RELOADED KJ WORKS CZ75 SHADOW 2
CZECH MATE
AA’S “MAN IN TAIWAN”, STEWBACCA, TAKES A LOOK BACK AT HOW AND WHY HE ENDED UP USING A KJ WORKS CZ75 SHADOW 2 FOR HIS ACTION AIR EXPLOITS.
I
have experimented at great lengths in Action Air since my initial forays into it with my HK45 back in early 2019, then joining team SPPT in Taipei in February 2020 using my Glock 34 TTI, then switching to the KWA USP Compact for my qualification in March 2020, before trying out the WE M17 clone for my first competition in April 2020 and eventually settling on using the KJWorks CZ75 SP01 Shadow for my competitive shooting efforts. However, my teammate Ming came along to try out a session in late May 2020 and brought his KJWorks CZ75 Shadow 2 along to use, as well as letting me try it out in the practise stages. I found it more comfortable to use than my current SP01 and it also seemed somewhat of a tack driver in terms of accuracy by comparison, from that point on it was only a matter of time before I made the upgrade. So, in August of 2020 I decided to invest in yet another birthday present to myself and stopped off at KIC Airsoft a few MRT stops away from home and took home a shiny new toy to put to good use. The advantage, of course, being magazine commonality with the SP01 magazines I’d already had trouble acquiring previously, as well as not needing to adjust my IPSC holster, as the external profile of the two pistols are largely the same.
WHAT’S NEW?
So what’s new? Why did the Shadow 2 capture my interest over the SP01 I already had? 76
SEPTEMBER 2021
The handling of the Shadow 2 just feels faster and slicker - the grip panels of the updated version are far flatter than those of the SP01 with an overall size of 28mm, versus the rounder footprint of the SP01 grips at 35mm. While this might make it seem smaller in terms of its overall circumference and thus feel smaller in the hand, coupled with the more exaggerated heel of the backstrap of the frame, I find it actually fits better in the strong hand, sitting a little higher and pointing a lot more intuitively. Also not slewing around in the hand as much during firing and movement due to the flat sides of the grips - making it easier to put retaining pressure on - than the more curved profile of the SP01’s grips. I really find it just ends up on the target a lot more readily and shoots and moves a lot faster as a result, while the inherent accuracy advantage I found with Ming’s example earlier in the year was still present in my own example. The issues I found with the earlier SP01 had also largely been addressed with the Shadow 2 - this is unsurprising, as the real steel equivalent was developed with feedback from competitive shooters to ensure it handles more favourably in on-the-clock use. The ambidextrous safety levers are much flatter and lower profile to the frame, yet are still easily controlled with the side of the strong hand’s thumb with a sweeping motion enabling or disabling them consistently if the safety is required. However, the lesser emphasis on use of the manual safety in IPSC relevant manual of arms obviously drove the decision
