The tiny CZ Scorpion Micro was developed for a requirement from a drug interdiction unit to be as small as possible while also being suppressed. And small it is, at just over 16 inches in its civilian guise and easily disappearing in backpacks or wherever else you need it to go.
Taking a step back, the CZ Scorpion EVO 3 line was introduced a decade ago, with various carbine and pistol versions of the select-fire 9mm submachine gun platform brought to the US in recent years. It’s the spiritual successor and namesake of the unmistakable Škorpion vz. 61, so beloved by Hollywood spooks, thugs, terrorists, and generically eastern European villains. Made of stamped and machined steel, the original Škorpion had a compact folding wire stock and wood pistol grip. The truly minuscule vz. 61 machine pistol was chambered in the anemic .32 ACP and issued essentially as a personal defense weapon.
CZ’s Scorpion EVO 3 was a clean-sheet design, sharing little with the vz. 61 besides its name, overall plus-sized format, and simple closed-bolt blowback operation. The upper and lower receivers are polymer, with the upper a clamshell design. The barrel is cold hammer-forged and a tad more than 4 inches in its Pistol Micro format. Various flavors of stock assemblies fit the Scorpions (with the push of a button, we might add), with a compact telescoping SB Tactical arm brace installed on this model.
The stubby barrel comes shrouded by a faux silencer from SilencerCo, dubbed the NoOsprey because it looks like their unique rectangular-profiled Osprey. It looks cool, but better yet, you can replace the NoOsprey with the can of your choice once your Form 4 comes in, as long as it’s less than 1.57 inches in diameter. The short handguard is courtesy of HB Industries and sports M-LOK slots all around. Note that it lacks the front sling loops found on other versions but retains the rear ones; there’s also a QD sling socket on the left side of the SB Tactical brace. CZ also adds a hand stop to help prevent you from turning your support hand into hamburger. This is a very real concern with such short weapons, which we’ve unfortunately previously witnessed first-hand at the range.
The gun comes with iron sights with four rear aperture sizes and a Picatinny top rail. There are safety selectors on both sides of the CZ Scorpion Micro, and its non-reciprocating charging handle can be installed on either side. You can lock the charging handle back in a slot, like an MP5, and slap it silly like you’re in Die Hard. The bolt release is on the left side, and the magazine release is at the base of the trigger guard, with paddles on both sides.
The Scorpion is easy to field strip without any tools. First, ensure the weapon is clear and unloaded. Lock back the bolt, set the safety to fire, and drift out a captive pin. Yank down on the lower receiver, and it’ll slide right out along with the fire control group. Reach into the upper receiver, push on the bolt, and remove it. You’re done! While you can disassemble the bolt and fire control group further, it isn’t necessary for routine maintenance.
The CZ Scorpion Micro is classified by the ATF as a pistol, so you can run it as such with the supplied pistol brace. If you decide you want to attach an actual stock to it, you can get a stamp for it to make it a short-barreled rifle.
CZ’s iron sights are quite nice, but it’s 2019, for goodness sake, so we installed a red dot. The sight plane hugs the rail, so optics need to be mounted low. The Aimpoint T-1 mounts quite low and works perfectly atop the CZ Scorpion Micro. The gun presents consistently and easily, with the dot popping easily into view. We did find the pistol brace wobbled when locked open, bothering one of our testers. Note that the brace locks open, requiring a button press to release it, but it doesn’t lock closed. It also has only one position, fully extended.
Handguard real estate is quite limited, but we were able to attach a SureFire M300V Scout Light at a convenient position using an Impact Weapon Components Thorntail2 mount. You may have to swap your charging handle around to get your light exactly where you want it — just drift a pin and stab angrily at a tiny spring to reconfigure the handle.
The ergonomics of the CZ Scorpion Micro are excellent, with a manual of arms that should be comfortable and familiar to most shooters. You can even adjust the pistol grip fore and aft to your preference. Controls are ambidextrous and close at hand. As righties, we found the bolt release and magazine release most efficiently manipulated with the left thumb. For mag changes, we grasped the old mag with the left hand, hit the mag release with the left thumb, ripped out the old mag, slammed the fresh mag home, then pressed the slide release with the left thumb, like with a 1911. Unlike an MP5, the safety is easy to hit with your thumb. However, the safety lever on the opposite side digs into your shooting hand; this bothered some shooters more than others, and some a whole lot. There are many aftermarket safety selectors available to address this issue.
We tried a prototype replacement pistol grip from Gear Head Works, which has some interesting features. The shape of the grip shifts your hand lower on the gun, both clearing the off-side safety and providing for a trigger pull that moves straight to the rear rather than up at an angle as with the stock grip. Lowering the web of the hand also leaves room for a hole at the rear of the grip, to which you can attach some paracord or a ring for a shoulder rig or other vertically-oriented concealment rig. The grip also features a more vertical angle, which you may prefer. While it goes against the grain of lowering the bore axis in handguns, the Gear Head Works grip worked well on the Scorpion.
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The Scorpion’s trigger, however, felt like it was constructed of sandpaper and rocks. It was gritty and creepy, qualities you want in a horror movie, not in a trigger. Our sample broke at a lofty 9 pounds with all the subtlety of Alex Jones. It was irritating for precision shots, but when we got our John Wick on, we consistently ripped off double tap after double tap on the head box at 20 meters — ding, ding, ding, ding. Shooting and moving, shooting while on the move, working barricades and vehicles, maneuvering around obstacles, working hallways and doorways — the CZ Scorpion Micro handles wonderfully. It conceals readily and is easy to deploy and operate from a vehicle or in confined spaces. It’s an absolute hoot.
The retaining bushing on the NoOsprey fake can requires an unusual tool to remove. HB Industries makes a purpose-built tool that’s used with a socket wrench, but we used an even cheaper adjustable pin wrench from Harbor Freight. Spin a silencer on the Micro, as was originally intended, and the little Scorpion is even more awesome. It’s shown here with a SureFire Ryder 9M-Ti, in its compact configuration to keep it as short as possible. The Ryder is less than 9 ounces and only 1.25 inches in diameter, so you hardly notice it. It adds less than 4 inches to the overall length of the gun and made it velvety soft and smooth to shoot. CZ also has its own new can, made by Aerocharger, and specifically designed for the Scorpion. CZ’s S2 Reflex silencer’s blast chamber extends backward from the muzzle, overlapping the barrel to provide more volume with less overall length.
The CZ Scorpion Micro ran 300 rounds of our 115-grain test ammo from Ammo, Inc. and various other 147-grain ammo in our range bag without a single hitch. Out of the 4.1 inch barrel, average muzzle velocity with the 115-grain was 1,250 feet per second. We previously tested the standard Scorpion pistol, seeing muzzle velocities of almost 1,400 fps from its 7.75-inch barrel — that starts encroaching on .357 territory in terms of muzzle energy. So, you give some of that up for the Micro’s smaller overall package, but modern 9mm defensive ammo is still very effective. Ammo, Inc.’s Stelth 147-grain subsonic ammo averaged 937 fps leaving the SureFire Ryder.
With its straightforward design and simple operating system, the whole Scorpion line is reasonably priced. The Pistol Micro variant is the most expensive of the lot but still a good value for a modern mini-sub gun.
But how useful are sub guns these days? With modern red-dot-equipped handguns refined to excellence at this point and miniaturized AR (or other similar) platforms available in ballistically superior rifle calibers, the pint-sized Scorpion occupies a slender niche in between. But it occupies it very well.
The CZ Scorpion Micro is smaller than rifle-caliber guns can ever be, and it’s easier to shoot than any handgun. It provides a lot of firepower in a very small package — great for a truck/car gun, office gun, SHTF stash gun, you name it. It would be an effective and very user-friendly home defense gun. And if you need a gun like this for your work, like the narcotics officers who originally requested it, you’re a bad ass and don’t need us to tell you why.
Like Arya with a Valyrian blade, the CZ Scorpion Micro is small and deadly. Indeed, we hail the Scorpion EVO 3 S2 Pistol Micro of House CZ, the Third of its Name, Lord of Stealth, Spitter of Fire, Clanger of Steel, Emptier of Ammo Cans, Maker of Smiles.
Caliber: 9×19
Barrel Length: 4.12 inches
Overall Length: 13.875/22.5 inches
Weight Unloaded: 5.3 pounds
Magazine Capacity: 20/30 rounds OEM, 35/50 Magpul Box/Drum
MSRP: $1,575
URL: sigsauer.com
Aimpoint Micro T-1 with LRP mount + $934
SureFire RYDER 9M-Ti + $999
Gear Head Works Scorpion Pistol Grip + TBD approx. $40
SureFire M300V Scout Light + $429
Impact Weapon Components Thorntail2 Light Mount + $50
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Sig Sauer url? This is a CZ, fyi!