A few years ago after putting enough rounds through the CZ 75 TS Czechmate Parrot to review it and shooting a match with it, I decided to put it away and treat it as a collectible given how rare it is here in the states. However, there was a lot I liked about shooting the Czechmate Parrot. While the price point isn’t exactly budget friendly, it did offer a much lower entry point to shooting USPSA’s Open division than the alternative 2011 options and that’s something I wanted to dabble in. So I did exactly what one would expect a handgun shooting nerd to do and shopped around for a deal on a standard CZ 75 TS Czechmate. My timing coincided with CZ’s discontinuation of the Czechmates which I was unaware of at the time. However, I suspect there was some industry insider news circulating because the prices on new Czechmates at online retailers started dropping. And I snagged one.

The road to 500 rounds has been very slow. It’s actually a good bit past the 500 round mark, but still closer to 500 than to 1K. Regardless, it’s been more than two years. That’s a snail’s pace given how much I shoot but it’s not without reasons. Or excuses, depending on your point of view. Regardless, I’ll take you through a stroll down memory lane.

The first thing I did with the Czechmate after picking it up from my local FFL was take it to the range to run a 50 round box of 9mm through it to make sure it was functional out of the box. Unsurprisingly, it passed that test without any hiccups.

Given my previous experience with the Parrot, where I discovered that standard pressure 9mm rounds don’t generate anywhere near sufficient gas pressure to take advantage of the compensator, and knowing that major power factor is a competitive advantage in Open division, the very next thing I did was send off the spare barrel that was included with the purchase of the Czechmate to Patriot Defense for their 9mm barrel reaming service. Was this necessary? I can’t be entirely certain. The only thing I can be certain of is that it doesn’t hurt anything. I can also tell you that CZs are notorious for having “tight chambers” and they are quite often too tight to chamber 9mm Major loads which tend to have OAL (over all length) due to extra powder charge.

While the barrel was off getting reamed, I scoured two boutique ammunition manufacturers for in stock 9mm Major loads. The two manufacturers that were recommended to me by a few USPSA Open division Grand Masters were:

• Atlanta Arms (currently out of stock as of writing, but they are still offering it)
• Outdoor Dynamics (no longer offers 9mm major as of writing)

I ended up ordering a thousand rounds of 9mm from Outdoor Dynamics. While it wasn’t as expensive as a case of premium 9mm self defense loads, it was about 30-40% more expensive than one would expect to pay for a case of 9mm FMJ factory loads (including the premium match loads). This made it pretty apparent that if I decided to take the USPSA Open division thing seriously with the Czechmate and 9mm Major, I would need to either increase my ammunition budget or invest into hand loading my own ammunition. I have done neither since I haven’t decided to take Open division seriously. If I ever do, then I will most likely go the hand loading route as that offers a wider range of possibilities.

The next order of business was increasing capacity. The options were modifying the magazines with extended capacity magazine base pads, springs, and followers, or purchasing aftermarket competition magazines from MBX Extreme. I opted for the second option given I had a better experience going that route with the CZ Shadow 2 after attempting the magazine modifications to “save a few bucks”. I ended up going with blue base pads on the MBX magazines to differentiate them from the Shadow 2 magazines which already had the orange pads. The blue ended up clashing with the aesthetics of the Czechmate after the other modifications I had planned but failed to account for when ordering them. Aesthetics aside, the 24-round 140mm magazines and the 29-round 170mm magazine have worked out great so far, which is consistent with my experience with other MBX magazines.

Also while waiting for the barrel to return and the ammunition to arrive, I ordered the parts to make the three modifications to the Czechmate.

The first two modifications consisted of replacing the stock grips and magazine well with a set of GridLok palm swell brass grips and a GridLok brass magazine well from LokGrips. I got them at a discount thanks to LokGrips being my first shooting sponsor. Aside from the aesthetics and the aggressive texture, that I love, the idea was that the additional 12 or so ounces would help keep the pistol flatter during recoil. In theory, that made sense to me. In practice, I’m not sure it worked out the way I imagined. The gun feels a bit too butt heavy. I haven’t shot it enough to form a strong enough opinion to replace the brass with aluminum or to give the hollow brass grips a try. All I know right now is that their weight feels a little off. Unbalanced, maybe. Enough to make me mention it in this post, but not enough to do anything about it beyond that just yet.

The third modification was replacing the stock left thumb safety lever with an extended safety level made by CZ Custom which I found in stock at Ben Stoeger Pro Shop. This was a necessary upgrade from me as my short stubby thumb was having trouble consistently disengaging the safety after drawing the pistol.

While the extended safety solved that problem, I later discovered it created another. It often would create a hot spot on my support side thumb’s second knuckle which often found itself pushed into the front of the safety when shooting. It’s quite annoying and painful. I suspect the reason it ends up there is because of the position my support hands up when attempting to interface with the thumb rest (or gas pedal). Removing the thumb rest is on the horizon as I only have one more remaining angle adjustment to test. However, if that test fails, the removal of the thumb rest doesn’t guarantee that the problem will be alleviated. If it gets to that point I will have to look for alternative safety levers that I will be able to actuate with my firing hand thumb that don’t present the same hot spot problem. In other words, I’ve still got some tweaking to do to get the Czechmate to work for me.

Aside from the hands to gun interface issues, the Czechmate runs pretty well with 9mm Major loads. The compensator has responded really well to the additional gas pressure and often looks like the chimney of a locomotive that is blowing a smoke stack as it makes its way through a match stage. I suspect the gun could benefit from some recoil spring tuning and run even better, but that will have to wait until I solve the hot spot and the ammunition supply issues. Spending more money on the Czechmate before then doesn’t make much sense to me.

I have found a couple of minor annoyances with the Czechmate. These aren’t issues per se, but things that require a bit more care and attention to avoid mishaps.

The first annoyance is the little itty bitty take down tool that is required to capture the recoil spring in order to remove it along with the guide rod to complete the field strip procedure necessary for performing routine maintenance. It is a small and thin L-shaped metal tool that is begging to be misplaced and lost. Inserting into the small hole of the guide rod while the recoil spring is fully compressed can also prove to be challenging and tedious. Especially with oily hands. I suspect someone makes low cost replacements because I imagine they get misplaced often enough, however, I haven’t yet looked for replacements although I probably should.

The second annoyance is all of the little different sized screws that hold all of the accessories in place that require half a dozen different sized Torx or hex keys. These can benefit from witness marks to make it easier to tell when one is coming loose and is in need of tightening. Ask me how I know. Never mind, I’ll save you the trouble. I already had the slide racker fly off in the middle of a stage at a match because the tiny Torx screw that holds it in place came loose. Unfortunately a witness mark wouldn’t have been much help since the screw is obscured by the C-More optic and the optic mount. And before anyone asks, yes, all of the threads were cleaned, degreased, and torqued with thread locker applied. While all that stuff mitigates the risk of things coming loose and flying off, it doesn’t eliminate that risk.

While on the topic of the C-More optic, I will say that the rather large and prehistoric looking optic has been a fantastic optic. At least, functionally. The window is nice and big. The dot is nice and bright. The optic holds zero. My only complaint is that it likes to drain batteries faster than rabbits reproduce. Failing to remember to turn it off after a stage runs the risk of the battery dying before the end of a match. That also means that one has to remember to turn it on during their “make ready” procedure to avoid starting a stage without the optic being powered on. It’s begging to be replaced, but, like the recoil spring tuning, it can wait.

Even with the issues and annoyances, it’s still a great pistol. One that I believe is worth considering seriously by those who are looking to get into USPSA Open division “on the cheap”. As of writing, there are still plenty of listings for the CZ 75 TS Czechmate on GunBroker.com in the $2.5K to $3K range. There is also a good bit of old stock available at some online retailers in the same price range. I have no doubt that those who opt to take this route to get started with USPSA’s Open division will end up tinkering with the gun to get it right, but that is half the fun.

As for me and this particular Czechmate, I’m not sure where we will end up. I have enough 9mm Major ammo to shoot three more local matches which I’m not in a hurry to do. It’s something that will happen when I feel like changing things up for a match and test the latest thumb rest position tweak. When that ammo is finally expended, the Czechmate will have passed the 1K round milestone and I will follow up with an update post then.