It's a project pistol. From CZ Custom, it should have been everything needed, but still had work to be done. Not so long ago, I swapped the front sight for a fiber optic, as it came with trijicon night sights. I changed out the rear for a serrated, black sight, slapped some locgrips on it, and though I hate adhesive grip material, put a small pad of skate tape on the front and back strap (as they were slick and too thin to checker or texture). The trigger is good.

I just put a cajun works barrel bushing in. There is still the very slightest of play in there with it locked in battery. Disappointing, but it's as far as I'm going to go with the bushing. I crowned the barrel.

The one thing that drives me nuts, typical of many CZ's, is the play in the frame/slide interface. I've been to CZ Custom and had a few talks about it before; their position is that while the fit can be tightened, it won't last and won't make any difference. Their custom Bull Shadow is fit to the frame had has no play that I can detect. My Bull shadow is tight in all respects.

It's more of an annoyance, I guess, and I'm sure it's not worth the prospect of cracking the frame or the expense of building up the rail and machining it down to see no increase in accuracy...but it's just one of those things that going forward will bug me. A lot. Everything else is smooth and tight and fit nicely on this pistol now. Just that damn slide/frame rattle. Enough I can hear it if I shake the pistol. I guess a trip to the range to see where it is now, is in order.

No doubt the pistol is accurate enough, and I know I lack the skills and abilities to exploit it, so any further tweaking won't actually net me any benefit. I suppose it's just the nagging thought.

After tweaking something for a while, it's hard to accept that there's nothing more to tweak, and that slop screams "tweak me." If it keeps screaming like that, I sense a cracked frame in my future and an imp on one shoulder whispering "dumbass."

The question is whether it's worth it to shut up the imp on the other shoulder who keeps whispering "go on, fix it. You know you want to..."

No worries, just send it to me and I’ll do an extensive 10-year analysis on it for you...

I shot it today. I think it will work just fine.

Excellent!

I made a similar project gun. SP01 Urban Tactical. Hated the suppressor sights and threaded barrel. Bought a factory non threaded and fitted it myself which was interesting and terrifying at the same time. I have to admit I have never noticed my CZ’s having a bunch of rattle. I’m holding my latest a grey Shadow 2. I suppose if I think about it there might be a tiny amount of play but it wouldn’t even be noticed if you hadn’t made me shake my gun. Lol

Your grip tape comment is just one reason I went up to the Shadow 2. The checkering, undercuts, and more aggressive beaver tail inletting are phenomenal.

My dream gun is a CZ75 compact and full size that implements the Shadow 2 frame cuts and checkering in a decocker format. A P01 Shadow 2 so to speak.

I love this Shadow 2 already even though I have yet to drop the hammer on a live round. It’s snowing right now so it’s not going to happen today either. It is somewhat problematic for me for HD because right or wrong I do like a FPB for real use. Not that I drop guns a lot but it is my preference. It’s so nice though if I had a spare one of them would probably take over HD from another gun. At 3 lbs empty it makes a pretty good club as well.

Again to your point, no I would not attempt to tighten frame to slide. That seems doomed from the start and probably for no actual gain. I thought about adding the 10x bushing but I can’t really imagine my skills being up to any potential gain, plus it can always be added later if original bushing gets worn or my skills improve. The Shadow 2 comes with a plastic buffer. I wonder if you could add a buffer to “tighten” the frame to slide fit.

I came to the conclusion that I'd gone about as far as I could go with this one. It wasn't a slouch when I got it. It was used, barely perceptibly so, but I got it originally for production category for steel shoots. Nothing serious. Fun gun. Then the tinkering started.

When I benched it yesterday, the rounds on my splatter targets were touching. Unfortunately, they touched in three separate groups: clearly not the pistol, but me, and even with sandbags, probably as good as I'll get for now. Everything stayed in a two inch circle, and I'm sure steadier hands and better eyes would have made a ragged hole. Good enough.

When I stood and shot freehand without the bag, slow fire, everything sent into a 3" hole, so as far as I can do, it's probably not going to improve no matter what I might do to tinker further. It's always the question, though; how much can be wrung out of the pistol?

These were some of my generic reloads; 3.5 gn of tightgroup under a blue bullets 135 gn truncated coated bullet, mixed primers and brass, 1.125 overall length, factory crimp die (just enough to take out the bell). 1009 fps for 136 power factor, I believe (on day of shooting). I'm sure that could be dialed in a bit, but yesterday I just wanted to see it on paper (and since Covid, my shooting opportunities have dwindled to nil).

The lockup is tight now, so ultimately it really doesn't matter about the slide to frame fit so far as accuracy, given that the sights are on the slide...so as long as there's sight alignment, any shift in slide relative to frame shouldn't make any difference in accuracy. It's just an annoyance.

I think the Shadow 2's are better fit, with the Orange being hand fit, approaching a custom level, according to CZ custom.

I'm interested in seeing the DW 1911/CZ 75 hybrid. I think it maybe approaching ideal...but will have to see. Maybe one in 38 super.