Side by side pistol review - CZ P-09 and a Glock 17 Gen 3 (Part 2)

Part 2 - There and back again, the Glock tale.  

Glock 17 Gen 3 (OD)

With my favorite Glock shop slowly running down their Gen 3 Olive Drab inventory and no near term hope of finding more, I've been on a quest to grab the ones that I want before they are on hiatus.  (You know, until Glock figures they can make money on another run.)

First things first.  I'm not a big fan of Glock's factory sights.   Having had good luck with Sevigny Performance in the past, I went ahead and ordered a set of their carry sights.  ($70)  When they showed up, a quick trip to Glockmeister got them installed and one of their budget trigger jobs applied.  ("-" connector and a reduced power trigger spring) ($30)

First impressions at the range...

Bang
*ouch*

Fuck

Bang

*ouch*

Fuck

Evidently, Like a lot of others I was hit with a Gen 3 Glock that ejected straight back and not off to the right.

I freaking loved the setup.  I was shooting fantastic groups with that setup.  But man, 4 out of 5 rounds were straight back at the person behind the trigger.   I even had one of my buddies take a few shots with it to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong. 

Range trip #1 - Failed.

If I was smart, I'd have shipped it off to Glock for warranty repair immediately.  But I'm not, and didn't want the headache.   So first stop was back to my local Glock dealer and swapped out the ejector and extractor with factory new replacement parts.  ($27)

The next day after work, it was back to the range.  Same problem, no changes.

Bang
*ouch*

Fuck

Bang

*ouch*

Fuck

On this trip I was smart enough to wear a hat at least.   So by tipping the bill down, I'd keep it off my face and away from my glasses.

Range trip #2 - Failed.

Some advice from the forums I frequent had me looking for alternatives.   The recommendation was three fold:

1) Replace the stock 336 ejector with the 274 (Spare already on hand)

2) Replace the plunger assembly with the HRED from White Sound from CPWSA.com ($26)

3) Replace the stock extractor with the APEX Failure Resistant Extractor ($68)

It took a few days for the parts to show up and get time to head back to the range.  But both CPWSA and Apex shipped prompty and the product delivered was pretty slick.

Off to the range I went for attempt #3.

Perfect ejection at 90 degrees to the shooter on the first 4 rounds.   Then I started seeing 2-3 stovepipes 15 rounds.   Completely unreliable.    There was a lot of swearing on my part.

Range trip #3 - Failed.

At this point I contacted Glock and got a return authorized.  I was done.  Reading on the forums, I wasn't optimistic.  There were horror stories of 3-4 trips not resolving the problem.

So I stripped out the 274 ejector, returned the stock OEM trigger parts, plunger and extractor and got it ready to ship.

The shipping label showed up the next day.   The pistol shipped out on the 13th and it was available at my house on the 22nd.   If you exclude the partial days, it was less than 9 days door to door.   Not bad, especially around the holidays.

I picked it up from the depot and was at the range within hours.   200 rounds, both 115g and 147g and only 1 back at my head.  I'll call that a win.

Range trip #4 - Success.

Putting back in the upgraded trigger parts, and another range trip had the same results.

So let's recap:

Original Gen 3 Glock - $499

Decent sights - $70

Get the trigger down to #4.5lbs - $30

Repairs paid for to avoid sending it back that didn't work - $27

Alternative parts to avoid sending it back - $94

We'll assume for the argument's sake, that my time doesn't carry and value and the 500+ rounds expended in testing were fun, even if it was frustrating.

Total cost of this misadventure: $720 and a few months of elapsed time

I want to shoot it a bit more and get comfortable with it before I try the HRED and APEX parts again.  

Is that all Glock's fault? No. I chose to try a bunch of things without just sending it back.  Lesson learned.   

I'd review how it actually shot, but well, it's a Glock 17.   There is nothing magical or special.  It's the baseline for most modern pistols to be measured against.   Hopefully it now ends up as boringly reliable as my other Glock pistols.

And finally..  the comparison - CZ P-09 vs. the Glock 17 Gen 3.

What strikes me most though, when I look between the two pistols is what they are out of the box.

The single action trigger pull on the CZ P-09 wins.  The Glock, reduced to 4.5#, is better than the CZ-P09 double action.   Glock wins if you're measuring consistency.   The CZ wins if you want a better trigger pull without having to replace any factory parts. 

The CZ also ships with decent nights sights.  No need to replace them.

Both come with two mags, so it's a draw with the out of the box options, but the Glock mags are cheaper.  $44 each for the CZ mags, $29 or so for the Glock.  (I'm sure when Mec Gar starts making a CZ P-09 mag, we'll see that gap close.)

I'm shooting better groups with the CZ, but it's anecdotal at this point.  I'll pull in a friend in the next weeks and do some side by side shooting for groups out of a clean barrel and see how it goes.