CZ 75 P-01 - Multiple Failures to Feed

[NDB_MN]

Yeah, hitting up Wolff's for new springs is probably a good idea - especially if multiple mags are causing the issue. May be a weak recoil spring...

It should last more than 2k rounds (they've done 15k torture tests on the P-01 before), but you never really know what the previous owner did with it.

My P-01 has never had any issues. Bought it used (though by the looks of it very LIGHTLY used) and have 1 CZ factory mag and 2 Mecgars. No FTE/FTF ever with it. Sweet little shooter once I lightened the mainspring.

[Thunder71]

I hope I can say the same about mine soon... will find out soon enough, I did give it another good cleaning over the weekend and put some CLP on the magazine followers as they seemed to be sticking.

[yuppiejr]

Just to eliminate all other variables I'd be curious if you have the same feed issues with the 2 x 10 round factory magazines (they came with the pistol originally) with the same ammo? Feels like we need to eliminate some variables and there are 3 different types of magazines in play, half of which are known "questionable" (thus they were thrown in for free), plus at least 3 kinds of ammo which is going to make it hard to isolate gun vs mag vs ammo. For any further testing I'd strongly advise ONLY using the CZ 10-rounders and, if possible, one kind of ammo.

The two original "ban-era" 10-round CZ factory mags that came with the pistol (blued finish, dimpled plastic baseplate to limit cartridge capacity) and 2 x 13 unmarked steel baseplate magazines were the ones I used regularly, the 4 with flat plastic bottoms were thrown in as "project" freebies and I would take them out of circulation until we've gotten further down the road troubleshooting this. The pistol is bone stock as purchased, I replaced nothing on/in the gun itself... just added some magazines, cleaned it after each trip to the range and fed it factory brass cased ammo (Federal, Winchester, S&B, Remington, you name it..) until I got a wild hair to start shooting a 1911 style .45 recently. The P01 should be good to 15,000 rounds of +P ( I only shot the normal pressure stuff ) from the factory without replacing any parts so this gun is pretty much just getting broken in by NATO/CZ standards unless there's some sort of metal fatigue specific to the flat metal recoil springs that is accelerated by age vs use after 10 years?

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=169843

[LarryFlew]

To correct some mis-information in that old firing line thread, all CZ alloy frames are forged and always have been. They were never cast.

[1911fan]

If the carrier is hanging up like you said, sometimes with cheap mags the witness holes on the side of the mag can have burrs on the inside of the mag tube. drop the base plate, take a small file or block of wood and rub it up and down the inside of the tube to see if you can feel resistance from the burrs. I had a S&W 5900 series that had some mags with this, and a bunch of hi power mags that had the same thing. I used a block of wood cut to fit with some sandpaper to smooth them out, now they work.

It seems to be a tell tale of cheap mags if they have less than smooth edges and holes....

[Thunder71]

Thanks guys, I've eliminated the 4 questionable magazines and was going to go to the range over the weekend but well... just too muggy out, especially at the local range which rarely has so much as a breeze.

I'll check the insides for possible causes of hangups as that could certainly be a possibility.

When it fails to feed the round is at about a 45* angle and appears to be hanging up on the feed ramp, so a combination of the recoil spring and a sticky magazine could very well fix this issue.

I've read how the CZ-P01 is a little harder to hand rack than some other guns and I find it pretty easy compared to my Kahr, but not much different than my XDM but the springs are cheap enough that it's definitely worth replacing even if it's not necessary in my opinion.

I think I'll skip the extractor spring for now because I'm not real comfortable with that just yet.

After my last cleaning it does seem to be feeding/extracting the rounds when done by hand, so shooting it should provide even better results...

Will keep you posted, thanks again for all the great feedback and ideas!

[Thunder71]

Update:

Went to the range today with 100 rounds of 115 grain Federal target ammo and 50 rounds of Winchester white box 147 grain JHP defense ammo (never seen this stuff before).

Not one failure!

Seems the gun just hates Remington UMC target ammo.

I do have a replacement recoil spring on the way, figure I'll need one eventually anyway and it can't hurt to replace it.

Love this gun.

[yuppiejr]

Good to hear, I agree the yellow UMC stuff seems to hate that gun, if you have one unfired bullet left (even better if it's one that hung up during feed) and a set of calipers I'd be curious what the overall length of the bullet + case is compared to the cartridges you've had luck with? I'd wager it's just a bit longer (10ths or 100ths of an inch +- normal mfgr tolerances) than most other 9mm ammunition and is hitting the top of the chamber and getting stuck. The feed ramp is fairly agressively angled in the CZ and if the overall case + bullet are too long it's not going to be able to pivot back down into the chamber after riding up from the magazine. In theory a stronger recoil spring might actually force the round to chamber even if the bullet is hanging on the top of the chamber and eliminate the function problem but you may still end up with a dented bullet nose when you get one that's on the long side of tolerances.

[Thunder71]

Funny you mention that, someone posted that they are known to be a little longer than most others. UMC seems to be a common issue on the CZ forums... At least my XDM and PM9 fire it just fine so it won't go to waste.

I'll set them up side by side and see if it's noticeable... I bet it probably is.

[Thunder71]

Stopped at another range on my way home and put another 60+ rounds through it, everything but the UMC fired perfectly and I was hitting fragments of clay pigeons from 50+ yards

Have I said how much I love this gun lately?