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A Quick Note on Installing the Harrington Competition Firing Pin by Ed Buffaloe
Using the competition pin effectively disables the firing pin lock safety, making this gun unsafe to carry with a round in the chamber. The safety will still disable the trigger, but if the gun were dropped, there is a possibility that the hammer could fall and strike the firing pin. The competition firing pin can also make it dangerous to use the hammer drop mechanism, as the gun might discharge, and so great care should be taken when handling weapons that have been modified like this, and they should never be carried with a round in the chamber. But the reduction in trigger pull and smoother action is worth the effort, and for me this is not a carry gun anyway--it is a fun gun to take to the range and shoot.
I replaced the recoil spring in my vz 52 with the Wolff 18.5 pound spring. This made more difference than I thought it would. I could swear the gun is more accurate with the heavier spring. You can buy them from Makarov.com or direct from Wolff (stock number 50418).
I bought the wooden grips on eBay for $35 plus shipping. Copyright 2007 by Ed Buffaloe. All rights reserved.
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I bought the Harrington Competition Firing Pin and Trigger
Enhancement for my Czech vz 52 from 
The instructions for installing the competition firing pin say that with some guns the return spring for the firing pin may be interfered with by
the back side of the extractor, which extends into the firing pin chamber. I did two of these replacements, one for myself and one for a friend, and both of them had this problem. Unless you have a
significantly different extractor than I do, you will have this problem too. Which means you will need to drift out the pin that holds it in and modify the extractor. If you aren’t prepared to remove the extractor
and modify it yourself, you should take the new firing pin to a competent gunsmith for installation. However, taking the extractor out was quite easy, as the pin was not in very tightly,
and a round file is really not that difficult to use.
The instructions say to remove as little metal from the back of the
extractor as possible. I ended up taking the extractor out of the slide about a dozen times altogether to get it “radiused” correctly. I kept trying to remove a small amount of metal, then test, but ultimately on
both extractors I modified, I had to make the radius as shown, lowering the middle by a millimeter or so without lowering the two sides. I used a round file that was just over 2/10 of an inch in
diameter, but a slightly smaller one would probably have served. The radius can’t be too deep, or it will interfere with the hole for the pin. I hope this helps folks who may be unclear about what to do.
