The CZ550 Action for African Cartridges

13 June 2001, 16:11

John Ricks

Received a new CZ550 action today, wow, nice piece of workmanship. Could not stand it just sitting on the bench, so I started running cartridges through the magazine. No barrel, just air out where the chamber should be. All below cartridges functioned flawlesly through the magazine, were picked up by the bolt face and extractor, and sat there in the imaginary chamber. This action has the 416 Rigby bolt face. Cartridges were:

375 H&H, 375 Ackley, 378 Wea, 416 Howell, 416 Rem, 416 Lapua, 416 Rigby, 404 Jeffery, 458 Lott, 500 A-Square and the prize, the 500 Jeffery. Did not have a 505 Gibbs or 585 Nyati to try.

Nice blued finish on the action, plus when the safety is rearward, it will not fire, push it ahead, and the trigger works as advertised. And those square bridges just say "Africa".

13 June 2001, 18:19

<Mike Brown>

Oh hell, I take it back, you are fiddly!
OK, here ya go, lets order up three actions, three Rutply laminated blanks: a red one, and a couple brown ones, and two more barrels like the 404 I just recieved, but one in 500 Jeff, and one in 416 Rigby. We can build them as spec guns and sell em` right here on the board. What about it guys? Ready for some guns! Custom made to fit YOU, with cast off, drops, and LOP`s to your order.
Anyone interested?
If we mass produce them we should be able to get the price down to say,,, oh, $6 thousand each? Hehe.
But only for board members at that price.

15 June 2001, 05:12

<Pfeifer>

John,
Where did you decide to order your CZ-550 Magnum .416 Rigby action from?

Thanks, Jeff Pfeifer

15 June 2001, 18:23

John Ricks

Jeff, this is a customer's action that was sent to me. The customer has had it for some time, it is a new, never barreled action. Brownells has them www.brownells.com. I highly recommend this action for the large African cartridges. A lot of value for the cost.

16 June 2001, 04:26

<SafariOfTheMind>

How much are those CZ actions running for these days? A PH showed me his custom 458 in SAfrica that looked like a truck had run over it and he swore by it. Ugly but tough as I recall him saying. Sort of like East European women

Addendum: Found out from a friend that the CZ-550 action is available from American Hunting Rifles in Montana for 550US in large magnum and for similar prices elsewhere...

[This message has been edited by SafariOfTheMind (edited 06-17-2001).]

16 June 2001, 13:40

270Model70

John,

Do you install Model 70 style safeties on the 550? How much work is it and what would the approximate price be? The standard safety on the 550 is one of the main features holding me back from deciding to use one of these on a 416 project.

16 June 2001, 14:52

Will

Please educate me. I've been hunting all my life and still fail to see the necessity of the 3 position Model 70 safety. Actually it is more of nuisance, getting that thing in gear when in a hurry.

I hope I don't insult anyone by this, but the plai old 2 position safety on the CZ seems perfectly adequate.

16 June 2001, 22:02

Jiri

SafariOfTheMind :

Sort of like East European beer - ugly (flask) but "tough"

17 June 2001, 01:11

<Todd G>

Will,

I agree with you. I have never been a big fan of the three position Winchester safety for the same reasons that you site. I much prefer the CZ, which is now very similar to the Weatherby.

I guess I would be interested in hearing for the gurus why the Winchester safety is so much more desireable.

Todd G

17 June 2001, 02:03

LE270

quote:
Originally posted by Todd G:
Will,
I agree with you. I have never been a big fan of the three position Winchester safety...
I guess I would be interested in hearing for the gurus why the Winchester safety is so much more desireable.
Todd G

I like the Winchester 3 position safety because, in the middle position, at least on the Winchester Model 70 actions I've had personal experience with, you can easily unscrew and remove the entire firing pin assembly (with spring) from the bolt. I liked to be able do that when trying new loads or bullets for cartridge overall length in the rifle when I was working in my house basement. Since the firing pin was gone, there was no threat of accidentally firing the rifle. I still test loads for overall length in my Remington 700s also, with the safety on, but I feel much more nervous doing so, as there is danger of accidentally firing the rifle when doing this.

[This message has been edited by LE270 (edited 06-16-2001).]

17 June 2001, 09:14

<SafariOfTheMind>

Hey Jiri, Czech girls are the exception to this rule. They are pretty AND tough. Sure wish I could hang out more in Praha than the 1 week when I was there a couple of years back. Now, that's a real Budweiser kind of place. Hope you all can join the EU asap despite the Irish referendum rebuke. RJ

17 June 2001, 15:17

Will

As long as you brought it up, I think all this EU stuff is a bunch of bunk. It seems to me it is just another reflection of all this globalization crap. I don't need another country to tell me what to think or how to act or how to make products or how to live or what to think.

No more than any other country needs to listen to the US about how to think, etc.

17 June 2001, 20:00

<Mike Brown>

Will:
Right on the money. The United nations and EU both suck.
Our part of the country is being overwhelmed with the UN dictating what we do with our parks and lakes. Our Olympic National Park is now a "World Heritage Park". Can you spell U.N.?
No more jet skis on the lake, and now they are after all motors. Trying to get rid of horses in the park, cannot go in without a reservation now.
Where will it end? If they have their way, this will be a playground for the rich. We will just be the people that take out the trash.

18 June 2001, 08:09

Atkinson

John,
A couple of points to bring up!! Your test can be a little misleading as you are running thoes rounds through a big huge action hole....when you stick a barrel into that hole it shrinks by say 50% and then the round must go into a tiny chamber size hole and that means the round has to be guided to a center of impact, ZAMBOZOLED!!!! NOW IT FAILS!!

M0-70 Safty posts,
Such hogwash being handed out on the 3 position safty, it is the safest and best every designed for scope use...You can unload a rifle while on safty and can lock the bolt down on safty..It is the only safty that is safe and will not be knocked off under any circumstances, It is the only safty that I will carry a round in the chamber while hunting horseback or on foot...It must travel an arc to be released....where do you guys come up with such notions, on the benchrest???

The other good safty is the Mauser military safty, but it's not scope friendly......

------------------
Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

18 June 2001, 09:20

<Don G>

I agree with Ray. (A momentary aberration, I'm sure...)

The M70 safety is the cat's meow. It has the same features as Paul Mauser's GEW98, just turned the right direction!

Don

18 June 2001, 19:15

<martin f>

Just to get something straight:
the Czech Republic has borders to Germany and Austria, and geographically and culturally is very much in the middle of Europe.
And I can confirm that you can see beautiful women in Czechia, Hungary, and Poland.

Martin

19 June 2001, 06:19

<Pfeifer>

bjdoerr,
PM Enterprises shows a Win M70 three position type safety with gas flange, in their last catalog for the BRNO ZKK (#9303 $162 retail) and also a corresponding bolt stop (#9303BS $32 retail) to be used with it.

You can email Jim Wisner and ask if this would be compatible with the new CZ-550 magnums or maybe he has one in the works. He is always designing new custom gun parts as demand warrants and stocks alot of custom big bore parts. His email is jenjim@quik.com or phone# 360-748-3743 (Washington state is on PST).

I have purchased some of the PM Ent safeties and they are beautifully machined with a color cased thumb lever; rest is in the white. The alloy on these safeties is also such that they can also be color cased by Turnbull or the likes :-)

Regards,
Jeff Pfeifer

PS: AHR ( www.hunting-rifles.com ) also offers 3-pos safeties as an option on their CZ rifles. I don't know whose safeties they use - PM Ent, David Gentry or maybe CZ-UB actually makes one for them too?

19 June 2001, 06:32

Jim in Idaho

Actually, the Model 70 safety will indeed come off accidentally.

I had one on position three that got bumped to position two sometime as it was slung on my back. Sometime later the bolt was opened and ejected the round. The first I knew of this was when I heard something rattle and looked down and saw the open bolt.

Granted that it would be harder to take off of position two as you must overcome the resistance of the striker spring, but it has always bothered me the way it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Now, if they combined the striker blocking action of the Model 70 safety with the way the Ruger 77 safety is tucked neatly into the bolt on position three then they would have a real winner.

Don't know much about Czech women but the most beautiful girl in high school by a huge margin was a Polish blonde named Jan Buczek.