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We heard a sound like a fastball finding the back of a catcher’s mitt. I looked into the Czech Republic forest then caught in the golden autumn light of late afternoon. My guide smiled and said, “Mouflon. They are fighting.” She had some English, a degree in forestry and guided seasonally, as hunting is a necessary way to manage the health of the forest.
When the European mouflon came, I thought of them as creatures out of a fairytale, as a mature ram’s horns look outsized on its little head—a good ram is only about 100 pounds. When I did shoot the one I was instructed to, he went right down but kept kicking. I bolted in another round and wanted to shoot again, but its outlandish horns were in the way.
I used the CZ 600 Alpha’s bolt-release button to empty the chamber without switching off the safety (a nice touch on this rifle) and climbed out of the stand.
I chambered a fresh round and circled the ram. It saw me, leapt up and ran. I dropped to one knee, swung the rifle as I disengaged its plunger-style safety and put down the mouflon for good.
I relate all of that to note how intuitive this new CZ 600 rifle is. It has a tang-mounted safety that is a plunger that moves up and down through the rifle stock. Even under pressure it was natural to use, even though, before shooting this rifle just a few days prior, I’d never used this safety design.
Basically, the safety consists of a button that’s located at the top tang position. You push it down to disengage the safety. You push it back up from the bottom of the stock—just behind the trigger guard—to reengage the safety. In the safe position, the bolt is locked in place. This is good, as it keeps the bolt closed when carried in the field. Its bolt-lock-override button also allows you to remove the bolt with the safety engaged.
I hunted with the CZ 600 Alpha, the hunter’s model in this line of bolt-action rifles. This CZ 600 family of bolt-action rifles also includes the Lux (it has gorgeous wood and more), the Range (guaranteed to .75 inch at 100 meters) and the Trail (its PDW-style stock allows it to collapse easily).
CZ’s ambition was to create a platform that could cut your local gunsmith out of nearly everything all at reasonable price points: $749 for the Alpha; $849 for the Lux; $1,155 for the Trail; and $1,199 for the Range.
They achieved their goal. To start, the 600’s bolt locking lugs don’t engage with the receiver; instead, it has reciprocal lugs machined into the barrel. The rifle’s barrel slides into the receiver rather than threading in; there are no external threads and there is an indexing slot on the barrel that prevents someone from inserting a barrel incorrectly. This makes it easier for anyone to change barrels, as you don’t need to worry about the headspace when swapping a barrel. The barrel is removed and reinstalled via three Torx fasteners in the receiver that are tightened or loosened in a specific pattern that isn’t difficult to follow (just follow the directions).
The CZ 600’s barrel is cold-hammer forged with a threaded muzzle for attachments. It’s available in different weights and lengths depending on the model. Depending on the model, the 600’s receiver can be either steel or aluminum. CZ also opted to use Picatinny/Weaver style bases; though, on some models, it can come drilled and tapped for other mounts and rings. They treat this line of rifles with their new BobOx chemical heat treatment, giving it a hard, durable finish that resists corrosion.
All 600 models use an oversized bolt knob to help with control. They use six locking lugs—except for the smallest action that uses three—and these bolts have a compact 60-degree bolt throw.
CZ ditched the classic Mauser claw extractor, but still managed to make the CZ 600 controlled-round-feed. It also has controlled ejection. The CZ 600 does this with a plunger-style ejector that pops the case out. As the bolt is moved backward, the plunger engages with a stop that moves the plunger forward and pops the brass free. The harder you work the bolt, the farther the brass will fly. I worked it slow at the range and had brass stay in the action, and I worked it fast and sent them flying 10 feet. The bolt head can also be swapped to accommodate a new chambering. Most people can do this without a gunsmith, but some finesse is needed.
The trigger on the CZ 600 is user adjustable and has four preset positions. These are set for trigger pull weights between about 1.3 and 3 pounds. Changing its trigger weight was as easy as using an Allen wrench. At each setting, I didn’t feel any creep. It has a smooth, predictable pull. I kept it on its lowest setting while shooting from a bench at the range. I would increase its weight for an Eastern deer hunt where game tends to be close and is often walking. In bigger landscapes in the West, however, I might put it on its lowest setting if I could shoot without gloves.
The CZ 600 has a locking detachable box magazine. Just insert it and slide a release button forward to lock it in place. The magazine can be topped off just as a conventional top-loading bolt-action can be. These magazines are made from polymer and they click in nicely.
The 600 Alpha tested for this review loaded smoothly from its magazine. A few times, it took a little pressure on the back of the bolt head to push the round into the chamber, but, as this rifle was right out of the box, this wasn’t surprising.
CZ promises 1 MOA or less at 100 meters with “match-grade factory ammunition” for the Alpha. The rifle I tested liked Hornady American Gunner .308 Win., 155-grain BTHP ammunition. My smallest five-shot group at 100 yards with this ammo was .46 inch—pretty darn good.
In sum, this isn’t just a great rifle at these price points, though it is that, but rather it is simply a great rifle. I like the CZ 600’s safety and the trigger system. I appreciate its modular design and that its engineering cuts gunsmiths out of much of the work. This is a rifle worth considering.
Technical Specifications
• Type: bolt-action centerfire rifle
• Caliber: .308 Win. (tested), .223 Rem., .224 Valkyrie, .300 Win. Mag., 6.5 Creedmoor, .30-06, 6.5 PRC, 6mm Creedmoor, 7.62×39
• Barrel: 20″ (tested); semi-heavy, cold-hammer forged; 1:10″ RH twist; ½x28 threaded muzzle
• Magazine: detachable box; locking; 5 rnd. capacity (tested)
• Trigger: single stage; adjustable pull weight 1.3-3 lbs.
• Sights: none; integral Picatinny/Weaver rail
• Safety: vertical two-position plunger
• Stock: parallel comb; vertical grip; fiber-reinforced black polymer; LOP 14″
• Metal Finish: BobOx chemical heat treatment
• Overall Length: 40.2″
• Weight: 7 lbs.
• Accessories: none
• MSRP: $749; cz-usa.com
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Well what are we waiting for?
A Quick Introduction to Compensators
Before you start commenting “What kind of sissy needs a compensator for such a puny round like 9MM” –because I know at least five of you are thinking it.…let’s talk about what compensators do and who they’re designed for.
A compensator usually fits over your threaded barrel, secured by set screw, clamps, or some other mechanism to prevent it from rotating off the threads. The compensator is outfitted with ports or exit points for gas to travel as the bullet leaves the barrel. These ports allow gas to escape putting downward pressure on the muzzle keeping it flatter. The more ports available the more downward pressure from escaping gas and less muzzle rise. The added weight of the compensator also aids in keeping your muzzle down.
Now 9MM doesn’t pack that much of a punch and recoil can be managed with a reasonable amount of practice so why would anyone use a compensator?
While I don’t think compensators are a must have accessory they certainly do help manage recoil and muzzle rise and there are 2 classes of people where this matters:
- New and often young shooters who may not be accustomed to centerfire pistol cartridges
- Competitive shooters looking to decrease splits
Compensators objectively make a difference in recoil management and controlling muzzle rise. Reducing recoil helps you stay on target and make subsequent follow-up shots faster. It also makes controlling the gun easier in the hands of a new shooter.
Sometimes a compensator can funnel out too-much gas and make cycling an issue necessitating the use of a lighter recoil guide rod to get reliable cycling out of a factory pistol. Curious, I wanted to test 3 well-known compensator brands and 1 lesser-known brand.
Let’s dive into the test set-up and results.
Testing Parameters
There are hundreds of compensators available to consumers. From goofy AliExpress comps that cost $20 all the way up to the higher end of the spectrum over $100. I’ve heard good things about several different brands and noticed folks at local sandlot matches using Agency’s 118 (M&P) or 417 (Glock) as well as the Griffin Armament Micro-Carry compensator.
Curious what the big deal was, I ponied up and bought the following compensators for testing:
- Agency 118 for the M&P pistol series – $110
- Killer Innovations Velocity for the CZ-P10c – $118
- Griffin Armament Micro-Carry for any 9MM pistol – $70
- KT Crafts Glock 17/19 Carry compensator – $36
The first 3 are pretty common but the KT Crafts compensator is from a small shop that sells their compensators on eBay. I met the owner thru Gun Twitter while I was planning this test and decided to test his comps against some of the better known brands. All compensators were bought and paid for by me in the name of science.
With this test I’ll be taking a look at a few different dimensions in testing so I’ll outline the parameters below.
First, I had budgeted for about 400 rounds per compensator spread out across a few different range days. Due to the cost of ammo, I would only allow 4 cycling malfunctions before failing the test. If there was a structural failure catastrophic or not, i.e. the compensator walked off a threaded barrel …. it would be an automatic disqualification.
The object is to assess performance across 4 core parameters:
- My subjective rating of recoil reduction
- # of elapsed rounds before a malfunction
- Total count of malfunctions
- Price
Additionally, I did not swap out recoil guide rods to accommodate for the change in recoil to assist cycling. None of these brands make explicit guarantees that you’ll need a lighter guide rod so I want to see how they performed against an OEM configuration.
One Compensator Failed the Test
Needless to say, there was one compensator that completely failed my test: The Agency 110 for the Smith & Wesson M&P series of pistols. I attached it to my M&P 2.0 also equipped with a 5″ Agency threaded barrel.
I experienced 3 stovepipes within the first 28 rounds. Furthermore, the Agency 118 failed due to walking off the threaded barrel but also experienced 3 stovepipes through the course of testing which equates to a 1.5% failure rate against this sample size. This is disappointing because the Agency 118 was the softest shooting of the group but that came at the expense of reliability. I suspect using a lighter recoil guide rod will resolve this problem but I want to test this using mostly OEM parts (aside from barrels).
Test Results
| Compensator | Price | Subjective Recoil Reduction Rating | Rounds Tested | Malfunctions | Malfunction Rate | Round Count Before First Malfunction |
| Agency 110 M&P Comp | $110 | 25% | 200 | 3 | 1.5% | 28 |
| KT Crafts MN | $36 | 15% | 400+ | 0 | 0.0% | N/A |
| Killer Innovations Velocity Comp | $118 | 20% | 400 | 2 | 0.5% | 42 |
| Griffin Armament Micro Carry Comp | $65 | 10% | 400 | 0 | 0.0% | N/A |
I’m focusing on 2 criteria here for which performed the best: recoil reduction and absence of malfunctions. It doesn’t matter much to me if you can reduce recoil by 30% if the pistol won’t cycle so I’m willing to trade off more recoil for better performance.
That being said, there are two clear winners: The KT Crafts single-port Glock compensator and the Griffin Armament Micro-Carry. Both reduced recoil by what I would estimate to be 10-15% and experienced zero malfunctions.
Machined from 6062 aluminum and tightened to the barrel using the included socket head cap screws at 10-12 inch pounds, the KT Crafts Micro Carry has continued to perform beyond the 400 round test as I’ve added them to a few other pistols I keep in rotation. While it doesn’t reduce recoil quite as much as the Agency 118 or KI Velocity, it ran flawlessly while still making a noticeable improvement in recoil reduction. A trade-off I’m more than happy to make. It has a low-profile, matching the slide dimensions and I had no issues using a Black Rhino Concealment holster with this.
Coming in second place is the Griffin Armament Micro-Carry compensator. Out of all that were tested, this one had the least noticeable difference in recoil- however, it performed flawlessly. Its compact profile makes holster compatibility a non-issue. Griffin Armament is a well-respected name in the firearms community and if it weren’t for being priced 2x higher and reducing felt muzzle flip slightly less than KT Crafts… it could’ve been the winner.
Third place goes to the KI Velocity CZ P10c compensator. I experienced 2 stovepipes in the first 2 magazines with this one but had no issues. If not for those two malfunctions, this would be the winner as it had a substantial improvement in reducing muzzle rise. However, it’s almost 2x the price of compensators from Griffin Armament Micro-Carry and more than 3x the price of the KT Crafts offering.
I won’t lie. I had high hopes for the KI Velocity comp. It looked the coolest and it was the most expensive but sometimes price doesn’t always equal performance. However, I will caveat that by saying the KI Velocity has performed flawlessly well past the 400 round test and I’m willing to chalk those early stovepipes up to a break-in period.
Conclusions
Compensators certainly aren’t for everyone and fill a niche need. I don’t have a problem shooting without one but they undeniably make a difference in managing recoil. Whether you’re introducing a new shooter to centerfire pistol rounds or looking to reduce splits- I hope this review helps inform that decision.
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Have a Great New Years Eve! Grumpy NSFW
