-Anti-Snag Generation 2, next photo.

The Steyr MA1 has a 4" barrel and the Sig P229 has a 3.9" barrel so both are compacts, but the issue here is reliability. As good as my Steyr M357-A1 was and still is for its new owner, it was not 100% reliable. More like 98 or 99%. Not bad until you compare it to 100%.

And that's what my formerly owned Sig P226 .357 Sig was for me and what the new Sig P229 has been so far. The Sig P226 was the first of my full-size pistols to be sold and the CZ SP01 will be the last to leave. And that's what my other two .357 Sig pistols have also been, 100% reliable, a 4.25" barrel S&W M&P and a 3.5" barrel M&P. So that made the Steyr M357-A1 my fourth-most-reliable .357 Sig pistol and it had to go.

So all the swapping and selling is done, or will be done on Thursday when the payment for the SP-01 arrives and it ships out.

So come Saturday, I'll be shooting my new-to-me EAA .45 ACP compact and my brand-new-in-the-box CZ 75 P-01 Duty 9mm. C'mon Saturday!

CZ P-07 Safeties, Ruger LCR dreams and a Steyr carbine

I had a pleasant surprise with my new CZ P-07 today. The trigger guard isn't as big as it looks. I tried out my holsters to see what would fit and lo and behold, it fits my JMG OWB-4 leather holster that was made for my Steyr MA1s. It also fits perfectly and locks into the Bianchi paddle holster I got for my Sig P229 SAS Generation 2. I love it when a plan comes together. Well actually, I didn't plan it at all but it all came together anyway. The Good Lord helps fools and drunks.

I also upgraded the P-07 from decocker to ambi safeties. I'm a klutz and I know it so I took it back to work and got the young man who runs the gun shop to remove the ambi decocker levers and install the ambi safeties. I'll post some photos later this week. I left my camera at work until tomorrow.

I had a bad case of feeling like the southern end of a northbound mule this weekend so I didn't get a chance to take my new P-07 out for a spin. But next weekend, surely. And I've got another trade under way with a .45 ACP Witness P-Compact that's supposed to arrive tomorrow. If it is as promised, I'll ship out my GKK-45, a Browning Hi-Power 45 from Hungary.

And that will complete my trading and sales. My Sig P226 .357 Sig was sold and turned into a Sig P229 .357 Sig (eventually after a tangenital trip for a Marlin 1894 .44 Magnum lever-action rifle). My Steyr M357-A1 was sold and financed the purchase of the CZ P-07.

And lo and behold, on Sunday my CZ SP-01 Custom was purchased by one of Angus Hobdell's range buddies in Mesa, Arizona, who is adding it to his CZ collection. I will be able to pay off my credit-card debt incurred for the unexpected early arrival of the Sig P229! If you were anywhere on the eastern seaboard Sunday afternoon when I saw the sale on gunbroker, you woulda heard me holler.

And there will be a small surplus left over for my next acquisition, which I expect to be a .38 Super slide to convert the EAA Witness .45 P-Compact.

But I've also got my eyes on the new Ruger Light Compact Revolver. We've got them in the shop and it really is an improvement over the Smith .38s.

The trigger really has to be experienced to believe. It'll make a great backup and is worthy of me breaking my rule about no .38 Specials. It's as light as a Smith & Wesson Airweight but one gun writer reported he fired 500+ rounds of .38 +Ps without a stop and the rubber grip and polymer frame soaked up the recoil so well his hand wasn't even sore after that marathon firing session.

But guess what happened today? Some guy sold the gun shop a Steyr 1895 8x56R straight-pull bolt action that looks to be in perfect condition, very nice wood, even has five boxes of ammo with the stripper clips and a couple of boxes of modern Hornady ammo without the stripper clips. And it's only $175. Damn. There goes my next pistol plan. It looks just like this Steyr Model 1895 Budapest Stutzen carbine at J&G Sales. And they got ammo too.

A Steyr departs the fold and a new CZ comes home

Working in a gun shop is so much fun I almost feel guilty about getting paid to talk about guns all day, show folks how they work and sell them whatever they want and need.

But as it sayeth in the King James Version, when it comes to exercising fiscal responsibility with my money, it sucketh. As soon as I get some free cash in hand, zoom, out it goes and another new firearm comes home.

This was a really good week. I sold my Steyr MA1 in .357 Sig, which if I was a fiscally responsible person, would have meant I could use the cash to pay off a good chunk of the credit-card debt I ran up buying a new Sig P229 SAS .357 Sig that I special ordered.

It was supposed to take weeks if not months to arrive from the Sig Sauer Custom Shop, but instead it came in on the Friday following the order going in on Monday. That has to be a record for a Sig Custom Shop order. They musta had some free time on their hands or had one already built waiting.

So I had to use a credit card to pay for the Sig. But the same week I sold the Steyr, lo and behold what comes in the shop but the newest product from CZ, the new P-07 Duty compact 9mm.

It's a traditional Double-Action/Single Action pistol, which I prefer over Double-Action-Only, though I own and carry both. And it has ambi-decockers, which works well for me, being a lefty. It's small but not too small, it's light, but not too light. It's just the perfect balance of size and weight to make it a good shooter and a good carry pistol. It's a bit ugly but...

I took photos of this nasty, brutish-looking critter for gunbroker so I could post it for the shop and got the page up on Wednesday. Then today I bought it myself and brought it home.

It may be ugly the way a Glock is ugly, but it's pure CZ engineering, which IMHO is the best grip angle in the industry and truly great all-around ergonomics. If it shoots as good as my CZ 75 SP-01 Custom (which cost more than twice as much) I'll not really be surprised at all.

The P-07 has only a 3.7" barrel vs. the 4.7" barrel in the SP-01 and it has a polymer frame vs. the steel frame of the SP-01, so it may not be quite as sweet a shooter. But I fully expect it to be a very good one and it's a whole lot lighter and more compact, which it's supposed to be as a carry pistol.

I've never heard anyone describe the SP-01 as a carry pistol, but it's not designed to be one. But that's exactly what the P-07 is designed for, daily duty, hence its name, the CZ 75 P-01 Duty. It's a CZ 75 under the skin, one of the most copied pistol designs in the world, second only to the John Browning's 1911 .45 ACP. And it's a 9mm, so it doesn't need a heavy steel frame to be a good shooter. And the best part is the price. I brought it home for well under half what I shelled out for the SP-01, nearly $1K, that I'm now trying to sell.

And the P-07 has one design feature that allows it to be set up like the SP-01 Custom. The P-07 comes with dual decocking levers installed, but the good folks at CZ also include dual-safety parts in the box so you can swap out the decockers for genuine ambi safeties. That allows you to carry the P-07 like John M. Browning's 1911, cocked and locked. How sweet it is!

Maybe when the SP-01 Custom sells, I'll pay off that credit card balance. And maybe not... Who knows what will come along to tempt me next? This job may sucketh when it comes to being responsible about where my money goes. But in ever other way possible, I love it!

If the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise, I'll post a P-07 range report tomorrow evening. Is there anything better than a Saturday at the range with a new pistol in hand?

P.S. Feeling like I been rode hard and put up muddy today. No range trip. Maybe next Saturday. I sure hope this ain't a bug that's got me feeling like the south end of a northbound mule. I hope it's just being 61 years ancient and struck with B.B. King Disease. I'm T-I-D-E! Say it out loud and you'll get it.

Downsizing 'Baddest Tactical Pistols' to carry size

I got on a full-size "Tactical" pistol binge in late 2007 and bought the following handguns in reverse order:

Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 6: Glock 20 10mm Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 5: S&W M&P 357 Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 4: Steyr M9-A1 Baddest Tactical Pistol (Revolver) No. 3: S&W 21-4 .44 Special Baddest Tactical Pistol No 2: CZ75 SP01 Custom 9mm Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 1, Llama IX-C .45 ACP

The S&W Model 21 .44 Special was traded straight up for the Sig P226 when I acquired a S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum/.44 Special and the Model 21 became surplus.

And since I started work as a gun shop salesman in January, I've gone in the other direction, buying a S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig and a Charter Arms .327 Fed. Magnum snubnose revolver.

And now I've decided to take it a step further and divest myself of some of my full-size pistols and downsize for carry weapons.

The Sig Sauer P226 .357 Sig and the CZ 75 SP01 Custom 9mm are the first two up on the block and are now listed on Gunbroker. Though I love both pistols, neither is very concealable and both are fairly heavy so are not good carry candidates.


I'm thinking about replacing the Sig Sauer P226 with 4.4" barrel with a Sig P229 with a 3.9" barrel. Sig Sauer has a Sig Anti-Snag (SAS) carry model of the 229, which I want in .357 Sig with night sights and the Short-Reset Trigger. A set of those nice wood grips shown would be good, too.



And I'm thinking about a new 2009 model of Para Ordnance as the replacement for the CZ SP01 Custom. Para has a .45 ACP model called the Carry 12 which is a subcompact with 3.5" barrel and Para's Light Double Action trigger. The LDA trigger is IMHO the biggest improvement made to date to John Moses Browning's famed 1911 single-action .45 ACP pistol design.

But then there's also that S&W NightGuard model in 10mm. Six rounds of 10mm in a lightweight carry revolver sounds mighty attractive. And Smith has also brought back the incomparable classic Model 24 with a 3" barrel in .44 Special. So many choices and so little money to buy with.

But gotta sell what I got before I can buy something smaller, so I must learn to be patient.