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Post by WireDog on Apr 16, 2024 8:25:04 GMT -5
New CZ 75B by john fisher, on Flickr I got a new pistol to replace the CZ 75BD that I sold. Chose CZ 75B with a conventional safety.
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Post by WireDog on Apr 16, 2024 8:43:38 GMT -5
Iraq CZ 75D) by john fisher, on Flickr I got the CZ bug in Iraq. Here are some acquired weapons we accumulated there. Upper left is my CZ 75D (deChickener). As mentioned earlier, we had three of them among us. My young soldiers and myself were Signal Corps tactical communications troops, in a communications platoon of 4th PSYOP Grp. We were an autonomous unit, not attached to any other units. In other words, I had 15 troops and we had to fend for ourselves, and provide our own security. We were located midway between ar Ramadi and Fallujah, with Fallujah being our Area of Operation. We were not equipped with Beretta M-9 pistols; just standard M-16A2s. Yet as our mission evolved, we were going into offices and even dinner parties with officials in Fallujah, along with Civil Affairs troops, as part of the Hearts and Minds campaign to quell the ever expanding insurgency in Anbar Province. It was socially awkward to bring long guns into dinner parties, so we found ourselves unarmed. Our soldiers guarded our weapons, outside. The CO got permission for us to get Iraqi captured weapons from a State Department office set up in a Villa on the airport complex. That is where the pistols in this picture came from. It sounds like a "great idea", but was actually a goat screw, since they had no holsters, they operated way differently from the standard M-9s we were all familiar with, and half my team were Reservists who were poorly trained and not very with-it. I quickly realized that these deChickeners were unable to be put on "Safe" in the traditional sense. Yet the circus that I led managed to test that theory a few times, resulting in three "Negligent...", or better yet, "Stupid Discharges". No injuries, thank God. I could go on... But that CZ was a beauty, and I'm now hooked.
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Post by K4 on Apr 16, 2024 16:57:52 GMT -5
And no Chickens were hurt in the process. Tell that to the one on the grill
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Post by Larry Madsen on Apr 16, 2024 17:33:47 GMT -5
We had Beretta PX-4 s for a while. We got rid of them because Queenie struggled with the DeChicken lever.
I was perfectly fine with the function. In my experience, in the deChickened condition, they were as safe as a revolver.
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Post by WireDog on Apr 16, 2024 18:17:54 GMT -5
I was very happy with the deChickener, once I figured out how it worked.
My issue with it was that the soldiers around me were not savvy about its operation, even after a familiarization range and one-on-one demonstrations. They still had NDs left and right.
I don’t want my grandsons to inherit it and have to go through the same learning curve as young boys.
On a side note, the original version CZ 75 that I carried didn’t have a firing pin block. It could fire if dropped on its hammer. But it had very broad bearing surfaces in the sear and firing mechanism, which made for a sweet trigger pull.
The B model has a block and a nice pull too, but not as nice as the original variant.
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Post by Larry Madsen on Apr 16, 2024 19:09:47 GMT -5
They still had NDs left and right. I would wonder if they were just "failing" to deChicken.
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Post by WireDog on Apr 16, 2024 21:16:40 GMT -5
Ha, yes. And no.
In the interest of gun safety, I will belabor this point.
They did deChicken the weapon properly. But the single point of failure was that they believed deChickening the piece put it on “SAFE”. It does not. DeChickening has lowered the hammer half way, taking it from Single Action to Double Action.
After deChickening, pulling the trigger operates the weapon in DA mode and it will fire. My inexperienced troops, as well as an inexperienced, over-confident Buck Sergeant, fully believed that deChickener weapons were on “SAFE”. A few tested their theory only to find they were wrong when the gun fired.
We had trained for years on Beretta M-9s, and it was drilled into us that the red dot means “Danger”, it’s no on Safe. The CZs we had, as well as some off-beat Sigs and some 32 cal Berettas ( Not 92/M-9s) were also deChickeners. There was no red dot.
Did I mention it was a big goat screw?
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Post by Larry Madsen on Apr 16, 2024 22:30:12 GMT -5
Ok. Certainly they need to understand the operation of the weapon in that regard.
As I mentioned above, in deChickened condition the weapon is as safe as a revolver.
In an effort to make our PX-4 models a bit more operator friendly I installed the auto return to the deChicken mechanism. Trying to cut Queenie’s problem in half. It did accomplish that end, but still not enough to make the weapon “Queenie friendly”.
Minus that modification some might think of simply pushing the lever up and calling that “safety”. We were never taught to think of it that way.
To us deChickening was lever up / lever down making the next trigger pull double action (as you noted) and that is the “safe” condition for guns so equipped.
In the end we settled on Glock and Queenie was good to go. We let the berettas go because I didn’t want a bunch of different weapons in the house. I want to be certain whatever gun Queenie picks up … she can run it with zero confusion.
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Post by reverendrob on Apr 16, 2024 22:56:36 GMT -5
Ha, yes. And no. In the interest of gun safety, I will belabor this point. They did deChicken the weapon properly. But the single point of failure was that they believed deChickening the piece put it on “SAFE”. It does not. DeChickening has lowered the hammer half way, taking it from Single Action to Double Action. After deChickening, pulling the trigger operates the weapon in DA mode and it will fire. My inexperienced troops, as well as an inexperienced, over-confident Buck Sergeant, fully believed that deChickener weapons were on “SAFE”. A few tested their theory only to find they were wrong when the gun fired. We had trained for years on Beretta M-9s, and it was drilled into us that the red dot means “Danger”, it’s no on Safe. The CZs we had, as well as some off-beat Sigs and some 32 cal Berettas ( Not 92/M-9s) were also deChickeners. There was no red dot. Did I mention it was a big goat screw? It's one of the reason that in DeChickener land, the original Sig classic P-series dechickener is far superior to the 'safety-style' on the Walthers/S&W/CZ etc - it ONLY dechickens.
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Post by HeavyDuty on Apr 17, 2024 6:34:14 GMT -5
After years with S&W style safety/dechickeners, all the slide mounted devices I have left in active rotation are Beretta-style dechickener only where the lever springs back after killing that chicken. (92s and PX4s.)
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Post by Auf Kiltre on Apr 17, 2024 7:03:42 GMT -5
Lol, I'm imagining someone hitting on this discussion when Googling a particular model of firearm and trying to figure out what "dechickener" means. Off they go to their favorite firearm forum and making a post, "Forgive my ignorance, but can anyone tell me what this term means?"
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Post by WireDog on Apr 17, 2024 10:44:25 GMT -5
I’ll end with this. Upon returning to Ft Bragg, we had a lively After Action Review (AAR) with the Battalion Commander. I laid out the many con’s and the few pros. Army AARs are structured such that one’s honest opinion can be spoken in the presence of higher ranks, provided it is done respectfully.
Pros: We were able to enter into sensitive situations and settings with local community leaders without long-guns, (which would have created an atmosphere of distrust. This was the guidance of our Army Civil Affairs partners).
Cons; -Troops were untrained on the weapons -Many were not weapons-savvy and, despite a familiarization range and one on one instruction, had repeated NDs. - My request for off-the-shelf holsters to somewhat mitigate the hazards of carrying these pistols was denied. (Here I met eyes with the knucklehead First Sergeant who arbitrarily denied that request, lol). -The NDs created a blow to moral in the team, as blame and finger-pointing ensued. Disagreements about how the weapons operated were strange, uninformed, and acrimonious. -There was physical danger of being shot by our own comrades, even as the threat of attacks on us by insurgents was at a high level.
My conclusion: It was a good idea at first glance, but the cons outweighed the pros. Recommendation: Issue Standard-issue M-9s to the unit. The flexible nature of our mission illustrated the pressing need.
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Post by reverendrob on Apr 17, 2024 18:45:15 GMT -5
It's the AAR that reminds me of the frantic calls I got (sometimes satellite) when I ran the gun shop as GWT2 started and the early days.
I had better supply chain than DoD for some things, and was willing to ship to folks I knew through channels.
Dear friend who was former Greenlight and DetA got reactivated for a time and knew I had personal stashes of HK parts in abundance (the Mp5s blow extractors every so often, it's the price of admission), I sent him a bunch.
Another oddball was a trade request - some allied forces thanks to stupid leadership still using the G3 variant their nordic country used ...gave their boys rifles and ammo, but no firing pins.
I sent batches of holsters that fit indigenously acquired pistols like you folks were using, mags, recoil springs, etc.
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Post by WireDog on Apr 17, 2024 19:31:59 GMT -5
Very cool, great stuff, Rob! That’s exactly what was needed for the situation. A lot of needed things, organized completely outside normal channels, got to units. A well known example is sheets of armor plates, which made it to units where they were jury-rigged onto soft-skinned HMMWVs that were getting shot up and damaged by IEDs.
To this day I’m still bugged that my Chain of Command had a few stodgy, inflexible people who moved like pond-water when I got on the sat-phone for some improvised solutions. PSYOP, as you might imagine, is a mixed bag of often very talented, and quirky, individuals. It’s taken me a while to get it all sorted, lol.
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