I have always liked the CZ-75s and found a CZ-75B about six years ago that appeared very lightly used for a decent price. It’s an MRI import with a 95 date, and came with two 10 round magazines.
I bought four 16 round mags from CZ USA and hit the range only to find it was unreliable. I dragged it out every few years, replaced the recoil spring, and tried different ammo to no avail. I took it to the range again a month ago and it successfully extracted only 10% of the time or less.
A guy at the range watched me struggle for a while, then came over for a talk. He has a couple CZ-75s and diagnosed it as a dirty or broken extractor or bad extractor spring.
I removed the extractor to find it and it’s recess in the slide were packed solid with fouling. I cleaned the extractor, slide and extractor spring, put it back together, and hit the range.
I fired a bit over 250 rounds through it without an extraction failure. It is like a completely different pistol now. I held the pistol as loosely as possible without dropping it and ran magazine after magazine through it without a bobble.
I feel kind of dumb for never removing the extractor and cleaning it, but also happy and relieved that it’s running like a top now.
Dang, the same thing happened to me some years ago. It wasn’t having trouble but I decided just because they were cheap to replace the extractor spring in my pre-B 75 with one of the extra power units from CZ Custom. When I pulled it out I thought to myself; my, that’s an oddly shaped extractor but I guess it works… As I handled it at least half of it broke off which was alarming at first but upon examination there was more… To break off. When I was done breaking off the packed fouling it looked like an extractor should look like…
It’s always refreshing when ‘a guy at the range’ is actually knowledgeable and provides useful info. Congrats on getting the weapon on-line. I see CZ75Bs in the used cases in the shop sometimes but never picked one up. Maybe I will.
