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Thread: Parts, Mods, & Priorities

  1. #1
    We are diminished
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    Feb 2011

    Parts, Mods, & Priorities

    I didn't want to drag the current CZ threads down by adding this to them directly, but all the talk about all the different aftermarket parts got me thinking about something that, candidly, I wouldn't have expected around here.

    Tom Jones and I could have been producing and selling Gadgets two years ago. We proved the design internally. Since then, it's been under constant testing by a wide range of different people under different circumstances in different guns of different calibers, eras, and conditions. We've done testing related to how enviro factors can impact its safety and reliability; and, we have more of those tests planned. Until we're certain it's reliable enough for a police officer to put on his exposed gun in a sandstorm or a snowstorm, nothing will go out the door.

    When you throw a part on a gun, especially something made in tiny quantities by a small shop, you're taking a risk. Even some of the best smiths and engineers in the industry at big companies screw up small parts. We've certainly seen issues with other custom shops whose springs or trigger kits end up having unpredicted failures because they weren't adequately tested. It's simply a fact.

    Having an awesome trigger is awesome. I'm all for it. I just wrote recently how I picked my next gun based primarily on how I can get the trigger set up. I get it.

    But if you're replacing half the internals in a gun your life might depend on, you owe it to yourself to ask whether that pound of trigger or .03 difference in a split when you're warmed up playing on the range is worth trusting your life to if your fancy sear fails or your aftermarket hypertuned spring breaks.

    Someone can put a million rounds through an IPSC gun and call a mod/part "good." There's a reason why IPSC isn't used as a test bed in LE/military reliability and durability evaluations.

    Before I was going to put something like that in my gun, I'd want to know:
    • Is the part insured by an independent company and if so, who? (there's really only one player in the industry for things like action parts insurance)
    • What kind of endurance and reliability testing was performed during the development of the part?
    • What conditions were the test guns subjected to during that evaluation?


    Like I said, we know even big companies like Glock produce parts that end up being problematic. The amount of money they invest in testing is orders of magnitude more than MyBrandSmithTM will make in a lifetime.

    Before you walk around with a gun full of parts that came from an unknown vendor to a "name" smith, think about your priorities.

  2. #2
    Given Sig's history with small parts, Glock's problems with extractors, the various M&P problems with strikers, and magazine springs, etc,, your issues with 1911 9mm magazines, and my experience with high end 1911 pistols, I think it is buyer beware with all handguns.

    To put a face on it, whether it be Fred M's recent 226 extractor failure, my recent Sig Custom shop action job that wouldn't ignite primers, your Wilson ETM magazines, the two P30's in your Rogers class that choked, my wife's recent Kahr MK9 that wouldn't extract a live cartridge from the chamber, a P99AS I got a month back that won't reliably ignite primers new out of the box, I vet my pistols at least 500 rounds, and expect that mechanical things may well fail, and at the worst time. Seems like an argument for a real BUG, is the message I take away.

    You may be relatively sheltered by your minimal experience with 1911 guns. I spent my 20's and 30's shooting modified 1911 pistols, and testing was a major part of verifying what the 'smith did right and wrong. Didn't matter whether that gunsmith was Richard Heinie or the corner 1911 shop, you had to verify all the work.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  3. #3
    Site Supporter Matt O's Avatar
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    Agreed on buyer beware as far as the modern handgun industry goes.

    I think it comes down to: if you've done your homework, made an informed choice, and subsequently vetted said pistol(s) through whatever round count or testing mechanism you consider sufficient, then carry on.

  4. #4
    We are diminished
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    Feb 2011
    George, you're missing the point. I'm well aware that big companies produce bad guns and have problems. I worked for two of them and lived through a plethora of incidents from minor to catastrophic.

    You can't guarantee a gun will go BANG before the trigger pull.

    But "anything can fail" is faint justification for using a bunch of aftermarket parts supported by nothing but a smith's name and some IPSC shooting. You don't know who's making it or how much control the "smith" has over things like QC, material, tolerances, etc. You don't know if the "smith" knows metals or just let a shop recommend something that they thought would be fine in "a gun thing."

    If the most profitable companies with the best engineers can make mistakes, wouldn't you at least be open to the realization that small shops without engineers (or their own production, QC, etc.) are more likely to have problems?

    Cherry picking some extreme examples of problems with major production guns just ignores the reality that there are probably three orders of magnitude more "long extractor" SIGs running out there right now perfectly than there will ever be total guns running one of those tricked out Shadow trigger kits.

  5. #5
    Member
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    I'm not a fan of replacing parts in a tried and tested gun,Idon't mind springs and such , but I don't know if I'd buy a gun just to replace all of the internals.I feel that most issues I should be able towork through with enough practice.

  6. #6
    My carry guns are Glock, HK, Sig, Beretta and, soon I hope, CZ pistols. Since it is the CZ pistols that you seem to be focusing on, my P01 is a stock factory pistol with a CZ Custom shop carry trigger job and night sights. I consider that to be functionally equivalent to a Sig 226 with night sights and a Sig custom shop trigger job.

    I recently ordered this pistol from CZ Custom:

    CZ 75BD
    custom work:
    thin, re-profile decocker
    mill for Heinie rear sight, tritium front sight (Heinie is a .140 with a .115 front as I recall from the conversation)
    carry trigger job
    bevel the mag well like a Shadow

    I don't consider any of this work to be even close to compromising the defensive ability of the CZ 75BD, and the reason I ordered it was to have a carry gun very close to my Shadow, but with a decocker.

    Currently, I estimate my lightly tuned P01 has 7/8 of the capability of the tricked out Mink Shadow, in terms of my performance with it on the timer, and gives me commonality of platform between the the full on Mink Shadow and the P01. I wouldn't carry my Mink Shadow for defense because it doesn't have a firing pin safety, I think the trigger is lighter than necessary, I plan to shoot the crap out of it which inevitably will lead to more parts failures, and it has mods I personally wouldn't select for a defensive gun. When I shot IPSC in the 90's with first a 1911, and later a STI wide body Limited gun, I never carried my "game"guns, but instead carried a lightly tuned 1911.

    I haven't followed the specifics that each other poster is doing to their CZ, and whether they plan to carry or game with them. As you may have pointed out, folks gaming with guns often put a higher premium on performance than reliability, since the consequences of a failure in competition are not life threatening. I have long suspected that some of the problems you noted with the CZ's in that class with Rob were observing game guns, with game magazines and reloaded ammo.

    Until my P01 gets through 500-1,000 rounds without failure, I won't be carrying it. This is no different than with a Sig, Beretta, Glock or HK. With the modifications I selected to my P01, and after the testing period, I won't lose a minute of sleep carrying it. I do plan to continue my practice of having a full size back-up and spare magazine with me whenever possible -- namely my wife.

    My dilemma has always been that I want a gun with a hammer, but I have shot a Glock better than all I tried. The CZ is the first gun with a hammer that I shoot better than a Glock and every other hammer gun I have tried. To the extent getting a CZ that meets my reliability standard for carry takes some time or money, I am willing to do that because the CZ shoots so much better. I am on a few week trip, and I have a Sig 226 and 239 for carry until I finish vetting the P01. I wear the Sig all day, except at the range with the Shadow and P01, buckle the Sig back on to leave. It bugs the crap out of me to put the Sig back on, because I shoot the CZ so decisively better. The performance difference is so great, my wife who has seen everything come and go with me, and has shot a Glock for two decades, is planning a month with a CZ this summer.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by ToddG View Post

    Before I was going to put something like that in my gun, I'd want to know:
    • Is the part insured by an independent company and if so, who? (there's really only one player in the industry for things like action parts insurance)
    • What kind of endurance and reliability testing was performed during the development of the part?
    • What conditions were the test guns subjected to during that evaluation?
    See, TLG, as a regular consumer without any industry connection, I have no idea about any of that regardless whether I pick a top brand pistol or bubba frankengun creation. I didn't even know there was such insurance. It is assumed that big companies invest in these things, but I don't know to what extent and how they test individual components. Without any transparency from big manufacturers, it is a matter of trust on my part, and, given their recent track record, I explicitly trust only one company. Which is, I am told, is in red ink and has been there for some time.
    Because of above, any verifiable high utilization data points, whether your endurance tests or IPSC shooters putting same amounts of ammo through their guns, become as valuable to me as an assumed faith that Gen3 M&P striker was actually tested, unlike Gen1&2.

    Quote Originally Posted by ToddG View Post

    If the most profitable companies with the best engineers can make mistakes, wouldn't you at least be open to the realization that small shops without engineers (or their own production, QC, etc.) are more likely to have problems?
    Very valid concern. There is, as always, a counter example such as almost entire 1911 aftermarket industry where parts from manufacturers of different sizes from Greider to EGW to Wilson have been long recognized as preferred components, but I am not going to take any cheerful self endorsement "our parts are the best" without appropriate level of skepticism.

    My personal opinion is that small shops cannot survive kitten-ups like big companies can, and bad products bury them. As such, if the shop has been around some and seems to have a decent volume of customers, I'll extend it a benefit of a doubt, but I'll shoot their product a lot before ordering another Shaggy.

  8. #8
    As someone who reads a lot and tries to post little, because I want to learn from more experienced people, I have to jump in on this and ask Todd about something he posted over in the "My new SIG 229R" thread.

    In regard to your new SIG, you said, "I am having some work done to the gun which I'll discuss in more detail down the road once it gets finalized. The person doing the work isn't an "open to the public" smith..."

    I'm truely not trying to call you out, or anything like that. As YVK said, they appear to be the same thing to all those reading who don't have experience with the industry, except as consumers. How does this differ from the work being done by a company such as CZCustom, for instance, which, as I understand it, has a relationship with CZ-USA? From the outside, they seem to be the same thing.

  9. #9
    We are diminished
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    klewis -- No problem and if I ever sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, you and anyone else is just as welcome to call me on it as any other member, please!

    Someone is going to do a little stoning of the existing parts in my SIG. I am hoping to get a hold of one of Bruce Gray's new triggers and that would be a good example of the exact "risk" I'm talking about with a small company making a small run of parts. But Bruce, to me, is a known entity with experience producing very high quality parts for a long time and someone who has been working on guns at a high level longer than I've owned guns. It's a tool steel trigger and not some hyper-tuned part or something made to change how the gun works.

    Now the actual SIG SRT, on the other hand, when it was brand new (I had one of the six hand made prototypes in my gun), that was a risk and a prayer. But I knew how it was made, who made it, and that it was essentially the exact same materials/properties as the stock parts.

    The only other non-SIG factory parts that will be in my action are Wolff mainsprings which are, I think, proven as good as -- if not better -- than what a lot of gun companies use stock.

  10. #10
    THE THIRST MUTILATOR Nephrology's Avatar
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    Sep 2011
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    Vaguely tangential, but what are your thoughts on the LWD - connector for Glock pistols? I know you used yours to the point of failure. Curious about your opinion now.

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