3 Things You Should Know About the CZ Scorpion Evo Review

I’ve been working with a CZ Scorpion Evo for about 3 months now.  I’ve shot several competitions and range sessions with it totaling almost 1,000 rounds.  I like it so much that I think I need one.

It shoots fast enough and handles well enough, that I actually won a couple of those competitions. 

But there are three quarks I found about the gun that you should know before you buy one.

Quark #1: Completely Filled Mags Cannot be Loaded on a Closed Bolt

The gun comes with 20 and 30 round magazines form CZ.  They are completely polymer and work well.  I even bought a 35 round mag from Palmetto State Armory to try with the gun.  All of them have the same problem.

If the bolt is forward there just is not enough room in the magazine for the spring to compress enough to allow the magazine to seat.  No matter how hard I pushed against the spring the magazine would not get caught by the mag catch. 

The owner of the gun told me he thinks the wear shown on his magazines are from trying to push hard enough to make it work. 

I found 2 simple fixes: 

1 – Down-load your magazines by 2 rounds.  This works on all the magazines and is what I did.  I’m used to running magazines on my AR’s down 2 rounds so it was nothing new to me.  I simply loaded the magazines as far as they would go (until another round wouldn’t fit) and then knocked 2 rounds off the top.  The gun ran like a top using this method.

2 – Always lock the bolt open before reloading.  Like the old school MP5.  I was taught to lock the bolt open then change magazines.  I don’t know why, but that is what I was taught during a fam fire once.  If you always do that, loading the magazines to full capacity will work.  The gun ran well with completely filled magazines once I got the first round to chamber from the open bolt.  I didn’t test this a lot, as I went with the option above to make the gun run.

Quark #2: Feeding Hollow Points

My favorite defensive handgun load, Federal HST 124 grain +P’s would not come out of the magazine well.  With 28 rounds in a 30-round magazine the first round would take a nosedive when I tried to load it.  With a little back and forth and shaking I could get the round to go into the chamber.  Once that happened the gun would run the ammo just fine.

The only way I could get the CZ Scorpion Evo to load the Federal HST load out of the magazine was to down load the magazine to 17 rounds.

The Federal HST round is substantially shorter in overall length then a standard 9mm round.  I haven’t had a problem with the load in any handgun, but this gun did not like them.

My theory is that the round was just too short in overall length to run as designed.  The Scorpion was designed as a submachine gun to run NATO spec ammo. 

I think using a hollow point with more overall length or that is really pointed would solve the problem.  I just didn’t have time to test the theory because I don’t keep anything sitting around anymore besides Federal HST’s.

If I was to buy one of these CZ Scorpion Evo’s I would thoroughly test any hollow points you want to use in it before trusting it.  As you should with any gun.

Quark #3: Double Bolt Lock

The CZ Scorpion Evo has 2 different styles of bolt locks.

One looks like an AR design but moves up and down instead of in and out.  This is the lock activated by the empty magazine.  It is a lever up on the left side of the receiver just above the magazine well.

I found it really fast for reloading after shooting a magazine dry.  Push the mag in and pull the lever down with your thumb.  As long as you are right-handed using your left hand to reload is intuitive. 

It took me almost no time to adapt to the reloads.  It’s incredibly fast and I took to it like a fish to water.  No extra training was really needed to adapt to the system.

The second bolt lock is like an MP5.  You pull the charging handle back and push it up.  The handle rotates up into a notch cut in the hand guard.  This creates a physical barrier so the bot cannot go forward until you rotate the charging handle back down.

When I first got the gun I thought it would be a problem.  That somehow I would activate both locks and have to mess with both of them to get the rifle running again.  But it’s almost impossible to do under any real-world or competition circumstances.

To engage the MP5 style latch you have to pull back further on the charging handle then with the AR style latch.  So when you pull the charging handle back far enough to rotate it up to lock the bolt back it will let the AR style catch fall and it won’t be engaged again unless you physically hold it up or put an empty magazine in the gun. 

So the only time it gets confusing is when you try to put the bolt home on and empty magazine and you use the MP5 style bolt lock.  Which will not be a problem in a competition or real world self-defense.  When would you want the bolt home on an empty chamber and an empty magazine?

When I carried the gun in a bag I put the bolt home on a empty chamber and inserted a filled magazine (minus 2 rounds of course).  All my fears never came true and this wasn’t an issue, just something weird to know about the gun. 

Bonus Quark: The Magazine Release

The magazine release takes getting use to.  I had to run it like an MP5 to work it effectively and at speed.  It looks like you should be able to use your trigger finger and push forward on the release located at the front of the trigger guard and get a magazine to fall out.  And you should be able to do it ambidextrous.

I could never under stress hook the release with my finger just right to get the release to push far enough forward to let go over the magazine.  I could do it slowly and deliberately but not under any stress.  And I have long fingers and big hands.  

I gave up on that almost immediately and ran the gun like an MP5 on releasing the magazine. 

If you slide your hand back off the handguard and grip the magazine with a thumbs up grip the release is right there.

I would slip my hand back, grab the mag, release it, and through it on the ground on the way to getting another out of my mag pouch.  It is super fast, really easy, and took very little practice to master.  Even with the extra motion I never felt behind guys with AR’s or other systems.  I could keep up on mag changes.

Just a little quark that you need to learn by doing.

Conclusion:

In the end, the CZ Scorpion Evo is a great platform.  I would love to have a couple of them:  A short pistol version to go in a bag with me when I travel and a rifle version to shoot competitions with.

Over-all it is just a great system.  The only reliability issue I had was the hollow points.  I never really cleaned it.  I took it apart twice.  Once I just added some oil and the other I actually just wiped it down.  The friend I borrowed the gun from said he’s had it for a couple years and never cleaned it.  The gun just runs and runs. 

If you are looking for something besides and AR to run in a pistol caliber, you should look at the CZ Scorpion Evo. 

It will keep up with anything out there.

Stay Safe,

Ben