I picked this up a few months back. I love the A01 line from CZ Custom and this is the ultimate model, in my opinion. A01 pistols use hammer forged and machined frames and are not to be confused with CZ's handguns (although they seem to get grouped together more often than not).

I find these pistols to shoot great and look awesome doing it. Any A01 owners here? I have this one and a standard black DA/SA model.

Please enjoy the pics...

She's a beauty. Is that a 2-piece guide rod?

Nice pick up.

Very nice! it has a solid but refreshing look to it.

I can't imagine why it might be grouped with CZ's. Quite the mystery. lol Nice gun. I'm a big fan of anything CZ. Or CZ like.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
I can't imagine why it might be grouped with CZ's. Quite the mystery. lol Nice gun. I'm a big fan of anything CZ. Or CZ like.

I hear you, but CZ and CZ Custom are two totally different companies. In fact, many other CZ clones are built more like CZ than these guns are.

No I get that, it’s a CZ clone that accepts most if not all CZ internals. It’s grouped together because they are basically the same gun. CZC makes their own high end frame and slide but if you picked one up blind folded, other than weight, you would think it was a CZ75. Which Angus did by design. It’s not like he made a whole new gun. He improved on an existing one. Hence my “surprise” comment. Awesome gun either way.

How would you compare it to your Phoenix Redback?

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
No I get that, it’s a CZ clone that accepts most if not all CZ internals. It’s grouped together because they are basically the same gun. CZC makes their own high end frame and slide but if you picked one up blind folded, other than weight, you would think it was a CZ75. Which Angus did by design. It’s not like he made a whole new gun. He improved on an existing one. Hence my “surprise” comment. Awesome gun either way.

Thanks

Honestly, I have a lot of CZ pistols. I don’t buy the standard models, just the competition oriented stuff. I think I can say with confidence that there are some CZ clones built a lot nicer than what CZ does. That’s not to say CZ doesn’t put out very good pistols.

quote:

Originally posted by DaveS:
How would you compare it to your Phoenix Redback?

Hard to beat the Swiss.

I think Phoenix builds the best CZ clones in the world, bar none. In fact, they build some of the best pistols in the world regardless of the design. Not much compares to them.








That's not to say the A01-LD isn't a very high quality pistol, because it most certainly is.



Here's my standard A01-LD for comparison...

Agree. Where CZ shines is that their comp guns can compete with the 4k+ guns at a fraction of the price. They nail the price to performance curve.

My highest end CZ is a Shadow 2 Urban. I’ve shot my buddies Czechmate and Parrot. They are fantastic guns but too “comp” for me.

I was always under the impression that it was high level of Hobdell's early creations within CZ Custom that motivated CZ themselves to bring out their own lineup of "tuner" pistols, like the subsequent Shadow 2 and the Tactical Orange. My own 75 T/SA from over a decade ago is an example of CZ Custom taking the basic bones of a 75B and turning it into a masterpiece of a shooter, which was then made obtainable either direct from CZ Custom or ordered through CZ-USA (which was the channel my T/SA was came to me by). Meanwhile at the same time, I would've guessed that there were more than a few put-off and perturbed gunsmiths and designers inside CZ who looked at Hobdell's outside work and thought, "We can do that, and do it even better."

And now we have a plethora of excellent pistols to choose from from both sources. And then there are the other clones as well.

FWIW, that squared-off monolithic dust cover on the A01-LD just looks &#^!*!#@^**% bad-ass.

As always, thanks for the introduction to a new high end line of pistols. Great pictures too!