Tag Archives: tz-75

The Springfield P9 CZ75 Clone

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Back in the 1990s, the Czech CZ75 pistol was being rapidly understood to be one of the best combat handguns of the 20th Century. The thing is, since these guns were made behind the Iron Curtain, they were hard to get in the land of Apple Pie. Well, that’s where Springfield came up with an idea crazy enough that it just might work.

The Czech designed CZ-75 was, as noted above, next to impossible to get in the US during the Cold War. However, the Italian firm of Tanfoglio made a nearly perfect clone of the CZ since the 1980s. Incidentally, the “G” in Tanfoglio is silent, leaving it pronounced as “Tan-fol-io”. The Italian made gun was marketed as the TZ-75 (very original!). The original TZ-75 was externally quite different in appearance from the CZ-75, with a sleeker shape, more ergonomic grip, squared trigger guard, and a larger spur-type hammer. The sights were also of the three-dot type, and larger than the tiny sights used on the CZ-75 of the time. The TZ-75 also added a slide-mounted safety/decocker, the option of ambidextrous controls. Internally, it had a slide-mounted safety added. The TZ was a beauty of milled steel engineering, with no polymer or plastics involved.,

And Springfield wanted it…

chromed p9
Read the rest in my column at Springfield Forum.com

The Joy that is the CZ75

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One of the neatest designs that have gained traction over the past few years in the US has been the CZ75 line of pistols. These durable and slim doublestacks have an interesting background that has made them available in a huge variety of styles and flavors.

After World War 1, the country of Czechoslovakia rose from the ashes of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. This new country inherited a number of former Austrian military arms factories that became known as the Ceska Zbrojovka (“Czech Armory” in Czech.) This evolved over the years as a powerhouse small arms group that survived German occupation in World War 2 and Soviet occupation during the Cold War, while still turning out a number of famous designs including what became the Bren gun, the Sa vz. 58 assault rifle, and the Skorpion vz. 61 machine pistol.

In the early 1970s, a pair of brothers who worked for CZ started work on a double-stack 9mm pistol for the export market. These brothers, Josef and Frantisek Koucky, had by 1975 perfected a handgun that is known today as the CZ75, after the factory abbreviation and the year of first production.
Read the  rest in my column at Firearms Talk

cz diagram