Posted by TomW on September 12, 2000 at 17:43:41:
In Reply to: Morini .22's. Hit or miss? posted by Jef on September 12, 2000 at 15:42:41:
I've been shooting my Morini CM 22M for about 3 months now and have formed some opinions regarding the pistol.
1. It seems to be consistently accurate with a wide range of ammo. I haven't had any feeding problems with any of the ammo I've tried in it. It seems to like SK and CCI Standard best.
2. The grips need a bit of work to make them right. I know you will be horrified to read this but although the Morini grip is otherwise very good, I have yet to find any grip maker who puts a ridge in to dig in to the heel of the hand to prevent slippage during timed and rapid fire sequences - so I build one up with an epoxy putty.
3. I found that it is essential to get the gun properly positioned, laterally, in the grip. There are adjustment screws for this purpose and it is important that you try coming up on to aim with the eyes closed and moving your hand around a lot, still with the eyes closed and let everything settle, then open your eyes. The sights should align perfectly, laterally. It is worth taking some time to get this right as I have found that not to do so gives rise to "fliers" as the hand returns to its natural alignment during the ignition stage - a phenomenon virtually impossible to observe but it does happen.
4. The so-called adjustment mechanism for various brands of ammunition is nothing more than a screw that compresses the recoil spring a bit. It doesn't seem to have much effect as far as I can determine and I've tried it in all positions.
5. The sights are generally good although on my gun if you attepmt to adjust the width of the rear notch during a match you will also have to adjust your windage. This shouldn't happen but it does on my gun.
6. There are two split screws amongst the various adjustment screws for the trigger and no tool is supplied for these. You will have to come up with a local solution for this. Also, no allen key is supplied which will fit the adjustment screw for the adjustment to the recoil spring that I described above.
7. You can't adjust the trigger over-travel screw too finely otherwise the trigger won't release. A bit of a nuisance but you learn to live with it.
8. I don't find the finish on the gun all that durable. It looks like some form of black oxide and I would have thought that for the price a properly polished, properly blued finish could have been provided.
9. Overall the gun performs quite well in the Standard Gun event but to be frank I have shot just as well with a Unique, a Walther, a Hammerli 208 and a FAS (Domino). I couldn't say it is better than any of these pistols and since they all seem to be around the same price I'd say there is nothing in it. I recently tried the Walther KSP200 (the German assembly of the IZH 35M) and I found that it performs at least as well as the above named pistols, once you get the trigger and grips right.
If it were me I'd go for this gun or even the IZH itself and do the necessary work to bring it up to scratch.
Posted by RML on September 12, 2000 at 18:28:51:
Some additional info about the Morini CM22M.
I tried it for a apx. 300 rounds a few months ago, together with 7 other pistols of the same class (Pardini, Hammerli, Benelli etc.) together with a couple of ladies from my club.
I ended up choosing the Pardini SP22, and both the ladies are now using Hammerli SP20.
The Morini is fairly heavy up front, and that was a big problem both for me and one of the ladies. The muscles on top of the lower arm got very tired after a while.
I have seen remarks about the balance of the CM22M in tests in magazines here in Europe, and I hear now that Morini is making a new version of the CM22M with an lighter frame.
We had some feeding problems with an ammo called GECO. It got stuck in the magasine, and we had to
give up using it.
I also did not like the position of the trigger tongue. It is pointing forward in a way that did not fit my hand very well. There is also not much space in the trigger guard, something that could be a problem for people with big hands.
I would also have to change the grip a bit, but that is normal (people who claim that their grip fits "perfect" without modifing it, normally do not know what to look for).
All in all, I was a bit disappointed with the CM22M. I was waiting 6 months for it bacause I wanted to replace my FAS-607, but in the end I found that the Pardini was a better choise for me.
But the test that we did, trying out several pistols against each other, was really useful. None of us ended up buing the pistol that we expected to buy before we started testing.
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