CZ50 Project Gun

So since before I got my C&R, I had really wanted to add a CZ50 to my collection. Unfortunately, by the time I got my license a few years ago, the market had dried up. You still see them on GB and a few places, but they constantly sell for around $300+ and I just don't see that much value in that little pistol.

Fast forward to last week... my routine GB search picked up a hit that I somehow missed. A CZ50, with no bids and 6 hours left in the auction! It was beat to crap and not working correctly, but what the heck. I need another project and how can you beat the price of $70! Not to mention the seller is one of those intelligent individuals who realizes it's legal to ship to a C&R through USPS and they don't have to charge you the price of the gun again to overnight ship it. Done deal.

(Of course, three hours later I logon to Century and see they finally have CZ50s back in stock for ~$180ish But oh well, now I have a goal... get this thing back in shape for under $180 and I'm $70 in out of the gate.


So as you can see, the finish is pretty much gone. The grips are cracked and broken in more places than I can count. There is no mag. And, the hammer/decocker is not working properly.

You can cycle the slide, it will move the hammer back, but then when the slide falls, the hammer returns to decocked position. It will not remain engaged backward. These guns have quite an intricate series of parts that work the hammer/sear/decocker/safety all mounted to a side plate with a couple springs. It's going to take a complete tear down to see which piece is worn or broken. All of them seem to be readily available for not too much money though.

The gun does appear as though it will fire in DA after cycling the first round with the slide as the hammer functions... just remains in the decocked position. Of course, I'm not going to attempt to fire it in it's current condition to find out, so that will have to wait.

On to the pics...

Took some new pics during my tear down, so I'm replacing the crappy cell phone pics with the pics below: (Tear down update to follow shortly. This will be a picture heavy thread.)









Next step will be to disassemble and clean it. Then see whats up with the hammer operation and what part I need to order.

I'm also looking into picking up a small air compressor (Harbor Freight has an air brush compressor @40psi for around $50) and a small bead blaster. I still need to refinish the project CZ82 I picked up a year or so ago, so i now have two guns that need blasting and figure there will probably be more in the future. The investment doesn't seem like a bad one.

I also need to decide how to refinish this piece. I'm really leaning toward just stripping it and reblueing it for the traditional look. I may opt to parkerize it instead of blueing. I have a parkerized CZ82 that looks really nice. Of course, I can always go the duracoat route if I wanted to colorize it... maybe od or desert, but I don't think I'll go that way at this time.

I did try the grips that arrived today and I'm disappointed to find that they do not fit well. They are factory grips, but for some reason, they fit fine on the sides, but will not meet along the back of the grip. They leave a 1/8" gap at the top which tapers down to them meeting at the bottom. This won't affect function, but it allows you to see the hammer spring from the back of the grip. I would imagine more dirt and grime would accumulate in there. I believe it may be the right grip, specifically the cutout on the back to go over the nut. It doesn't look as pronounced as the cutout on the broken ones I'm removing. I think modifying that a little and taking a little out of the corner where it meets the back of the grip may alleviate this.

Great little Pistol..... 32cals a fun rd to shoot! enjoy your $70 C&R pistol

Cool project! Looking fwd to checking back in with this thread and watching the progress as you restore it

just one question.. I thought you said there is no mag?
did you have one before? or is that something else in the picture below the grips?

There was no mag. Just above the picture of the grips and the mag at the bottom I put in one line of text that said "look what arrived today".

Sorry, I could have been more clear. The grips and mag in the bottom photo came from Numrich and I ordered them right after purchasing the pistol on GB.

Next step will be the tear down for a good cleaning and to see what is work/damaged with the hammer operation. Probably get to that later this week, then get the parts ordered and probably start the tear down, bead blasting and refinishing toward the end of the month. Thread will be update with new better quality pics as I progress.

Oh sorry. I'm a little slow a lot of the time. Good luck.

If you need parts, try these guys

http://www.marstar.ca/ac-vzor5070s/index.shtm

Also, does your have evidence of galling on the bottom of the slide? This was an issue with the very early models.

Thanks for the link. Always nice to find additional parts sources.

I do not see any evidence of galling on the slide, nothing other than normal wear, though I guess I'd really need to put a magnifying glass to it to be sure.

The serial number on this piece begins with 721... which, then, would put it as an early manufacture pistol sometime between 1950-52 from what I can figure. From what I can find it looks like the first guns were produced at Strakonice with serial numbers beginning at 650001. Production stopped around 1952, the factory moved in '55 and production resumed in '57.

So, to me, it does sound like this is likely an early model. I wasn't aware of the galling problem, but I'll be sure to pay attention to it and make sure the slide stays well greased.

I finally had some time to spend with this little gun today, so I tore it down to the frame, inspected everything, cleaned it, and reassembled it.

This has to be to date the dirtiest C&R firearm I've had to clean. There was no cosmo. I'm not sure where this guy has been but there wasn't a bit of cosmo anywhere. Just the sheer dirt and dust caked into this thing was incredible. I ended up pulling everythign off the frame and tossing it all in a tub of mineral spirits, pulling it out and brushing it, drying it, then spraying it all down with break free, brushing it and drying it again, and finally cleaning with Hoppes during reassembly finishing off with Remoil where it needed it and some grease on the slide. Probably not necessary since I'm basically going to be tearing it down again to repair it and then start bead blasting it for refinishing. But I may take it for a range trip after the repair and I just couldn't leave a weapon unlubed...

I found the problem with the hammer. The sear is completely worn out. It has a good bit of metal missing from it and the fragments of it were all through the lock mechanism and trigger chamber.

After cleaning everything out and reassembling, I actually had the hammer working on what little bit of the sear was left, but by the time I got the slide and grips back on, it won't stay back again.

I figure I'll order a new sear, and while I'm at it, I may as well get a new sear spring, trigger spring and recoil spring. I'll keep the old springs as serviceable spares. All that should only cost me about $30... I may by a new hammer too and keep my current one as a spare. That way I've got all new pieces and springs in there. The safety/decocker and it's related hardware as well as the mag release were both solid. No major signs of wear.

The bore cleaned up much better than I was expecting it too! Some of what I thought was wear turned out to be just more grime and it's actually mirror bright now.

Oh, and everything appears to be numbers matching on this piece. Even internal parts were stamped accordingly.

I'll post some pics below. If anyone is doing something similar and wants to see specific pics, let me know. I've got about 50 in this set of spring locations, mounting points, ect.

After removing the slide, recoil spring and grips, I removed the hammer spring. It's a strong spring. You need a good grip. I probably should have used a vice. You have to compress the spring to get the keeper out of the frame. I showed the hammer rod back in the gun with the spring next to it in the second pic so you can get an idea of how it works.






After removing the hammer nut, sear pin and trigger pin, you can remove the side plate. It actually tucks in a slot in the frame by the trigger... good to note for reassembly. On a side note, when the side plate came off, the sear just fell out. That was probably the hardest part of reassembly was figuring out how it was oriented and where the spring was supposed to go.



After removing the trigger bar, trigger and spring, the frame was stripped almost as much as I took it down. (I also removed the mag release and spring as well as the safety level, plunger and spring. I left the barrel on the frame, the take down level attached and the ejector rod attached.






I hoped I'd know where all these went when they came out:




Washed, dried and ready to reassemble




Bore cleaned up:




And back together again. You can see what I was talking about in my first post with the new grips not fitting properly at the rear of the grip. It's easy to see the hammer spring in the photo. Comparing them to the original grips, these obviously are new manufactured replacements and they are not as wide in the back as the originals. This is the problem. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but not concerned. They are serviceable as is and will probably be replaced with some Marschal's Grips after the refinish anyway.

I ordered a new sear, sear spring, hammer spring and recoil spring. The stuff arrived earlier this week. Today was the first chance I had to sit down and mess with it.

All in all, it went pretty well. With the tear down from last week fresh in my mind, it was easy to collect the tools I needed. I had to tear it down almost to the frame again to get the sear out, but the whole thing including cleanup, uploading the pictures and making this post has taken me just under an hour.

I guess the only hiccup I had was when I was removing the sear. I had no trouble the last time, but maybe it was over confidence and less paying attention since I knew I was confident on how it came apart and went together. As I drove the sear pin out with my punch, when I removed the punch, the sear spring launched itself across the room. I didn't even notice, but heard the sound when it hit and looked down into the action... sure enough, no sear spring.

I spent 10 minutes crawling around on the floor looking for it. I couldn't find it. I heard it hit... but I have hardwood floors so it could have slid under furniture, or for that matter, I have a large wooden entertainment center almost to the ceiling... it could have hit the top of that or gone back behind it. At any rate, I bought the new spring... money well spent. I gave up and went back to the project.

After reassembly, everything is functional now. I'm not sure I'm happy with the new trigger spring. I figured while I was in there, I'd freshen it up, but the new spring seems to give the trigger more creep. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I swear the DA pull is heavier with the new spring as well. The old spring was obviously worn compared to the new one and had a slight bend in it the new one doesn't have, so I'm glad I replaced it. But the trigger was functioning fine with it and I liked the feel better... so I may change it back.

Next will come the refinish. Probably going to be a couple weeks before I update anything on that.

I've decided to start out by trying to cold blue it. If I don't like it, I'll strip it off and try something else, but for now, that's the direction. I'll be refinishing my cz82 at the same time since they both need to be media blasted and that will likely get done in Dark Earth Gunkote.

I'll be a couple weeks I'm sure getting before I have the finishes and misc stuff I need in hand as well as the new compressor and media blaster, so will probably update again near the end of the month.

...Unless I get out to the range for a test fire before then.


New parts on the top, old on the bottom (note no old sear spring which I've yet to find):



I don't think I need to explain what was wrong with the old sear from this photo:


Now the hammer stays back, decocker works fine and hold open on empty mag has always worked.

Is there an import mark on this one? It has that "bring-back" kind of vibe to it...

The galling would be on the underside of the slide where it hits up against the hammer. When I saw it on mine I ordered a "parts kit" when Marstar Canada still offered them and made a complete slide assembly for shooting.

cz 50 issue

I did a complete refurb on a CZ 50 I picked up. After a couple hours of pulling my haur out I finally got the thing back together again, and everything seems to work but the the hammer locking back when you pull the slide back. But it does lock back when I manually cock it, the sear looks good, so not sure what it could be any ideas?

Now this is a cool thread. Definitely more ambitious than anything I'd try at that point, but really cool. Thanks for posting this.

lammersk said:

I did a complete refurb on a CZ 50 I picked up. After a couple hours of pulling my haur out I finally got the thing back together again, and everything seems to work but the the hammer locking back when you pull the slide back. But it does lock back when I manually cock it, the sear looks good, so not sure what it could be any ideas?

Click to expand...

Sorry, responded to your PM but just saw the post. I'm going to assume based on this that you are good with getting reassembled and don't need anymore pics?

As for the hammer locking back... I think you're ok. When I went into this project, the sear on my gun was totally shot (see pictures above). I couldn't get the hammer to stay back period. I assumed that if you racked the action, it would stay back as a few of my other pistols do, though even pulling it back by hand, it wouldn't stay back.

Since replacing the sear and springs and cleaning, I can now pull back the hammer with my thumb and it will lock back. Racking the slide will return the hammer to decocked after it comes back. I think this is normal, though. The P64 does the same thing.

Sacrilege I know, but I still haven't taken this thing to the range and test fired it! Need to pickup some .32acp and do that! To be honest, I had gotten into some other projects and forgotten about this pistol to you revived my thread Now I need tog et this to the range, test fire it, and wrap up this project by tearing it down for the last time to do the refinish!!

As luck would have it, after a few months, I also finally found the rogue sear spring in my living room

Merry Christmas and welcome to MdShooters

Merry Christmas to you also. Yea I finally figured out sear, turns out I had it right all along, what was causing my probloms was the firing pin, and retainer, couldn't figure out why the retainer stayed depressed, so after some filing of the pin and retainer and still no luck, it turns out I had the retainer turned 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Anyways before I took it apart, the hammer did lock back when i racked it, I think my filing of the retainer and pin somehow screwed something up, because I noticed the now the firing pin seems to stay forward, probably not a good thing. Luckly I had ordered a couple extra firing pins and retainers, that should be in next week, so I'll let you know if that fixes the problem. As for the p64, I also have one that I refinished with gunkote, and on mine when you rack it the hammer does stay back.

Pic of my P64

By the way here's a pic of my p-64, my first refinishing attempt, love this little pistol, petty much become my carry gun of choice when I do carry. I know a lot of people complain about the bite of the gun, but adding the Limb Saver sleve really cut down both the perceived recoil, and the slide bite.

bkraft said:

I don't think I need to explain what was wrong with the old sear from this photo:

Now the hammer stays back, decocker works fine and hold open on empty mag has always worked.

Click to expand...

wait, was this thing a runaway? or did you even try it before starting the work?

ridethemessiah said:

wait, was this thing a runaway? or did you even try it before starting the work?

Click to expand...

No, that's how I received it and I knew the action wasn't working properly. The main point of the disasembly was to discover what was causing the issue and resolve it. ...This was the issue.

After replacing my firirng pin and retainer, the problem still was not resolved so I decided break down the hammer and sear again, and realized I had the sear spring wrong, even though it seemed right because the spring pressure pushed up on the front of the sear, turns out the spring needs to push back and down allowing the sear's normal postion to be engaged with the hammer, which means the sear spring needs to be below the right arm of the sear instead of above it. Anyways, now everything works correctly and the hammer locks back when you rack the slide.

Interesting. After seeing this thread again, I've now gotten the urge to tear mine down one more time for refinishing. I am curious to check my spring placement based on your description.