CZ-82 Military Flap Holster

Yesterday I received the Czech military suplus flap holster that I ordered from an eBay seller for the CZ-82 I picked up two Fridays ago. Like many older European military holsters, it's basically a gun case with belt loops. Unlike every other Euro flap holster, it's ambidextrous and doesn't look like a holster for a pistol. You could probably wear this on a trail where you're likely to encounter earthy-crunchy types and they'd be unaware you're armed.

The holster I got had some sports on it from either water or mildew. I gave it a rubdown with Ballistol to neutralize any mildew and further protect the leather. It's stamped 1989 on the inside, making it one year younger than my CZ-82.

The holster is well made of good quality leather with nice stitching.

With the flap open you can see how it accomodates the gun and a spare magazine. There is a sleeve on either side for a cleaning rod. I'm expecting one in the mail shortly.

The back has belt loops. This shows the stiching for the interior compartments that hold the muzzle end of the gun and the spare magazine. One could put a small oil bottle in between. I may put a small Ziplock back with a few patches wet with Ballistol in that space.

The Falco holster that came with the gun holds my Beretta 81 Cheetah perfectly, but this one won't accept the Cheetah. The Beretta's slide and dust cover are too tall near the muzzle. I'd expect a Makarov to fit fine.

However, the Czech holster does accept my Beretta 71 Jaguar .22 along with two spare magazines.

Now, this obviously is not something we'd want to use for normal CCW around town. However, I could see this being useful if you're carrying out in the wilderness where you want to protect the gun against the environment. That you can carry the gun, a reload, and basic cleaning gear in it is a nice bonus.

Did a Little Shooting Yesterday

Yesterday I was able to get some range time in with my Colt Police Positive and Beretta 71 Jaguar.

The loads I shot in the Colt were mixed .32 S&W Long brass, a Speer 98 grain HBWC, Winchester small pistol primers, and 1.7 grains of Bullseye measured out using the #00 rotor in my RCBS Little Dandy measure. I was able to reliably ding an 8" gong from around 15 yards. One thing I've noticed with the small Colt is that it's much easier for me to see the sights when shooting outside than when indoors under florescent lighting.

The Beretta 71 further cemented my opinion of it as probably the finest compact .22 autoloading pistol ever built. Since I bought it several years ago it's proven to be exceptionally reliable. Yesterday I shot CCI Stingers in it for the first time, along with 100 Remington 36 grain Golden Bullet hollow points. The only malfunctions I had were with a particular magazine that sometimes doesn't present the bullet at the correct angle to feed. This is a magazine and operator issue, not a gun issue. If I'm careful loading the mag it works properly. Otherwise it ran perfectly. None of the rounds failed to fire or eject.

I also intend to try it with a box of Remington Vipers and another of Federal Punch defensive ammo. If I were to toss it in my pocket for a walk I'd load it with Stingers for now.

I'd love to see Beretta bring it back with a few improvements:

• An adjustable rear sight.
• A slide-mounted front sight.
• An ambidextrous safety.
• Maybe a Picatinny rail on the dust cover.
• An extended barrel threaded 1/2x28.

While I'm dreaming, make it to use Glock-compatible sights. This would allow it to use a wide variety of easily available aftermarket sights.

Ideally, this would be built in the US so it wouldn't have to be made larger to get enough points for import under the (unconstitutional) GCA of 1968.

An Ultra Compact Pistol Cleaning Kit

Several years ago I put together the first version of this cleaning kit to accompany an M1 Carbine I used as a road trip gun. I updated it today to keep with my Beretta 71.

Contents:

• 1 pull through with loops on each end to hold a cleaning patch. This was made from two of the conductors stripped from a piece of CAT5e network cable. It's plastic coated so it won't damage the bore, and coils up to fit in the plastic bag at lower left. A boresnake or sectional cleaning rod could be substituted. I might make a short brass cleaning rod for the kit because then I could use it to push out bore obstructions.
• 1 plastic bag containing some .22 - .270 cotton flannel cleaning patches, and two pipe cleaners.
• 1 "Norton's Universal Cleaning Stick" from Countycomm.com. This is a thin plastic bar that can be used for scraping or pushing a cleaning patch through crevices.
• 1 USGI-type gun cleaning brush.
• 1 plastic bag containing a 1 oz. bottle of Rem Oil and a rag torn from an old T-shirt. Rem Oil isn't the best gun oil but it works well as a CLP for short term use and the bottle size is handy. Use your favorite gun oil or CLP.
• 1 USGI Vietnam-era surplus "Chieu Hoi" bag, into which everything fits. These were originally intended to use as covers for 20 round M16 magazines in Vietnam. The idea was that they'd be discarded on the battlefield to induce any Viet Cong who picked them up to defect. They are still readily available and make good storage parts for small parts or kits like this one.

Naturally, this isn't a comprehensive maintenance kit. Rather, it's intended to be an ultra compact cleaning kit to keep in the pistol case to keep it running as part of a grab and go kit.

The pistol, extra magazines, and cleaning kit all fit into this US Peacekeeper attache-style gun case (Amazon affiliate link). A 100 round box of .22LR ammo should also fit.