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| Article by: Jamie
Mangrum |
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Adobe PDF
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The Vz52 pistol (commonly
known as the CZ52 pistol) is a great little
semi-automatic pistol that is very accurate and a joy to shoot.
There are a few quality issues with internal parts
of the pistol that I am going to address.
For the sake of this article I am going to
focus on what I consider to be the two most
important issues because of safety. |
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The Vz52's firing pin is brittle
and if dry fired, you stand a very good chance of breaking the
tip off of the firing pin. Dry firing is cocking the firearm
without a loaded cartridge in the chamber and
pulling the trigger. During
normal operation with a cartridge loaded in the
chamber the firing pin impacts the primer.
During dry firing
the firing pin travels farther forward without
impacting the primer of a loaded cartridge. The
firing pin slams into the face of the slide
because nothing stops it. As a test and since I had
received a replacement firing pin I attempted to break
my original firing pin by repeatedly dry firing
the pistol. The tip of my old firing pin did
finally break off after about twenty dry fires.
The next and most important thing to worry about with the Vz52
is the fact that the de-cocking device after 50
years most likely does not function. I prove
this later in the article with my pistol and
also show you a way to test your Vz52 to see if
your de-cocking device is functioning properly as well.
You should not use this safety
feature because most likely it is not
functioning properly and will cause an
unintended discharge of a loaded round.
Unintended discharge, this means that if you
have a loaded cartridge and you attempt to
de-cock your Vz52 pistol, the firing pin will
strike the primer of the loaded cartridge
causing the firearm to discharge. This is a very
dangerous condition and another reason to always point a
firearm in a safe direction and assume that it
is loaded. |
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To accomplish this project you will need to
field strip and reassemble your Vz52 pistol.
Click here for detailed disassembly and
reassembly instructions. |
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Figure 2 shows the
bottom of the Vz52's slide. Note the half moon
object. This is the top of the spring loaded
firing pin plunger that holds the firing pin in
place. Also note the alignment of the top of the
plunger. When reassembled the plunger needs to
be aligned in the same manner. |
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Removing the Vz52 firing pin is
pretty easy to do. I took a flat tipped punch and
depressed the plunger while pointing the muzzle
of the slide towards the ceiling. This should
allow for the firing pin to fall out as shown in
figure 3. |
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Keep light pressure applied while
removing the firing pin, but the plunger spring
is small and not very powerful and the plunger
will not skyrocket out like other spring loaded
devices on firearms.
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Remove the firing pin plunger
and spring and set aside in a safe place so as
not to lose them. Now take a moment and blow out
the firing pin channel to make sure it is clean
and free of debris. A spray can of canned air
would serve well. |
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Figure 6 shows the old
firing pin (light in color) on the bottom
and the new heat treated, machined firing pin (dark
in color) I purchased from
Makarov.com for $28. They have a large
selection of aftermarket grips, barrels, and
many other parts for your Vz52. |
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Replace the plunger and spring
aligned as shown. |
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Insert the firing pin with the
flat side pointing towards the flat side of the
half moon of the plunger. Once you get the
firing pin about half way inserted, press down on the
plunger until the firing pin snaps into place.
Let the plunger spring expand and the spring
should be locked in place.
Next is a procedure
you should use for checking two things: 1)
to make sure your firing pin tip properly
protrudes through the slide face when the hammer
impacts the rear and 2) the de-cocking
device functions properly. |
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Note: The instructions state that if your
new firing pin
does not extend out of the face of the slide then
you either have debris, a burr in the firing pin
hole, or the firing pin hole is grossly out of
specifications and you may
possibly need to drill out the hole to the
proper 0.219 to 0.220 measurement. I was very
pleased that mine was just a drop-in procedure. I hope
your project is as easy as mine was. If not then
the instructions supplied with the firing pin
will guide you through the drilling process.
The new firing pin functions flawlessly and
since it is a much higher quality made pin then
I have considerably less of a chance of breaking
the firing pin if I dry fire. |
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To accomplish this project you will need to
field strip and reassemble your Vz52 pistol.
Click here for detailed disassembly and
reassembly instructions. |
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I found if you take a regular
No. 2 pencil it can be inserted into the barrel
of the Vz52 easily. I would recommend a nice new
pencil and not the short stump that I used (I
found it was all I had in the house). Next I would recommend
removing the eraser and metal eraser holder so
the pencil fits better and does not scar the
barrel. Also placing a small piece of clear tape
over the flat end of the pencil is the best way
of determining whether the firing pin is
extending, through the firing pin hole and
impacting the cartridge's primer, as it will actually puncture the tape. |
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Insert the pencil with the
taped end towards the firing pin. |
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Since my pencil was short I
used a flat punch to apply pressure against the
end of the pencil and make certain it made good
contact with the face of the slide. Then I
performed two different tests, multiple times
each. For each test examined and replaced the
tape.
For the first test I pulled
the trigger to make certain the firing pin was
doing what it is supposed to do and found that
the tape was broken cleanly through every single test and the
lead of the pencil had been deeply indented.
For the next test I tried the pencil test while working the
de-cocking device. |
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The sad news is that every
single time I performed my de-cocking I found a deep hole
in the tape (as shown in figure 12).
What this means is that every time I de-cock and if I
am unlucky enough to have a loaded cartridge in
the chamber - BANG!!! I will have an
unintentional discharge. If this does happen to
anyone then i pray to god that it happens at the
range with the pistol pointed safely down range
and no one is injured.
Note: I tried the de-cocking test on two
different Vz52 pistols and had exactly the same
results. My recommendation: DON'T USE THE
DE-COCKER - EVER! |
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jlm;) |
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Adobe PDF
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