New here & questions with CZ52

[dragonhunter80]

Hello everyone!!  

I am new here...In search of a good forum i found this one and have been reading posts here and in the concealed carry section for the last couple hours  :-)

My first and only gun (so far :-p ) is a CZ-52 that i got last week.  The dealer told me it was unissued, but it is the re-arsenaled blue, so i am told it can't be unissued.  It is however spotless - not a speck of rust on it anywhere and the barrel is SHINY!!!  :-)

We took it out to the range on Thursday when i picked it up and had some problems though.  First magazine of ammo (mil. surp. - wall all the gun shop had) went through fine.  On the second clip we couldn't get a bullet to load into the chamber - thought it was just that magazine, so i reloaded the first one, but ended up having the same problem.  Finally got one in the chamber .... then it misfired.  

Once we got through that misfire my friend insisted on trying again (i'm new to guns, so was already a little freaked out by the loading prob and the misfire).  First one shot, second bullet wouldn't load into the chamber.  He got another few shots to go through fine, then had another misfire.  We gave up and went back to the dealer - my friend thought an ammo problem, maybe also a magazine problem.  

Of course at the shop the bullet loaded into the chamber fine.  The owner felt it might be the ammo, he traded out what he had for the other kind (another mil surp).  We still have some laoding probs with the new ammo, but no more misfires.  however now we had a new wrinkle - the bullets not loading straight into the chamber - jamming and the slide not returning the last 1/4 inch or so.  

when i got home i also realized this seems to be a part of the lot of "bad" ammo.  It wasn't in pink paper as what i read in the article, but it is stamped very much the same, with the bottom number being 53 instead of 52.  However, the gun dealer reported he couldn't reload this ammo due to the shells cracking at the neck, which the article said the 52-stamped ammo did as well.

Another friend of mine (who is not a gunsmith, but knows more than I do) took it pretty much all apart and looked at the gun.  He can't seem to find anything wrong with it, except the one magazine is "sticky".  He recommended getting a new magazine and some ammo that isn't surplus and firing the gun again.  

Anyone have any comments/suggestions/ideas for me??  anything at all would be greatly appreciated!!!

[dragonhunter80]

Oh, here are some pics for anyone interested:
http://www.geocities.com/sue_delaney/CZ-52.html

[Mikey]

Dragonhunter80:  (1) clean those magazines - sometimes they were stored with cosmoline and that stuff can and will gunk up a spring like it's nobody's business.  Take the magazines apart and clean the grease out of them and off the spring - that should help with the magazines.

(2) Get new ammo.  Both Sellier and Bellot, as well as Winchester (I think it's also S&B) make quality 7.62x25mm ammo.  The S&B is very inexpensive and very good quality ammo.  It is new production, not made before you were born, and reloadable.  If your dealer said the necks would crack if you tried to reload the stuff you're now shooting, then it is crap ammo. The new stuff will make that CZ hummmmmmmmm.

There have been some posts in this forum (Curios and Relics) about bad 7.62x25mm ammo and the problems you get when using it.  The new stuff is very available and inexpensive.  When I first got my Tokarev (another 7.62x25mm pistol) the only ammo was the Chinese mil-surp, which was junk.  Then, there was some Russian stuff - also junk.  Got misfires and hangfires with both the Chinese and the Russian ammo.  Got my hands on some Chech mil-surp that wasn't half bad but the first time I got a case of S&B - Oh Man, what a wonderful difference - the stuff worked right every single time, never have had a problem with it, and was able to cut out the X at the 25 yd target.  Also had fun with the same gun and ammo at much longer ranges (nothing like ringing the gong at 100 yds with a mil-surp pistol, lemme tellya).  HTH.  Mikey.

[NRAJOE]

Welcome DH...like Mikey said, take them mags apart and clean/oil them up good. I run nothing but S&B through all 5 of my CZ52's....hardly ever a problem. Heres of sites of interest:

http://makarov.com/cz52/

http://www.makarov.com/cart/vitemnagant.htm

http://milsurptech.us/cz52_pistol_notes.htm

http://www.surplusfirearms.com/cz52.htm

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0BTT/159_26/90099729/p1/article.jhtml

Have fun with it...any questions, come back and ask me!