TargetTalk

What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of each of these free pistols?

I currently have a Toz 35 but it is in desperate need of a new grip, so I am tossing up whether to buy a new Rink grip for the Toz or jump in the deep end and buy a new Morini 84E.

My Toz also suffers from light strikes of the firing pin and a slightly wonky front sight, which my filing hasn't fixed yet. The other downside to the Toz is that if the sear spring breaks they are harder to find than hens teeth.

The Morini 84E is expensive and in its original format the barrel is too long to put the Morini compensator on comfortably, for me anyway. But I have limited experience with the Morini.

Am I correct in assuming that the Morini seems to be slowly replacing the Toz as the Free pistol of choice.

Mikey

If you are a fairly proficient FP shooter---maybe the Morini may be a choice you should make. Remember this, some of the top shooters are still using the TOZ and it's use is almost like that of the old 747---it's still here and there is stilla good supply of them around the world. I am now on to my second TOZ and I know what you mean by wonky front sight etc. My first one had the same problems with the front sight and the light strikes. #1 replace the striker and the striker spring---the light strike problem goes bye-bye; #2---take out the front sight blade and look down into the space---there is a screw in the middle---put your screwdriver blade in there and whilst resting your barrel on the workbech tap the screwdriver two times ---the screw will break free and you can adjust the wonky front sight so you don't think your on the deck of yacht heeling to the wind from starboard: #3 Kiss your TOZ and cherish it, it's a beauty---very forgiving to you when you shoot. You will only recognize it's forgiving nature when you start to shoot the Morini---that baby is a beauty but look at another woman once and you're toast. Keep Shooting Mate!

I have both a Toz and a CM84. While there is a vast difference in technology between the pistols, quite frankly, there's nothing at all wrong with the TOZ and very much right with it. If you have one that's in good shape, spend some $$ and buy the necessary spare parts (mainspring, firing pin, pigtain spring). These will cure your light strikes.

Take a few extra $$ and buy a Rink grip for it and you'll have one of the finest free pistols going. The CM84 is a great pistol, but if you have a good Toz, you've already got the basis of a pistol that has the potential of achieving scores equal to your ability. Take the extra money you would have spent on a CM84 and buy LOTS of ammo, then go train, train, train... ;-)

Mikey:

I shot with a Toz for a couple of years before buying a Morini.

Night and day.

Leaving aside the issues of "personal preference" having to do with balance, ease of loading, etc. etc. etc. I do have to report that at a fundamental level, the Morini required a whole lot less futzing around to get it to function accurately and reliably.

Put away the toolkit and the Loc-Tite and never look back.

I would much rather concentrate on shooting tens (well, o.k., nines) than to be constantly adjusting screws in a match.

Steve Swartz

(p.s. yes of course so many records have been set with the Toz and so many are used on the line by top shooters- but you could have said the same for *any* gun while it was being replaced by a superior design. Heck, there are still guys shooting M1s in high power rifle . . .)

Hey Steve, since you have experience with both, does the trigger of the Morini move way back so short fingered guys like me can catch the front of the trigger. I like my TOZ alrighty, but I am wondering if I would do better with different ergonomics. Any thoughts? Thanks, Dwaine

dhurt wrote:Hey Steve, since you have experience with both, does the trigger of the Morini move way back so short fingered guys like me can catch the front of the trigger. I like my TOZ alrighty, but I am wondering if I would do better with different ergonomics. Any thoughts? Thanks, Dwaine

Dwaine,
I have dry fired a friend's Morini with a Morini grip and find that it fits my short fingered hand very well. Better in fact than my Toz with Rink grip. As I recall, the trigger was not set all the way back on the Morini.
When I can shoot over 500 consistently, I may buy myself a present :-)
Fred

Dwaine - the Morini is definitely better suited to those of us with short fingers. I have ground my Toz grip to the point where it's just a skeleton. In fact, I have no wood around the web of my hand between the thumb and forefinger (this done in an effort to get my hand as far fowward as possible). My trigger is moved as far aft as it will go, and I'm still "just" able to get to it comfortably. By contrast my Morini trigger is set about 60% rearward along its travel and is quite comfortable.

One other point to throw in here... While Steve has said the Morini requires less tinkering than the TOZ, the one weakness of the Morini is its extractor, which can slip past the rim of the case unless things are set up just right. This is the only real weakness I've found to date. Oh, yeah, I guess I should say that I never tinker with my TOZ. Just shoot it and clean it, and replace the striker spring every once in a while. I guess it's like anything mechanical - sometimes you get a good one, and sometimes you get a mechanics nightmare... ;-)

Thanks a lot for the info guys. I will look forward to trying the Morini. Dwaine

Am still making up my mind but in the meantime I have borrowed a Morini.

The trigger sure is crisp, no movement at all before it goes off. Generally I think I like the Morini as Steve indicated there are less things that need work to keep the Morini shooting out of the box.

I would like to experiment with a rolling trigger and might adjust my Toz to do that. I was interested to read Nicole's comments regarding her decision to choose the Pardini K22.

The other thing I would be interested in is what adjustments have you done with you Morini? Do you shoot it straight out of the box, have you shortened the barrel etc.

The Morini I have borrowed has the factory barrel and front sight arrangement but also has a custom made barrel that is shorter and with the Morini compensator on it keeps the sight radius similar to the factory barrel. The factory compensator is rather long.

The rifling twist on the custom barrel is a bit slower than the factory one and didn't like CCI ammo, but performed ok on Eley. The factory barrel liked CCI ammo and would put nice groups together when I got it together and focussed on the front sight.

Neither the Toz or the Morini is a magic gun and both need the shooter to be focussed on the front sight to shoot tens, I suspect the Toz is slightly more forgiving though.

Anyway let me know what adjustments you have made to you Morini, I know David Moore in Australia has done a lot of work on barrel lengths and I think his preference is for one that is shorter than the factory barrel, I would be curious to know if the rifling is the same?

Cheers

Mikey

The nice thing about the Morini is that changing barrels is a snap - no gunsmithing required. I've played around a little bit with various compensators on the Morini. These have included the standard factory comp, the "new" very long factory comp, as well as a couple of my own design. Both of these were made of composite materials and thus were very light in comparison to the factory compensators.

From what I've been able to see the benefit of the compensator is to allow slightly less muzzle flip, resulting in a better ability to "call the shot". The other advantages of the factory compensators is that they allow for a very long sight radius and provide the ability to produce an extremely muzzle-heavy pistol.

My group testing results were pretty inconclusive when it comes to compensators. I found far more group size change by swapping from one factory barrel to another than by installing or removing a compensator. In fact, the only significant group size improvement that I've seen resulted from the installation of a custom barrel. This was a Douglas fluted steel blank, cut down to about 8.5". With the factory "new" compensator installed it yielded very good results with some specific brands of ammo. However, when it found an ammo brand that it didn't like, the results were spectacularly bad.

If we look at personal preference, opinions will range from one end of the spectrum to the other. What works for one person may work for you, but it's just as likely it won't. My personal preference is for a pistol that is not muzzle heavy but rather which balances near the trigger. As a result I shoot the factory barrel with a modified front sight holder. The sight radius is reduced from the maximum available with either the factory comp or sight holder, but it doesn't seem to have much impact on my scores. The funny thing about this configuration is that when the pistol recoils the muzzle actually is driven slightly downward if I'm holding the pistol properly. This is more as a result of grip configuration than anything else. And yes, I have a highly modified grip which draws a few stares at matches. Would that my scores did likewise!

I fooled around a bit with trigger location (long, short, turned this way and that). I did get a wider front sight and fooled around with sight radius etc. After a month or so of getting the trigger and sights set up my Morini has pretty much stayed the same.

And the old Federal "Maybe Bang, Maybe Click" match ammo shoots great in the Morini and goes Bang every time. WIthout all the Eley goo to worry about.

Oh wait- I do put in a new battery once a year, whether it needs it or not.

Steve Swartz