When CZ Custom debut'd the CZ 75 Bull Shadow prototype a couple of years ago, like a lot of CZ fans, I was pretty excited about it. It seemed like a major design breakthrough that seriously improved the gun's performance while eliminating the need for bushings and other extraneous parts that required tools for disassembly.
Last year, I purchased a Bull Shadow 2 from a fellow-member, thinking that it would make a great pistol for steel challenge matches. It should have, in theory, considering that I already owned a CZ Custom Shadow Orange and how reliable and flawless it had been since I bought it in 2017, I figured the Bull Shadow 2 was a fairly safe risk to take.
It wasn't.
The Bull Shadow 2 malfunctioned immediately. The slide and barrel were binding so badly that even applying copious amounts of different lubes made no difference whatsoever. It was so bad, in fact, that it was all I could do to rack the slide after 5-7 rounds. I did notice an excessive amount of free-play between the slide and barrel when the slide was locked in the rear position, though. It seemed excessive. It was like the barrel was flopping-around loosely inside the slide but CZ Custom assured me that it was normal for the Bull Shadows to be like that. Further, they had no idea why the barrel and slide were binding to the point of causing malfunctions but acted like it was something that I was doing wrong when I attempted to describe the issue. LOL Whatever.
I recently purchased a Bull Shadow SP-01 from CZ Custom, thinking that the Bull Shadow 2 was probably just an anomaly and that there was no way in hell I'd have another bad Bull Shadow experience but, sure enough, the SP-01's extractor broke after 53 rounds during its first range trip. I called CZ Custom, of course, and after three e-mails and two additional follow-up phone calls they finally e-mailed a pre-paid shipping label.
One thing I will say is that the SP-01 version of the Bull Shadow seemed to be fitted much better than the Bull Shadow 2 version, meaning that the barrel wasn't nearly as loose when the slide was locked to the rear but I can't imagine why an extractor would fail so spectacularly after just 53 rounds? I'm gonna have to chalk this experience up to some bad luck and stick with what works.
