Author Topic: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?  (Read 8547 times)

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Offline MGSchindel

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Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« on: October 02, 2016, 06:49:22 PM »
I've only had occasion to re-finish two CZ's.

The first one was an old Pre-B with badly chipped paint I bought as a beater.  It wound up with a nice gloss-blue finish, and a couple years later, I sold it to a friend who fell in love with it, sometime back in the 90's.  I'll admit that the process of polishing the gun to prepare it for the bluing rounded off many of the harder edges all over the gun, and knocked down quite a bit of the detail and depth in the lettering, which fact I was never crazy about.

The second CZ I had refinished was actually a brand new gun at the time, a CZ 75B that I bought back in 1996 for $299 at a gun show.  They could be had really cheaply back then!  I hand-picked it out of more than a dozen that the dealer had.  I got into it for such a good price that I decided to send it out to have it hard-chromed, after hearing how durable a hard chrome finish would be.  I knew a gunsmith in Largo, Florida that did great machining work, and he had his own bluing and plating equipment.  He did a STELLAR job stripping the polycoat without ruining any of the features or detail of the gun, and then professionally hard-chroming the entire gun, and its magazines. He also gloss-blued some of the controls.  For the chrome job, he put a beautiful semi-polished and brushed finish on all the flats of the gun, but he left all the contour surfaces of the gun in a cool, light matte bead blast finish that looks like a whitish "frost". This is the nicest hard chrome job I've seen on any firearm. 

Unfortunately, instead of putting my "highly durable" and very inexpensive new sidearm through its paces and making it my number one beater for range work and hunting/camping sidearm, I couldn't stop staring at it.  It wound up relaxing in the safe looking super sweet, only coming out for occasional range outings, while I banged up and ruined something much more expensive and less durable LOL!!!           

My favorite refinish....here she is hiding out between a 1991 CZ85 Pre B, and a cool factory gloss-blued 1993 transitional CZ 75 Pre B....




Anyone else have a good refinishing experience that turned out better than expected, and pics of the result?

« Last Edit: October 04, 2016, 07:38:45 PM by MGSchindel »

Offline Blackwatch

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2016, 07:02:59 PM »
Exquisite finishes on all of them!! Great choice using the retro waffle grips on the 75B  :)

I'm expecting a pre B 75 back this week which is getting re-finished in gun kote midnight blue (replacing the original enamel finish)...will post a pic soon.

Offline MGSchindel

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2016, 07:15:13 PM »
Exquisite finishes on all of them!! Great choice using the retro waffle grips on the 75B  :)

I'm expecting a pre B 75 back this week which is getting re-finished in gun kote midnight blue (replacing the original enamel finish)...will post a pic soon.

Can't wait to see the midnight blue!!!!  What year is it?

The CZ 85 on the left I bought new in 1993 as a 1991 Pre B leftover.  The odd NJ gunshop owner gave me a great deal on it, telling me it was not as desirable because it lacked the then-new firing pin safety blocks that were coming out LOL!!!! It was in the first batch of guns his distributor had gotten in from Action Arms in Philadelphia.   He urged me to wait on a new "safer" 75B, telling me I'd shoot myself if I dropped it, but I took it home anyway.  Even though it has an earlier polycoat finish, it has still held up great and looks almost new after thousands of rounds downrange. It was my first 85 I bought, and the trigger on it is awesome. That's a gun I thought I'd have to refinish someday, after all the bad press I had read back then about how the CZ finishes would chip and flake off, both the enamel and the early poly, but she's all good to go.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2016, 07:27:00 PM by MGSchindel »

Offline Blackwatch

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2016, 09:46:01 PM »
  What year is it?

It was manufactured in 1984

Offline Captain Jack 805

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2016, 03:39:38 PM »
 I sent mine off to CGW and got back a work of art! This is their Copperhead package. I love it!


Offline Tok36

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2016, 04:51:53 PM »
Nice CZs OP. Thank you for the pic.

Pro Package & Tungsten refinish by CGW





Will work for CZ pics! (including but not limited to all CZ clones)

Offline MGSchindel

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2016, 07:46:29 PM »
Beautiful refinishes!  I had no idea CGW was refinishing pistols!  Is it sort of like a cerakote?

Offline Captain Jack 805

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #7 on: October 04, 2016, 09:20:58 PM »
Beautiful refinishes!  I had no idea CGW was refinishing pistols!  Is it sort of like a cerakote?

Yes, it's cerakote. They send it out to another outfit and can do all kinds of refinishing including Roguard and hard chrome. Check out CGW's Facebook page, they put up a ton of different guns.

Offline Earl Keese

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #8 on: October 04, 2016, 10:30:06 PM »
I sent mine off to CGW and got back a work of art! This is their Copperhead package. I love it!


I just noticed the slide is machined forward of the dust cover, nice touch. Also, who makes the front sight? Any more pics?  :)

Offline IronicTwitch

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #9 on: October 04, 2016, 11:55:30 PM »
Did a grip reduction and had Metaloy hard chrome matte finish the frame.   Looks great and much better than the polycoat!


Offline Captain Jack 805

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #10 on: October 05, 2016, 12:07:20 AM »
The front sight is the old style Hi-Viz, and when I first got it I did a write up on calguns.
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=1103120

Here is my friend's SP01 with a cobalt cerakote frame. Another CGW masterpiece!
« Last Edit: October 05, 2016, 12:16:11 AM by Captain Jack 805 »

Offline Oldwolf

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #11 on: October 05, 2016, 02:39:30 PM »
Very nice. What is the front sight on that one?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

SP-01 Shadow Target Custom
75 SA
83

Offline Captain Jack 805

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #12 on: October 05, 2016, 03:16:51 PM »
Very nice. What is the front sight on that one?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

That one also has a Hi-Viz.

Offline Blackwatch

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2016, 03:14:03 PM »
2 Pre B 75's - Midnight Blue & OD Green (mil spec)


Offline Psyop96

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Re: Your best CZ refinishing experience - pics anyone?
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2016, 05:35:38 PM »
Beautiful. What years are those two?

 

anything