Back in June 2025 I posted first impressions of the CZ Shadow 2 Carry without having fired it. Lazy? No. The trigger was good, but it wasn’t a Shadow 2 trigger, and I knew who I wanted to fix that before I formed an opinion on the range. So the gun went to Cajun Gun Works, the same shop that transformed my Shadow 2 Optics-Ready in 2023. The trigger was the only thing in the way, because the Carry had already fixed the two things that kept me from recommending the Shadow 2 Compact for defensive carry. The Cajunized CZ Shadow 2 Carry is home now, wearing an optic and new grips, and it finally has some rounds through it. This is the post I promised then.
One more thing changed since June 2025: the price. The S2 Carry hovered just shy of $1,400 then, and I predicted a $100 drop by year’s end. By November 2026, the deals site had it under $1,200. I’ll take the win.
Why It Went to Cajun Gun Works
The Compact Problem
Start with the Compact, because the Carry only makes sense next to it. When I reviewed the Shadow 2 Compact in 2023 I called defensive carry possible, with caveats, and the caveats were serious. The Compact has no firing pin block and no decocker. Carrying it with a round chambered meant either cocked and locked behind a thin thumb safety I could barely reach, or hammer down, which meant manually lowering the hammer on a live round every time. That’s an advanced manual of arms that demands full attention, and it gets harder when you’re tired or under stress. By the 500-round update I was only recommending the Compact to accomplished pistoleros, and I said most folks wanting a DA/SA CZ for carry would be better served by a 75 variant with a decocker.
What the S2 Carry Fixed
The Shadow 2 Carry is CZ’s answer to exactly that. It’s the first Shadow 2 with a firing pin block, so it’s drop-safe, and the first with a decocker, so the hammer comes down with a lever instead of a thumb on a live round. Of the two, the decocker is the one that matters most for defensive carry. It turns the Compact’s expert-only manual of arms into the ordinary DA/SA routine any CZ 75 decocker owner already knows. Fire, decock, holster.
The cost of those two features is the trigger, and the June 2025 post has the full gauge numbers and my complaints about the reach. The short version: good, but not a Shadow 2 trigger. Cajun Gun Works, CGW from here on, took my Shadow 2 OR’s double action from about 8.7 lb to about 5.4 lb in 2023. That’s who you send it to when you want the closest thing to a Shadow 2 trigger without undoing what makes the Carry a carry gun.
What Cajun Gun Works Did
The Work Order
CGW doesn’t have a Carry-specific package, and it doesn’t need one. Because the Carry has a firing pin block and a decocker, it takes the same Pro-Package CGW builds for the 75 decockers, the P-01s and PCRs and 75 BDs that defensive CZ shooters have carried for years. The firing pin block stays. What changes is everything around it. The big pieces are a CGW decocker hammer, a CGW trigger with a floating trigger pin, and the CGW hybrid disconnector. The trigger and the disconnector are what separate the Pro-Package from the cheaper Standard one, and together they do the job of CGW’s stand-alone reach reduction kit. Then the small parts: a reduced-power trigger return spring, hardened hammer pins, a 13 lb hammer spring with a matching reduced-power firing pin spring, a tempered firing pin retaining pin, and the short-reset lifter arm.
I’ll say again what I said in 2023: the parts are available to anyone, and the fitting is the magic. I fitted a Pro-Package to my Compact myself and nearly gave up on the disconnector. That’s the point of having CGW do it.
CGW’s package pricing lists the Pro-Package for the Shadow 2 Carry at $482 installed. On my work order I picked the Race Hammer in DLC, the flat DA/SA trigger in DLC, and two add-ons: a stainless steel guide rod and a 13 lb recoil spring. The invoice came to $660.33: $482 for the package, $15 to refinish the trigger in DLC, $25 for the guide rod, $8 for the spring, $80 for FedEx both ways, and $50.33 in sales tax.
The Timeline
The process hasn’t changed since 2023. You get on the waiting list, and some weeks later an email says they’re ready for your work order. You submit it on their site, they send shipping instructions, and the pistol goes FFL to FFL, which means a trip to your local dealer and a modest fee on top of shipping. CGW confirms receipt, does the work, calls for payment, and the gun lands back at your FFL.
Here’s how it went this time. I got on the waiting list on May 27, 2025, before I’d even published the first impressions. The work order opened on June 17, three weeks later. The pistol shipped to CGW on June 20, and it shipped back on August 12. That’s seven and a half weeks on their bench and eleven weeks from the waiting list to the day it shipped home, a week faster than the OR’s twelve in 2023. For a shop with CGW’s reputation and backlog, that’s quick. Then the gun waited on me. The hiatus I covered in my return post kept me off the range, and the first rounds had to wait with it.
The Trigger, Before and After
Same Wheeler digital gauge, same method as June 2025, with pull weights rounded to the nearest quarter pound. Stock numbers are from that post; the Cajunized numbers are fresh. Travel is eyeballed with a ruler, so treat those as estimates. One note on the single action: in June 2025 I logged 1/4 in of pre-travel and a squishy 1/4 in after it. I suspect that squish was the second stage, and I didn’t recognize it as one.
| Stock (June 2025) | Cajunized | |
|---|---|---|
| DA pull | 9.75 lb | 8.25 lb |
| SA pull | 4.75 lb | 3.75 lb |
| DA pre-travel | 3/8 in | 1/8 in |
| DA travel to break | 5/8 in | 5/8 in |
| SA travel | 1/4 in, then a squishy 1/4 in | About 1/4 in, in two stages |
| Reset | 3/8 in | 3/8 in |
| Reach | Long | About 5 mm shorter |
My Gauge Versus CGW’s Card
CGW sends the pistol home with a certification card signed by the gunsmith who did the work, and this gun’s card declares the double action at 6.75 lb and the single action at 3.5 lb. My gauge reads a pound and a half heavier in DA and a quarter pound heavier in SA. Who’s right? Probably them. A CGW gunsmith measures trigger pulls several times a day. I do it once or twice a year on a busy year. Take their numbers as the gun’s and mine as the shooter’s.
Does the S2 Carry Feel Like a Shadow 2 Now?
Numbers aside, the trigger feels very different from stock. Lighter, sure, but mostly smoother, and a lot closer to the buttery pull you expect from a Shadow 2. It still isn’t the same. The firing pin block no longer announces itself, but with enough care you can still find it. That’s the two-stage single action in the table. The first half of the pre-travel takes almost no pressure and stops at a wall. Add about 2 lb and the trigger moves through the second half to a second wall, which is the real one at the sear. My best guess is the first wall is the firing pin block being pushed out of the way. It isn’t gross, but there’s a sponginess in that second stage that a Shadow 2 without a block doesn’t have, and it will demand extra care on the ultra-precise shots.
Which brings me back to the badge. The Carry looks like a Shadow 2, and after CGW it comes a lot closer to shooting like one, but I still wouldn’t call this a Shadow 2 trigger, and I still don’t think the pistol has earned the name. Whether CZ branded it that way to cash in on Shadow 2 recognition, or to wipe away some of the tarnish the Compact left behind, I can’t say. The Compact is still listed on CZ’s website, so it isn’t being swept under the rug. That’s my opinion and my speculation, and y’all are welcome to disagree with both.
Reach, Reset and the Block
The reach is the other big change. It comes from the package’s trigger and disconnector. CGW’s stand-alone reach reduction kit claims about 5 mm, and that squares with what my hand tells me. The gun fits me much better now. I can live with it, and I’d still take more reduction if it were possible. The reset is the same 3/8 in as before. And yes, the firing pin block is still in there and still doing its job. The gun is still a drop-safe pistol.
I’ll add the one caveat I always add. A lighter double action on a carry gun is a feature right up until it isn’t, and the decocker only helps if you use it. Decock after every string. Decock before the holster. If that habit isn’t automatic yet, a lighter trigger is a reason to build it, not an excuse to skip it.
The Rest of the Build
The Optic on the S2 Carry
The Carry’s direct-mount RMSc footprint rules out the big windows I prefer, so the gun got the Holosun Ronin EPS Carry I reviewed in July 2025, and everything I said about compact dots there still stands. Like every dot I run on a pistol, it’s zeroed at 25 yards.
The forced small optic still irks me, and I’ll own that as bias. It’s bias built on years of carrying a pistol with a dot on it, years of shooting them, and years of teaching other people to shoot them. Pistol-mounted optics don’t forgive a sloppy or inconsistent presentation or an underdeveloped index, which I’ve covered in other posts, and smaller windows forgive even less. I wish I could mount a dot with a bigger window on this gun. On this footprint, I never will.
Grips and Sights
The OEM Duralumin panels came off and a set of black aluminum LOK Grips Palm Swell GridLOK went on, the same pattern that won out on my Compact after three tries. They look and feel fantastic. The aggressive texture is a trade, and I’ll own it: it isn’t kind to skin in an IWB holster and it chews through undershirts. That happens with any gun you practice from concealment with. It just happens faster with grips like these. I make that trade every time, because it keeps the pistol locked into my grip through long strings.
The sights are still the factory luminescent night sights I called a misstep in June 2025. They’re suboptimal, but they work well enough as backup irons under the optic that swapping them isn’t a priority. It’s on the list. It’s just low on the list.
Holsters: The S2 Carry Is Not a Compact
Here’s the thing nobody told me and I haven’t seen written anywhere else. Holster compatibility is not shared between the Shadow 2 Carry and the Shadow 2 Compact. They’re the same size on paper, and I assumed the Compact holsters on my shelf would work. They don’t. I didn’t chase down which millimeter is to blame. Knowing it didn’t fit was enough, so I did what I do for every gun I might conceal: I went to JM Custom Kydex for my default, an IWB 3 with 1.5 in DCC Monoblock clips. The only thing unique to this one is the Kryptek Typhon finish. It looks cool, and it tells this holster apart from the other IWB 3s on the shelf, like the Compact’s. Call it a standard $100 line item. If you’re coming from a Compact, budget for it before the gun arrives.
First Rounds
The first session, on October 24, 2026, was short on purpose: two 15-round magazines of 147 gr CCI Blazer Brass, 30 rounds, no malfunctions. The first magazine went to zeroing the Ronin EPS Carry at 25 yards. The second went into a 2 in circle at 10 yards with no timer running. The idea was to get a feel for the pistol and confirm it runs, and the session did both.
The range didn’t change my mind on the trigger. It’s hard to tell by feel how heavy a pull really is. Did it feel like the 6.75 lb and 3.5 lb on CGW’s card? I guess. It feels nice, and it isn’t anywhere near as heavy as it was from the factory, but it’s clearly a heavier defensive pistol trigger and not a lighter competition trigger. That’s as it should be for what the Carry is built to do.
The decocker earned its keep too. Its location works great for me and my meaty hands with short fingers. It sits where my firing-hand thumb wants to rest anyway, much the way I ride a single-action thumb safety. The ledge is smaller than a typical single-action thumb safety, and I suspect that was a design decision to keep it from digging into a right-handed shooter carrying inside the waistband. It’s still big enough to work coming off a target and before the gun goes back in the holster. Your mileage will vary with the size of your hands and how they’re built.
The decocker is ambidextrous, but the lever for left-handed shooters is noticeably smaller. I didn’t try to run it with the support hand only or from a left-handed grip, so whether the smaller lever is functional stays an open question. That’s a topic for another post.
The recoil profile is a fast snap, and it’s snappier than the full-size Shadow 2. That makes sense. The Carry is lighter, with a shorter barrel and a shorter slide, and that calls for a heavier recoil spring. The 13 lb spring on my work order is lighter than the one the Carry ships with, but it’s still heavier than the 11 lb spring in my full-size Shadow 2, which is set up for Carry Optics and runs a shock buffer the Carry doesn’t use. None of this is surprising. It’s what every compact version of a larger semi-auto does so the smaller gun runs reliably. Unlike the trigger, though, I’d call this a Shadow 2 recoil profile: fast and aggressive, only with more snap. It also reminds me a lot of the Staccato C2, in the sense that it snaps and settles back in quickly as it returns.
The gun has a good feel to it, and it’s very shootable, which to me means it’s a gun I could run through a one- or two-day defensive pistol class without wishing I’d brought a full-size gun instead. Overall, it’s the kind of pistol I want more trigger time with.
Versus the Shadow 2 Compact
On paper the Carry is already the better carry gun: the Compact’s size with a firing pin block and a decocker, which answers the manual-of-arms caveat I hung on the Compact. The trigger comparison isn’t a fair fight, though. The block and the decocker make it apples and oranges, and my Compact wears a Pro-Package I fitted myself rather than one CGW fitted. If the fight is about feel and ease of shooting, the Compact wins. A lighter competition-tuned trigger always feels better and is always easier to shoot. But the heavier trigger is the tax the Carry paid to fix what made the Compact a flawed defensive tool.
Which one would I carry? Neither, honestly. I bought the Compact to carry, back when I was shooting a full-size Shadow 2 in USPSA, and its caveats talked me out of carrying it. It had a second job for a while. The full-size Shadow 2 is too heavy for any IDPA division, the Compact makes weight, and I ran it at local IDPA matches in 2024. Since then the Compact has had no job outside recreational shooting, and for that the full-size Shadow 2 is simply more fun. I’m ready to part ways with the Compact. The Carry’s problem is different: the Staccato C2 already has that job.
The Good
3
- Smoother, 1.5 lb lighter in DA, 5 mm shorter reach
- Decocker and firing pin block, now with a trigger to match
- Eleven weeks from waiting list to return shipment, no drama
The Bad
3
- Another $660 to make a $1,400 pistol right
- A spongy second stage the firing pin block leaves in the SA pull
- Small-window optics only
The Ugly
1
- Your Shadow 2 Compact holsters won’t fit it
Closing Thoughts
Was it worth sending a brand-new pistol away for two months and paying $660 for the privilege? For me, definitely. The work made an already good pistol much better, and it added a fair amount of money to an already spendy one. Between the gun and the work I’m in for about $2,000, and with a new Staccato C2 starting at $2,300, a 2011 isn’t a far stretch from that number. I wouldn’t recommend either one to a new shooter as a first gun. There are too many very good striker-fired pistols that cost far less and have a simpler manual of arms.
Where this pistol goes from here, I honestly can’t say. I like it a lot. Once it clears the 500-round test, with 100 of those being Federal HST, it would make a fine carry gun. But I’m partial to 2011s, and I don’t see it taking the throne from the Staccato C2. I’m not going to compete with it beyond the occasional local match. The one scenario where I can see it riding on my hip every day is if I decide to chase a higher classification in USPSA Carry Optics with the Shadow 2. Then the shared grip angle, ergonomics and controls make a real case for carrying the Carry through that stretch.
Nothing about what this gun is for changed on CGW’s bench: it’s a defensive pistol, and a lighter trigger doesn’t make it a game gun. The trigger is where the badge still falls short. The round count starts here, and whether the gun is as reliable as every other CZ I’ve owned is a topic for another post. In the meantime I want to hear from y’all: who else has a Shadow 2 Carry back from Cajun Gun Works, and what did you have done?
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