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I have never been without a pistol. But the Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 mag was a really beat up pistol. Shot great! Alas it's time to retire it. I sure could not do home defense right with a .22 rifle. Well I could. But,,, I really need a pistol.

The quest began for a new pistol. And I did not want to spend much on one. Put the word out I'm coming back into the game. A buddy calls. He has some S&W Sigma SW9VE's. Yeah they are Smiths. But not a great pistol. Pretty much the Smith cellar dweller. What the hell,,,, the price was right. After rebate a $200 pistol. I clean it up, take it out and put 50 rd. down range. Yep the trigger sucks. So the tuning starts.

Here is the pistol how it is today. I've done a trigger job, polished on the slide a tad. Also polished the chamber a slight tad inside and the feed ramp. I also polished the outside of the chamber. And finely put a quickie hone on the barrel it's self. More looking and feeling for tight spots. :) Still a bit of work to do to it. BUT!!! Now its a good little pistol. With a tad more work. It will be a very good pistol for the money. :)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/638/medium/S7300185.jpg

Here is a link to some vid's I've done concerning the Sigma
http://www.youtube.com/user/psyshack1#p/u/4/86yn1zCBcw8

With the work I was doing on the Smith at the time I was putting a lot of ammo through it checking function every step of the way. Well darn,,,,,, Looks like I need to start reloading. And wouldn't yeah know. The Tulsa gun show was about to kick off. :) Off to Tulsa I go. This is a giant gun show! I pick up a basic Lee classic loader kit, a tumbler, powder, primers, 9mm die set and a few other odds and ends. (Bullets) And now I'm reloading. :) Setup this little but very functional loading bench.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/638/medium/S7300229.jpg

I'm doing great! I'm shooting and loading ammo. Really am enjoying myself.

Then I have some buddy's show up from Arkansas baring gift's! They bring me another last gen Lee classic loader kit complete and brand new. Never has been setup or used. Even came with a set of .38/.357 dies also new and unused. There is also a old MEC shot shell loader in need of some TLC.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/638/medium/S7300250.JPG

The gem is a CZ-52 Iron Curtian hand canon. It is chambered 7.62x25mm with 100 rounds of ammo. The round is ruthless. Very common for this pistol to shoot old surplus ammo at 1400 to 1700 fps. Current retail ammo is 1400 to 1500 fps+. Hand loads are pushed more times than not to 1800 fps with loads possible that break 2000 fps pretty easy. This is one mean pistol round. Body armor just holds you together for easier handling if hit with the round. Be it FMJ or JHP.

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The pistol is pure OEM. It has not been re-armored. It still has the cast steel firing pin in it and the decocker is nothing more than a thumb trigger. :) It still wears some of its original grey parkerized finish. The finish is very holster worn. I will be going through this wonderful pistol very soon. Shots good now. But that can be improved on. :)

Today it was time to expand the work surface for the loading bench and add a shelf. Got to get the new press lagged down and setup. Two single stage press's are better than one. :)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/638/medium/S7300275.JPG

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/638/medium/S7300279.JPG

I have been having a lot of fun lately. :D

Nice! You're off to a great start!

The Cz-52 is a fun pistol, but don't get carried away with the hype. The myth of its great strength comes from a typo in a '50s Army field manual on foreign weapons that was supposed to say something like "it's NOT the strongest piece around" (obviously I'm paraphrasing), but the word "NOT" got left out. "Clark" who posts on the Accurate Reloading forum and others has found that they blow out through the bottom of the chamber when loaded not too far past normal specs. There have been some batches of hot loaded milsurp 7.62x25 subgun ammo on the market that are considered hazardous in pistols. My memory's unreliable as to which, but search the milsurp discussion boards and you'll turn up info.

I have a hard time finding the empties from mine, anyway. It launches them into orbit!

It would likely be a good idea to install a heavier recoil spring from Wolf Gun Springs, but it's already a hassle to reassemble the thing after stripping to clean. Be aware that ALL milsurp ammo from the Eastern bloc countries is corrosive primed. Some dealer ads may claim otherwise.

Great deal on that Smith! If I ran across that, I'd have one, too. :)

Nice! You're off to a great start!

The Cz-52 is a fun pistol, but don't get carried away with the hype. The myth of its great strength comes from a typo in a '50s Army field manual on foreign weapons that was supposed to say something like "it's NOT the strongest piece around" (obviously I'm paraphrasing), but the word "NOT" got left out. "Clark" who posts on the Accurate Reloading forum and others has found that they blow out through the bottom of the chamber when loaded not too far past normal specs. There have been some batches of hot loaded milsurp 7.62x25 subgun ammo on the market that are considered hazardous in pistols. My memory's unreliable as to which, but search the milsurp discussion boards and you'll turn up info.

I have a hard time finding the empties from mine, anyway. It launches them into orbit!

It would likely be a good idea to install a heavier recoil spring from Wolf Gun Springs, but it's already a hassle to reassemble the thing after stripping to clean. Be aware that ALL milsurp ammo from the Eastern bloc countries is corrosive primed. Some dealer ads may claim otherwise.

Great deal on that Smith! If I ran across that, I'd have one, too. :)

Not my first rodeo with the 52. :) I have owned the pistols in the past. And I have some of the really hot surplus ammo. :) I believe it to be Romanian SMG ammo. And it will put a sting into your wrist. :) I don't have a chrono, but one is on my list. The problem with the bottom of chambers blowing out can almost always be traced to the rollers being worn out. They collapse in worse case or deform and then wear into the lower sides of the chamber and slide. Thus causing a chamber failure. This 52 is the best I've ever owned. It is all OEM and has never been re-armored. While the rollers and even the cast firing pin are still in good shape. I will be replacing them. The decocker on mine is nothing more than a thumb trigger. So that means I will also be replacing the firing pin holder and spring. Once I open up the works I may also replace the hammer, hammer pin, hammer nut, and sear. I am going to keep this pistol. The barrel is in good shape with a matching serial number. So I may well get a new barrel, install it, set the head space and such. Then shoot with that barrel to preserve the OEM barrel. My biggest concern is the finish. I don't think these pistols will ever be true collector's. But you never know. with under 300k made, they could be. And they are getting harder to find. And OEM copy's even harder. All most all you see are the re-armored units. I really want to re-parkerize it. What do you think?

Yeah the little Smith is a hoot and a hell of a pistol if you can get them cheap then tune on them a tad. :)

I will be remounting my press's today and working on getting my reloading bench back together. Need to order some dies, brass and bullets for the 52 real soon. :)

Is that the same ammo the Rooskie submachine gun-the one in all their WW2 newsreels shot?? I think that was a little 30 cal(7.62) round.Guess they are all related to the early broomhandle mauser 30 cal round.Bottleneck cartridges are supposed to feed very well.I have a 357 SIG SIG 229 feeds great, but so does the 40 cal version.

Rollers?? Does it have the sort of delayed blowback action that the H&K 91 has-with some rollers that lock on firing, then unlock after the pressure drops a bit??I wonder who stole that action from who?? The Checks(sic) were/are well know for making excellent weapons-for 100's of years.I'm guessing CZ means Czechoslovakia??

Those S&Ws early plastic frame guns were attempts to get around Glocks patent, I think.They are generally considered "ok for the price".

The small caliber, light weight high velocity VS big slow bullets debate always gets replayed. The recent attack at Fort Hood was done with a tiny high velocity round-22 cal 1800 fps-probably 30-40 grains I guess.

Reloading is fun.

Good luck
Charlie

The 7.62x25 is a version of probably the earliest successful mass-produced auto pistol cartridge, the .30 Borchardt of 1893 or so. Mauser adopted a version of it in 1896. Mannlicher, Bergmann and others loaded versions of it with their own names in the early 1900s, and in the thirties the Russians adopted it for the Tokarev pistol and then the PPSh-41 submachinegun. All those cartridges have very slightly different nominal dimensions, but in many cases are interchangeable, and they got loaded hotter as they went along. The Cz-52 was originally designed for the 9mm Parabellum, but the Russians made the Czechs build it in the Soviet-standard 7.62 Tokarev caliber.

Yeah, this delayed blowback roller system is pretty similar to what H&K uses. I don't know who originated it.

Got the bench finished and all setup Sat. Ran 400 rounds through it Sun.

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/638/medium/S7300303.JPG
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http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/638/medium/S7300318.JPG

A good place to play. :)

Beautiful setup!

Nice looking bench! I collect my brass and drop it off at the local indoor range when I go there to practice. There is a local old dump where it seems lots of folks shoot and I can always manage to bring back 4x as much brass as I shoot!

I have an older CZ-52 also, great little plinking gun. Yaris H. is correct, the casings do some traveling! Even firing from a stationary position I can only get about 80% back. They never seem to have a consistent ejection pattern. Possibly it is due to my using mil surp ammo and they are from different batches. No, come to think of it (it’s been a while since I had it to the range) even commercial ammo had the same ejection pattern.

My bed stand companion is a pre-ban Ruger 89 MKII. I bought it as a house gun and because it will handle anything that will fit in the chamber. Unfortunately it gets a bit heavy in the holster for walks so usually stays home.

My backyard companion is a Model 1922 Browning in 7.65 mm. It was my father’s sidearm in WWII. It has no German markings on it and I can not recall the serial # off hand. It is time to retire it as the action is starting to get a little sloppy. I’d like to get another for everyday use and just keep this one oiled up and happy.