Were the Pre-B CZ-75 internals really rough?

[Metal Wonder Nine Guy]

At the 6:40 video mark of the video above, the reviewer talks about how rough the original wave of 75 pistols were. I have to ask you folks- was the machining and milling on those early 75s bad enough to the point of having all sorts of marks and roughness? I've never seen an early 75 in the flesh, so I'm a little curious.

[briang2ad]

YES

Did it affect function?  NO.

It did make some of the triggers a bit crappy because of rough milling.  But CZ UB is perfectly capable of crappy triggers today despite flawless frames and slides.  See other threads.

[Metal Wonder Nine Guy]

I thought so.... I think it was you, Briang2ad, that said any Warsaw pact country was basically a 3rd world country during the cold war. I forgot what thread you said that on.

[Blackwatch]

Here's my 1980 which appeared in the movie "Red Dawn"...not rough in my opinion.

[Walt Sherrill]

  I think it was you, Briang2ad, that said any Warsaw pact country was basically a 3rd world country during the cold war. I forgot what thread you said that on.

In some area they were backwards, and other areas they were, in fact, ahead of the U.S. and most of the West for a number of years. 

The Soviet space program was impressive, as were many of their military weapons.  None of their military stuff was pretty, but many of their designs were created in ways that didn't require fine finishing or high technology , but they were often VERY functional.  (The original AK-47 design has been a gigantic success, and still is. )  Their jet fighters were often among the best.

It was only as we neared the end of the Cold War period (the 70's and 80's) that the U.S. and the rest of the West (NATO nations) really started to widen the gap between our best  and their best. They ran out of money to fund their progrms.  During that period, the West was growing economically, while the Communist world was going downhill.  In areas like automation, agriculture, automotive design, medical advances, they were only slightly better than a third world country.   That was probably because yYou didn't need to do better (at least in their economic thinking) in those consumer areas to conquer the world...

Had the Soviet economic managers been less doctrinaire -- they really believed Marxist-Leninist theory and M-L economics as though it were a religion and they were true believers) -- and been a bit more like Communist China has been over the past two decades, and used COMMAND-CAPITALISM to advance the Soviet Bloc economically, we might all now be eating borscht (beet) soup and drinking Vodka to excess.   

I have to ask you folks- was the machining and milling on those early 75s bad enough to the point of having all sorts of marks and roughness? I've never seen an early 75 in the flesh, so I'm a little curious.

It seemed to be a long-standing CZ production philosophy, already mentioned in this discussion, that if a piece of metal needed refinement and good finish for proper function, it got it.  But they wouldn't waste production time improving how something looked if it didn't make it work better.  I don't know how the folks making the claim about "old CZ-75 being pretty rough" got their hands on that many early pre-Bs to make that sort of judgment, as they just weren't available. 

I've probably had 6-7 pre-Bs, most quickly sold for a small profit.  The only two that I ever got my hands on that were ANIB had  pretty good  triggers.  All of the others had  some miles on them.   None of them were impressive if you looked inside the slides or frames -- but the ugly stuff you could see wasn't stuff that mattered.   Most of the ones available in the U.S. were surplus (like from South Africa or Israel),  GI bringbacks from West Germany (but some of those were upgraded by Frankonia, an importer and custom shop),  and a few that made their way in from Canada (which was one of the few Western nations that allowed them to be imported.)

Here's my 1980 which appeared in the movie "Red Dawn"...not rough in my opinion.

And

The inside of the slide in your photo, and parts of the frame, are much less "polished" or smooth than those same areas in a SIG or Beretta, the guns most commonly held up for comparison.   

That said, a high-gloss blued CZ-75, CZ-75B, or  85B (I had two of the High Gloss Blued 85Bs over the years) was downright beautiful to look at.

[Earl Keese]

Here's my 1980 which appeared in the movie "Red Dawn"...not rough in my opinion.

I know I'm biased, but that gun is beautiful. Even if they're more nicely machined, most Sig's and pretty much all Berettas are ugly to me. Especially Beretta 92's, eew.

[Boogalou]

Of the 4 or 5 Pre-B's that I used to own,  compared to my 96 Turk overrun,   the internals were a little rougher and the sear cages could have more play in them.  Triggers were ok with a little work.  I bought them as projects since back since back in the early 2000's you could find them relatively cheap.   The oldest one I had was a 1982, a couple of 84's and maybe a 85 or later.   

[briang2ad]

Walt:

Good observations about some of the progress that the USSR and their slave states made in the Cold War period.  I worked with an Orthodox Jewish professor from Tel Aviv who had Russian professor friends and summed it up this way:  The Russians were every bit as good in the basic sciences and maybe better, but lacked collaboration because of their system - which yielded repression of communication.

But Russia was a powerhouse for one reason:  They had a crap load of nuclear weapons and their army was huge enough to intimate the world.  Their GDP and that of the Warsaw Pact was lousy.  (hard to know what it was in the day because they were liars).
 Their people suffered.  They had a starved commercial economy, and their regime was only slavery that produced effectiveness in a few specific areas like weapons and athletes. 

Communism doesn't work because it is wrong.  Its is not wrong because it doesn't work.

The West has prospered (till now) as in the case and lineage of the Dutch, British, and Americans because of the Northern European Reformation and its application of Judeo-Christian ethics to trade, commerce and governance.  Some credit is even due to the Medieval Church, its scholarship, order, guilds, trades, etc. But the reformation brought vocation to the individual.  Not so in the East. 

Colt and S&W machining, was influenced by the guilds in Germany.  This was not the case in the east - that is why an AK or a T62 doesn't look (or ride like) a Panther or M60. 

So the mix of Eastern Theology and Communism after it, made a VERY different society and products than Western Theology and commerce after the reformation. 

(Am I ideologically driven? - you bet)!

Our grandfathers were not content with function - they wanted fit, finish, and beauty throughout.

Back to he PreB.  Your 80s version is a thing of beauty (Czechs had a Western design influence in addition to their Eastern slavery a la Stalin).  Its function is right.  The machining like all preBs was crude - there are many more machine marks than a P07 - do an inspection.  My CZ75B Compact barrel also fits tighter than my PreBs.  Reviewers point this out all the time.  Again, they are reliable and accurate and that is what matters to most. 
 

 

[Walt Sherrill]

(Am I ideologically driven? - you bet)!

I think a lot of what you wrote about ideology was true -- and Communism (or, more correctly Marxist-Leninist Theory) was also a religion-like ideology.

The only thing that weakens this argument is that far fewer people are driven by ideology that we might think (be they Jews, Christians, Buddhist, Hindu, or Communist.) 

People by nature tend to follow the group, and if the people in power can convince the people who put them in power that what they're doing is "ideologically" (or morally) correct, they can get people to do a lot of things they might not otherwise do -- if only because we all seem to be conditioned (maybe "hard wired) to "do what's expected of us."   

But almost all ideologies (religious and secular) have led us down the wrong paths at different times throughout history.  It's not because the ideologies are bad, but that people in power figure out how to USE those ideologies to suit achieve their goals -- many of which are bad.  (Stalin, Hitler, Pol-Pot, Saddam Hussein, and various leaders in Central and South America immediately come to mind.)

Russia has a strange history, and nearly all leaders throughout it's history have been tyrants.  The Russian people seem to be particularly susceptible or open to that style of leadership.  Perhaps this is another example of a culture that is "hard-wired" to "do what's expected of them."  That Russia is that way is NOT a good sign.   China is another case study -- and the Chinese leaders have learned to use Capitalism to their advantage, while remaining uniquely Communist and Chinese, as well (in how they run their government); but they may have pushed forward just a bit too fast.  We'll see.

This is a good place for me to turn off my input on this topic -- but we might want to continue it privately.