If you decide to change sights on your CZ P01 pistol, there are many options to choose from. But what will work best for you depends on your plans with the gun. In this article we show you what to consider to choose the best aftermarket sights for your CZ P-01.
Front sight, sight set or red dot
Once you decide to go for sights switch, you have few options to choose from.
You can change:
- solely the front sight,
- complete sight set, or
- mount a red dot.
We will consider the pros and cons of each below.
Front sight replacement
This option shall come into consideration only if your rear sight is black and grooved. This depends on which CZ P01 model you own.
If your factory rear sight is the simple steel rear sight with luminescent dots, you will probably want to switch the whole sight set. Why? Because it does not look good when the design of front sight is different from the design of the rear sight.
Now for which front sight to go.
There are basically two types of front sights to consider when replacing solely the front sight:
- fiber optic front sight, and
- grooved front sight.
Pros of replacing solely the front sight:
- lower price,
- faster aiming process,
- relatively easy installation that can be done at home.
Cons of replacing the front sight:
- risk of different look of front sight and of rear sight,
- with fiber optic front sight you can break the rod while harsh treatment.
Complete sight set replacement
This is the most common upgrade – most shooter switch the whole sight set at once.
With this option you also avoid the risk of getting incorrect front sight – because different CZs have different front sight height.
We also wrote detailed article on types of sights for CZ P01 in this article.
Types of sight sets
There are quite a few types of sight sets for CZ P01 pistols.
There is no best of all sight set – each type has some advantages for its intended use.
For your CZ P01 you can find sights of following types:
- Fixed sight set – with or withotu fiber optic,
- Adjustable sight set – adjustable rear sight with or without fiber optics and front sight with or without fiber optics,
- Dotted sight set – these can be made either fixed or adjustable,
- Tritium sights – also often called night sights – some manufacturers also add fiber optic into the sights to improve visibility in lighter conditions.
Pros of replacing the complete sight set:
- matching heights of rear sight and front sight,
- matching design of front and rear sight,
- improved visibility,
- further pros depend on each type of sight set.
Cons of replacing the complete sight set:
- higher price compared to replacement of solely front sight,
- other cons depend on each type of sight set.
Mounting a red dot
The last option which got to popularity over the last few years is mounting a red dot to your CZ P01.
As CZ does not offer P01 model in an optics ready version you have two options to mount a red dot to your gun:
- get the slide milled, or
- use red dot mount which replaces rear sight in the dovetail.
Obviously getting your gun milled is a permanent adjustment and you will not be able to go back to the sights agian, but the advantage is that the red dot will be positioned lower in the slide.
The red dot mounts on the other hand do not require any permanent modification on the gun and the installation is as easy as installation of rear sight.
Which red dots are most popular? Most commonly used red dot brands on CZs are Trijicon, Holosun and Shield.
Personally – although the first two red dot manufacturers are great and well renown, the third may be the best way to go in this case.
Why? Because of the size. Shield is renowned as manufacturer of compact red dots and the compact size of red dot matches the compact size of CZ P01 perfectly. It may be more tricky to get those however as they are often sold out in most shops.
CZ P01 shares the same rear sight profile as CZ 75B, therefore any sights compatible with CZ 75B will work also on your CZ P01.