Range Report: CZ-82 9mm

Recently I picked up a CZ-82 for $219 from Aim Surplus; they advertised excellent condition ("very minor finish wear") and I'm happy to say that they were as good as their word. I opted to pay an extra $10 for the best-of-five handpick option, and the gun I got looked as if it had never been fired a single time. There was some light holster-burn at the very end of the muzzle, and a little crud at the very mouth of the barrel which cleaned right up after I took these pictures.  As good as it looked out of the box, after a good cleaning and a light coat of oil it looked even better - but I wasn't gonna take another set of pictures.  To say I was pleased doesn't begin to tell the tale.






It was an eternity from the time I bought the thing to the time I was able to put it through its paces: AIM took a couple of days to ship it to my local shop, and about halfway through the 8 day waiting period this benighted state makes you wait, he went on vacation for two weeks so he and his pistol team could snag a gold medal in his team's .22 competition at Camp Perry (congrats John!).   But, finally, pick it up I did, and was able to actually fire it.

The CZ-82 fires the 9mm Makarov round, also known as a 9x18mm.  It is a millimeter shorter than the "standard" 9mm round, variously known as the 9mm Luger, the 9mm Parabellum, the 9x19, and the 9mm NATO round (if you ever hear "9mm Browning," that's what we Americans call the .380).

The chrome-lined barrel has no rifling carved into it; the polygonal barrel itself is rifled, which imparts the same spin on the bullet while keeping the barrel smooth and easy to clean.

The recoil is about what you'd expect from an all-steel 9, no more, no less. If you've never fired a 9mm before, it's about halfway between Clint Eastwood's .44 magnum and a capgun. Put another way, you know you're firing a weapon but it's not enough to hurt your wrist or shock you.

Being a lefty it's unusual to have a gun in your hand that feels contoured just for you.  The CZ-82 is almost completely ambidextrous; they've engineered the thumb-guard and the finger-guard to be interchangeable, so the gun feels molded to your hand.  The handle is a little thicker than most handguns to accommodate a double-stacked magazine, so it fits in the palm with a satisfying feeling of substance and heft. I wouldn't call my hands small, but they're certainly not big, and even with the double-thick handle I got no sense that the gun was uncomfortably large.

My first time handling the weapon I was able to get a 3-inch grouping at seven yards, which I think is about par with my shooting skills for a first time.  I'm sure that once I get the nuances of this one down I'll be able to narrow that down a bit.  Insofar as it's currently my home defense pistol, that means that pretty much, wherever I am in the house, I'll be able to hit whoever I'm trying to hit right in the heart two times out of three, and that should be sufficient even for those who think that 9mm isn't a large enough round for personal defense.  The hell, I say!

Breaking down the 82 is simplicity itself - pull back on the front part of the trigger guard, pull back the slide, lift a little, and bring it forward and off.  Take the main spring off the fixed barrel and that's it.  Literally a 10-second field strip. Mine came with a little cleaning rod and I used a few pads and my trusty bottle of Hoppe's #9 and was able to clean it really well.  Maybe it's because I was using cheap (Brown Bear) ammo but putting 100 rounds through it made it filthy. Not enough to create any failures, mind you, but every surface needed to be cleaned multiple times.  Meh - it's the price you pay for shooting.  You sit in front of the TV, you clean the thing, you move on. Don't forget a light coat of oil on every surface that you cleaned.

In conclusion, this is one time that life lived up to the hype.  The gun I received was in near-perfect condition, as advertised.  It was comfortable to hold and a perfect gun for a lefty. It ate through two boxes of ammo with no failures to feed or to fire, and its accuracy was more than sufficient for personal defense. OVERALL GRADE: A.

Peace, Love, and Ammo,
CS