CZ P-09F Nocturne full handicapped shooter's review

Note: This is the full review; a short TL:DR; video review may come later, so keep an eye out!

Most firearm reviews rarely tackle the topic of accessibility; At most you’ll get a cursory mention that a pistol chambered in 22LR or 380 would potentially be good for the elderly, women, or someone with low grip strength, but it rarely goes beyond that.. And almost nobody talks about accessibility in regards to the caliber everybody says you should own: 9mm.

So, I wanted to change that, and also talk about my own first 9mm pistol: The CZ P-09F Nocturne.

Let’s go.

What is the CZ P-09F Nocturne (and why did I buy it)?

I don’t want to spend a bunch of time here, as most of this information has been covered by numerous other reviewers, and is also available from CZ directly. For those of you who aren’t already curious, the CZ P-09F Nocturne is a full-size 9mm DA/SA - “Double Action/Single Action” - pistol, and most notably is an evolution of CZ’s popular P-09, finally including an optics cut direct from the factory.

More on that later, though.

My model in particular is the California-retail version; I’m actually in Illinois, but since the non-restricted version’s magazine capacity is higher than what the state allows, my only other option was the California model. This basically means that the 2 magazines I got with the pistol only have a 10 round capacity.

I didn’t buy it for the magazine capacity, however: I bought it because CZ makes some damned fine pistols, and they have spectacular aftermarket support. Combine that with the optics cut, the fact that I like DA/SA pistols in particular, with a price tag that is below $600, and I was sold.

It was actually between this and the Beretta 80X Cheetah in 380; I liked the aftermarket support and the price of the CZ just a bit more, though, plus.. 9mm ammo is cheaper than 380 overall, and lately Beretta’s support has been less than satisfactory according to some folks.

Finally, I wanted a good “multi-role” pistol. Something that I could enjoy doing target shooting, as well as potentially competitions in the future. Additionally, while I’m not a doomsday prepper, I wanted something that could potentially fill the role of “Oh fuck me running, we live in the Fallout universe now” utility firearm.

Just because I don’t expect it to happen doesn’t mean I don’t carry a pocket reference survival guide (and Sudecon wipes) in my every-day-carry bag.. Especially since I’m what some might call a “leftist agitator” (buy my morale patches, shirts and more).

Anyway, let’s move on. How does the CZ P-09F Nocturne shoot in the hands of someone with severe arthritis and nerve issues?

How the P-09F Nocturne handles for disabled shooters

In short: Pretty well, with some caveats.

I had no problems operating the firearms.. Even one handed! Let me put this into perspective for you, however.

When compared to 22LR, 9mm will have more noticeable recoil in general. However, just because it’s significantly more, doesn’t mean it’s going from “This is easy” to “This thing just flew out of my hands, hit me in the face, shattered my nose, and now I have a concussion”.

The CZ in particular actually handles the recoil well; Since this is a full-size pistol, it’s got more weight behind it, which actually helps negate some of the felt recoil. Shooting a variety of ammo through it, I noticed none were particularly hot, either, in terms of felt recoil.

What I will say is that I felt more fatigue in my hands after 100 rounds than I would with my 22LR TX-22 Compact (which I typically shoot with hotter loads, like Federal Punch or CCI Mini Mags).

Additionally, I will note that I did include faster shooting drills and one-handed shooting, but only with my dominant hand; My left wrist has on-and-off issues (and were strongly on on my second trip), so I avoided non-dominant drills. If your dominant wrist is weakened, you may find the recoil a bit too much.

Caption: The left photo showcases a relatively tight group shot at 7 yards, two handed, with a rapid fire rate. The right photo shows a reasonable group shot at the same distance, but with one hand.

Recoil is only one factor to consider, however, so let’s talk about the trigger next.

The trigger itself isn’t bad; For those of you unfamiliar, DA/SA means that when the hammer is in the “up” position, the trigger pull will have little to no “take-up” and will require more force to pull (this is the “double action” trigger). Once the slide cycles and the hammer is back, that next trigger pull is going to be much lighter in single action; you’ll have a good amount of take-up, and then a lower-resistance pull to fire.

I actually do wish it was a little lighter, however, so I will probably mod it at some point for that reason. That’s another good reason to go with CZ: Aftermarket parts are readily available to customize it to your liking.

If you have some significant limits on your trigger finger strength, you’ll probably find the double action trigger less than ideal. You can avoid using the double action trigger, however; On my second range trip, it was raining, and I was having an exceptionally bad flare.. Bad enough I almost cancelled the trip. So, aside from a single test of the DA trigger during that flare, I never de-cocked the hammer to use it again.

Keep in mind that you can swap out the decocker for a traditional safety with a part included with the pistol, so you don’t have to rely on the DA trigger to prevent accidental discharges should you so choose. With the safety, you can have the hammer pulled back and safe at the same time.

Next up, let’s talk about the slide!

If you evaluate this thing in-store, you may be thinking to yourself.. “Holy fuck, this slide is stiffer than me when I wake up in the morning.” - and that’s not a boner pun, as folks like me with bad arthritis have a hard time with mobility early in the mornings.

Well, with the hammer up the slide can have a bit more resistance than you might expect, but it’s actually not that bad.

No, the issue is actually that you need to clean and lube up this thing immediately upon purchase, like most firearms.. CZs, in particular, seem to be much more “stiff” out of the factory than others I’ve shot.

I put a moderate amount of CLP down on mine before hitting the range, and everything operated nice n’ smooth for me. No problems racking it, and thanks to the slide cuts I had no issues gripping it, either.

And, again, if you don’t like how stiff the slide is, you can mod it! If you’d prefer not to go that route, however, or you really want to make it easy to rack, you’re better off grabbing something like the S&W Shield EZ.

Finally, I have to say this.. I hate CZ’s magazines. They are so damned stiff to load from the factory that I swear it caused me to get fatigued shooting earlier just because my hands were working so damned hard to load these.

I have no doubt that it’ll get easier as I work the springs more, but maybe they are just punishing those of us stuck with the 10 round magazines.

Thankfully, my second range trip was at an indoor range and they had a compatible loading assistive device that worked well (The UpLULA; I liked it so much I immediately bought one from the range).

Let’s talk about the general performance, and then close things out with some additional thoughts and a final verdict.

Overall thoughts on the CZ-P09F Nocturne

When you’re talking about the actual performance - accuracy, in particular - I’m pretty happy with this thing. On my range day I was having some difficulties; my heart in particular has been giving me issues, and had an elevated heart rate the entire trip, which impacted my overall accuracy.

And with that we come to my big “but” here: While the iron sights aren’t bad, I had wanted to use my Holosun 407k optic on this right from the start.. And I couldn’t.

I couldn’t because CZ used some form of Elvish Loctite that caused me to nearly strip one screw and completely strip the other in attempting to remove the placeholder for the optics cut on the slide.

It was literally impossible for me to remove both screws for the optics plate. I had properly sized bits, and attempted with the tool they included (100% impossible), a good screwdriver (50% impossible - that’s how I got one screw out, but it was not easy), and eventually a screw extractor on a powered drill (still impossible).

So, after my first range trip, I shipped it off to CZ to have them fix it. Just over 2 weeks later from the ship date, I had it back in my hands; I have to say, CZ is spectacular when it comes to handling documentation of issues (and their RMA process overall). They noted what happened, how they fixed it, suggestions to avoid further issues related to this issue, and even skipped putting on Loctite since they knew I was going to mount an optic immediately.

Also, before anybody brings it up: I did obtain some Cajun Gun Works screws for the Holosun so I don’t end up causing any reliability issues once the Holosun is attached.

Speaking of reliability, I did have a couple failures to feed during that first trip, but after the RMA? It performed flawlessly. I cranked over 200 rounds through this thing in that second trip alone and had zero failures. This thing is a beast.

Anyway, that’s it! If this review helped you out, maybe consider dropping me a trip in my Ko-Fi, or buying a morale patch from my shop. Have a good one, and stay safe, folks!