Category: C&R

Well, the new revolver arrived, so I cleaned it up for it to get it’s picture taken:

Cleaned up pretty nice. I cleaned the thick greasy oil out of it and replaced it with some nice Friction Defense Gun Oil, from Brownell’s, and now the cylinder rotates into place and pushes forward rather nicely.

The downside to the Nagant revolver is the price of the ammo. Bitter asked “What’s so unusual about it?”, and my response was “Have you ever seen an uncircumcised penis?” Either way, 40-50 cents a trigger pull is steep, but someone said the other day there’s a way to reload for it. It’s also a pretty weak cartridge, only generating 157 ft-lbs of muzzle energy. No wonder Rasputin lived:

Determined to finish the job, Yusupov became anxious about the possibility that Rasputin might live until the morning, which would leave the conspirators with no time to conceal his body. Yusupov ran upstairs to consult the others and then came back down to shoot Rasputin through the back with a revolver. Rasputin fell, and the company left the palace for a while. Yusupov, who had left without a coat, decided to return to grab one, and, while at the palace, he went to check up on the body. Suddenly, Rasputin opened his eyes, grabbed Yusupov by the throat and strangled him. As he made his bid for freedom, however, the other conspirators arrived and fired at him. After being hit three times in the back, Rasputin fell once more. As they neared his body, the party found that, remarkably, he was still alive, struggling to get up. They clubbed him into submission and, after wrapping his body in a sheet, threw him into an icy river, and he finally met his end there

The trigger pull is brutal too. It’s almost a two stage like trigger. Take up the slack and it rotates the cylinder, but then it takes a quite a pull to push the cylinder into the barrel and drop the hammer.

We’ll have to see how it shoots once I get some ammo, but I got it mostly just to have one.

Buying a new surplus SKS is not for those who don’t know how to completely strip down a rifle and reassemble it. I don’t mean field strip either, I mean strip down every part, clean, and reassemble. I picked it up from the UPS depot on Tuesday, and got to work immediately. I learned that Bitter frowns on the practice of using a tin foil tray in the toaster oven to melt off the excess cosmoline from the smaller parts. After a mishap, I ended up with a new toaster oven. It was a tough battle, but I think I’m happy with the result:

It’s now ready to take to the range. I can’t wait to shoot it. It had quite a lot of cosmoline on it that had to be removed. Turns out Gunzilla doesn’t work as well as Hoppes No. 9 on cosmoline. It works decently, but just not quite as well. That’s probably because Hoppes is mostly kerosene, which is going to solvate a heavy grease better than most other things.

What has me stoked is that it’s in really good shape. No rust, very little wear on the finish. Shiny barrel without any evidence of pitting. Good stock, which looks like it’s seen some use, but in decent shape. The kit that came with it has someone’s name written inside, which I thought was a nice added touch.

My CZ82 pistol has arrived. I was rather disturbed to come home to find it between my security door and storm door. The Nagant came 21+ signature required, so I had to go to the UPS depot and pick it up. I’m glad I don’t have to drive anywhere to get it, but I would gladly do that to minimize the risk of it being stolen.

It arrived tucked away inside its holster. Like my Makarov holster, this one is designed to be collected. I find it hard to believe anyone would actually carry this. It would seem it’s designed to make it as difficult as possible to draw and fire the weapon.

It’s a good looking pistol. It fits nicely in my hand, and has a very nice trigger pull. I also like that the magazine is drop free, and can be released with the shooting hand. It also comes with a cord. I noticed in Paris the police having what looked like a phone cord attached to their pistols and then to their body. This seems to me to be ideas politicians come up with who don’t have much regard for the lives of their officers.

I’m a little disappointed that the importer’s markings chipped the paint up so bad. I think I can probably correct this though.

If this pistol is used, whoever it was issued to hardly ever fired it. The feed ramp, bore, and chamber are all bright and shiny, and there’s no sign of mechanical wear anywhere on the pistol. The rifling in the bore is very difficult to see, which is because the CZ82 uses polygonal rifling. To a casual observer, the bore would appear to be totally smooth.

The sights on the CZ82 are a marked improvement over typical Makarov sights. You can actually see the front sight post without having to twist your wrist around searching for it. The sites are a little yellowed, but a fresh dab of paint should fix that right up.

The only drawback to this pistol the fact that it employs a non-metallic biological decocker (your trigger finger and thumb). While the hammer is blocked if the trigger isn’t pulled all the way back, a slip up at the moment of truth and you have an accidental discharge on your hands. The pistol does have a safety for carrying it cocked and locked, but the hammer isn’t blocked when the safety is on. I wouldn’t carry it in this mode. Given it’s very smooth and gentle double action trigger pull, carrying with the hammer down would definitely be recommended. The firing pin is held back with a spring, so it won’t have the Makarov’s relatively scary sound of the firing pin moving back and forth.

Overall I’d say it’s a better carry gun than the Makarov, but the true test will be once I get it to the range.

UPDATE: Sailorcurt asks about ambidextrousness.  I didn’t even consider that, but on that subject:

The pistol is completely ambidextrous.  The contours of the grip are the same on both sides.  Holding it in my left hand feels pretty good as well.  Both the safety and mag release are ambidextrous.

The ATF recently reclassified the CZ-82 as C&R, so I decided to place an order for one.

I already keep 9×18 Makarov in stock, so this pistol doesn’t require me to keep yet another caliber of pistol cartridge in stock.  I’ll get the Nagant revolver later I think.  It comes with a spare magazine.

I’m pretty sure this pistol is safe for concealed carry.  I’ll have to check it out thoroughly when it arrives.  I can get used to the idea of ordering new carry pistols off the internet.