Front sight replacement

[Goldtop]

I took delivery of my first CZ a few weeks ago, a stainless 75B, and made a trip to the range last Saturday after a quick strip, clean, and oil.  I filled the range bag with a pretty wide variety of ammo to see what it liked, S&B, Blazer brass, UMC, Federal Champion, American Eagle, WWB, etc.  It went through 400 rounds in an hour without a single hiccup.  This is one impressive firearm!  After finally shooting one, I see what all the fuss is about.  It's very accurate and it feels great in my hand.  I wasn't thrilled with the trigger for the first couple hundred rounds, but after 300 or so, it started smoothing out noticeably.  I'd imagine after 1,000 rounds the trigger will be quite good.  The only complaint that I have with the pistol at all is the sights.  I'm cross dominant so finding the front sight is slightly more difficult for me, but I've never had this much trouble before.  I can find it eventually, but it takes a few seconds.  My local range is also pretty poorly lit, which doesn't help.  Which FO front sight would work best with the stock rear?  It looks like the only options are the CZ Custom 5.5mm and the Hi Viz.  I don't believe Dawson Precision makes a sight that's the correct height with a stock rear and I don't really see the need to replace the rear.  Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated.

[dukecola]

I just put on the CZ custom front FO sight in red, it's awesome and I like it way more than my stock one. With my old eyes, it really helped.  I got the 6.5mm because I changed out the rear to a trilijum tactical.

[FF1063]

I bought the 5.5 X 1.5 FO front from CZ Custom, love it. Get the drill bit and extra roll pin.

[Stuart]

there was a thread on Brianenos.com on CZ front sights.
they came up with these calculations.

[1] 0.170": (0.170 + 0.057)*25.4 --> ~ 5.76 mm or 5.75 mm
[2] 0.175": (0.175 + 0.057)*25.4 --> ~ 5.89 mm or 6.00 mm
[3] 0.195": (0.195 + 0.057)*25.4 --> ~ 6.40 mm or 6.50 mm
[4] 0.215": (0.215 + 0.057)*25.4 --> ~ 6.91 mm or 7.00 mm
[5] 0.240": (0.240 + 0.057)*25.4 --> ~ 7.54 mm or 7.50 mm

so that may help when looking at the Dawson choices.

The CZ Custom front sights are nice. I run them on several of my CZs.

[Goldtop]

Thanks for all the responses, and for the information on the Dawson measurements.  I didn't know what the base height was for the Dawson sights, so I couldn't figure it out.  According to that info I assume the base is .057".  A .160 would work out to 5.51mm, but after checking the Dawson website it looks like they now only have .150, .155, and .165.  I did notice that I was hitting a bit low consistently, but I attributed that to adjusting my grip several times since I wasn't used to it yet.  I think that I need to make another range trip and shoot a few supported to verify this now that I know Dawson has shorter than stock sights.  If by chance it is a sight problem, which I doubt, I could kill two birds with one stone.  The test fire data sheet that came in the box showed the entire group low, so I suppose that it is possible.  Otherwise, I'll probably get the 5.5mm from CZ Custom.

[johnnyrees]

fitted the 5.5 from cz easiest thing to do cant miss even if I tried....love it

[lakefun42]

Johnnyrees, can you post up a pic lookinig down the slide?  I an having a similar issue.

thanks

[1SOW]

I don't believe Dawson Precision makes a sight that's the correct height with a stock rear and I don't really see the need to replace the rear.  Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated.

Be careful about asking for opinions, you're likely to get a wide variation of them.

I wear bifocals, and have some problems with acquiring the sights fast enough.  The FO front site "combined" with the competition rear sight is much easier/faster to acquire the sights than the FO front only.  The Comp rear 'highlights' the FO front.  I had a 1mm FO first, then tried my son's Shadow with a 1.5mm FO.  The 1mm was more accurate, but the 1.5mm was way faster for me.  Easy fix, drill the FO hole to 1.5mm.
Everyone is different, so YMMV.  If you get the chance to hold and shoot this combo, it would make your decision easier.

[Goldtop]

Thanks for all your advise guys!  I ended up going with the stock height 1.5mm from CZ Custom.  I changed it out and made a range trip last Saturday.  My groups consistently shrunk quite considerably.  The main issue that I had with the stock sight is that I could not easily find the sight shooting with both eyes open, so I'd been shooting the CZ with my non-dominant eye closed, which felt odd.  The f.o. sight is so easy to see that I can reacquire the sight almost immediately after each shot.  I'm shooting it better now at speed than I was before shooting slowly.  In hindsight I probably should have went with the comp or tactical rear with the 6.5mm front, but even with the front only, it's a huge improvement.  In the future I may do the front and rear swap and re-purpose the 5.5mm front on my surplus 82. 

The 75 now has 750 rounds though it and still not a single malfunction.  The trigger is still getting smoother.  This is one gun that I'll probably own for life, and I'd imagine it will have company eventually.  I think a Shadow Target would make nice company.