For the reincarnation of the .395 Tatanka, I asked Rusty to reinforce the front wall of the magazine box, thin sheet metal that it is.
He did a super job.
The next one on the M70 Winchester 49-10 may be even prettier, if that is possible:





He shaped a piece of steel and soldered it on tight, snugs up against the aluminum bedding block in front of the magazine too.
That is stout!

Also replaced the safety with a LaPour 3-position, and a Timney trigger that breaks crisply at 3.5 pounds, though it could go down to 1 pound.





This is a Saeed-style rifle with slick barrel, no barrel hardware, to be Leupold scoped.
Rusty turned it down to be an easy fit in the CZ Kevlar stock.
24" barrel that is 0.680" diameter at the muzzle,
a bit longer knoxform/shank than a standard CZ contour,
but the dry rifle weight is still only 8.75 lbs.







Scope in CZ rings torqued clamping screws to 65 inch-pounds.
Talley rings on the .375/.338 Lapua also built by Rusty, many years ago,
that one has a fluted Lilja barrel 26" long:





And a neat forend tip stud for sling attachment without a barrel band:





I had a problem with the brass being sticky in the .395 Tatanka built on a Dakota 76 African action,
with a rough chamber, by another gunsmith,
and maybe inadequate sizing by Redding custom dies.
I thought the brass was soft.
Now it works fine with the same loads as before, in the CZ.

That sticky brass problem may have been the perfect storm.
Brass arrived after a 2 year wait, two weeks before heading to Tanzania.
Slightly soft or slightly over-sized brass?
Inadequate sizing by the custom dies?
Rough chamber?
Poor camming extraction by my Dakota action?

Does the CZ action have superior extraction camming?
Maybe the brass is not so soft afterall?
I now use a supplementary base sizing die, cut off a .416 Rigby FL sizer at the shoulder,
and now the brass pops right out after firing max loads in the CZ.

Whatever the problem was, problem is fixed, in the CZ.
Thanks to Rusty.

Here is the .395 Tatanka Cutting Edge Bullets Flat Base Hunting bullet for the coming deer season:



This .395 Tatanka CZ holds 4 down in the box with room to spare.
It started off as a .416 Rigby that came from the facrory in a hogback "Lux" walnut stock with the .375 H&H ribbed box.
It currently has the .458 WM non-ribbed box, sheet metal, reinforced up front.
Feeds everything perfectly.

Canuck,
Thanks for the sign language.
Chris saves me from talking to myself again!
Good Ol' Canuck.

I have had a member PM me over this post and suggest, indirectly, that maybe I need a Duane Wiebe bottom metal for my CZ.
This would surely have a batter-proof front wall.

I really don't think it could function any better than what I have now.
And Rusty only charged me $60 for that magazine box reinforcement.

I was there a few weeks ago to see the lightbulb go on in his head when I asked for the front of box reinforcement.

Now that he has done the first of these, with too much hand filing of the prototype, he has already said he will be using the milling machine more extensively on the next one.
He just keeps getting better.

The CZ Kevlar stock has a great drop-in fit of the aluminum bedding block to CZ 550 Magnum action.
When it was a .416 Rigby the rifle put 3 shots into 0.75" at 100 yards as a drop-in fit to the Kevlar stock.
Rusty only charged $60 to finish the barrel channel fitting and bedding to new barrel.
Might as well itemize some more:

Labor charges for work on your hardware, "parts is parts":

Recontour barrel and finish grind: $100 (this was a simple one, charge will vary with complexity)
Thread and chamber barrel: $150 (a simple CZ Magnum, no extractor cuts/etc., so price goes up with complexity)
Install both LaPour safety and Timney trigger: $175

This current .395 Tatanka CZ action cannot be improved upon.
If I tried, I would only add weight and bulk, and no better function.
Any weight or bulk added could only make sense in the barrel.

This one is 8.75 pounds and has a roomy and strong box that feeds 4 cartridges from down in the box, perfectly.
Sleek and rugged as can be.
The only way I can improve this rifle further is to move the sling stud from the bottom of the forend and out to the tip.

Or get rid of sling studs altogether.
Go slingless like Saeed The Sedulous.

So, for you CZ 550 Magnum owners of rifles in 500 Jeffery and .505 Gibbs:

How is CZ reinforcing the front of their boxes now?

When the .505 Gibbs first came out, they were gluing a piece of hard rubber to the inside front wall of the sheet metal box!!!

Lol.

A measly little virus has been laying the boots to me for a few days. Felt like I fell out of a third story window earlier. Sign language was all I could muster.

I like what Rusty has done with your 40-07.

The sling swivel stud is very interesting. I like it much better than what I recieved from a local gunsmith recently. Did a very nice (and dear) job of finishing and stocking a 9.3x62. The stock turned out particularly great, except for the addition of a sling swivel stud in the traditional spot on the forearm, which looks pretty redundant next to the custom barrel band sling swivel stud.

Feeling very un-salubrious,
Chris

I like that reinforcement to the front wall of the magazine box.

Mine need that, as they have taken quite a beating over the years.

Thanks.

Chris,
Thanks for the "gasconade" comment on Saeed's thread, and for rememberance of the 40-07, aka .395 Tatanka.
The 40 of 2007, born on 7/7/2007, is in remembrance of the year my Pop died.
It is as special to me as the .375/404 is to Saeed.
And we both seem to be the only ones in the world that own these wildcats, respectively.
So Saeed can keep his shoulder angle a secret for all I care.

I think if I get rid of the sling studs and slings altogether, I shall become more sedulous:

Mike,
Thanks for noticing Rusty's handiwork.
Look out AHR, Falls of Rough, Kentucky Hunting Rifles (FR-KHR) is a worthy competitor.
OK, OK, it's really Hilltop Gun Shop: HGS

You have certainly proven the worthiness of the CZ!
Fix the box, in the front and it is really rugged.
I looked inside a CZ 500 Jeffery on a local dealer's rack and noted that the previous strip of hard rubber, inside the box front of the first run of .505 Gibbs,
had been replaced by a rectangular plate of steel attached inside the box front.
It can be as simple as that, as long as the COL allows it and the feeding is not affected.

With the trigger, safety, and box job, I like a CZ better than a Dakota.
Any other work on the bolt handle, floor plate, and billboard on the left side of the action is purely aesthetic, for my purposes.
The CZ 550 action is the only other action I know of (besides a Mauser 98) that retains the true Mauser Controlled-Round-Feeding-and-Extracting feature: CRFE, not merely CRF.

Ron, I was not aware that your Pop passed in '07 - very sorry to hear it. Your Forty Ought Seven is a very fitting memorial.

I am not aware of any catridge geeks/375-404 fans that Saeed may have given a cartridge to, but I suspect that you, me and Dwight might be the only folks with one, outside of Saeed and Roy. I haven't even tried to estimate the shoulder angle, lest I ever be tempted to try to speculate.

Here is the "Anti-Saeed Sling Swivel Stud System" that I referred to earlier...







It upsets me considerably, since it seems its not an easy fix to remove the stud from the stock without having to refinish it. Does not look like a well thought out custom rifle to me with it there.

Am I over-reacting?

quote:

Originally posted by Canuck:
Am I over-reacting?

No it's horrendous but think positively ... there are so many giant brains here that a solution is just a post or two away.

I hope ........

Canuck,
Screw the stud out of the forearm.
Cut off the offending end of the stud, or one like it, with a Dremel tool cutoff wheel, and slot the end of it (to fit a standard screwdriver) with the same Dremel tool cutoff wheel and a small file to touch up the slot, polish the slotted end smooth with a Dremel tool polishing spud, stone, and/or whatever, then blue it.
Screw back in as a filler screw, flush with the stock forearm surface.

You now have the option of replacing with the original stud if you ever want to have a Harris bipod attachment site.

You can even time the new filler screw slot to line up parallel to the barrel.

Canuck, I think the fore end of the stock is too long in any case.

Can't you taper it upward with a rasp to just about where the offending stud is located, then cut off the excess plastic (and lose the stud in the process), and then slap some bondo on it and repaint it with Krylon?

Seriously, for my tastes, the fore end should not be closer than 1.5-2.5 inches behind the barrel mounted stud.

Canuck,
If you look at these pics of my deer rifle for next weekend, you will see how I made a filler screw for the forearm stud hole as above.

Also how I lengthen the CZ Kevlar stock and gentle the recoil of the .395 Tatanka to maiden's caress level:

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:
Canuck,
If you look at these pics of my deer rifle for next weekend, you will see how I made a filler screw for the forearm stud hole as above.

Also how I lengthen the CZ Kevlar stock and gentle the recoil of the .395 Tatanka to maiden's caress level:

I think I will have to be happy with a fix like that. Doesn't look too bad. Not quite what I had in mind when I paid enuf for a short plains game safari on this build though.

On the upside it shoots real fine.
http://www.facebook.com/photo....2149462&l=1dc4c8dd87

Only accurate rifles are interesting!
Pretty is as pretty does!

RIP- Looks like you "got over" that hideous snake skin( tool chatter) stuff you did before. Thanks, my old eyes appreciate it! -Rob

quote:

Canuck, I think the fore end of the stock is too long in any case.

Can't you taper it upward with a rasp to just about where the offending stud is located, then cut off the excess plastic (and lose the stud in the process), and then slap some bondo on it and repaint it with Krylon?

Seriously, for my tastes, the fore end should not be closer than 1.5-2.5 inches behind the barrel mounted stud.

Mike

I shortened a quality composite stock for an acquaintance 20 years ago. I used Devcon Titanium putty (after three days of playing around with modeling clay and taking pictures).

The hardest part was getting all clay residue off the inside surfaces of the stock. After twenty years it is still intact, so it was worth the gelt for the titanium putty.

The basic issue here is that modern fiberglass/carbon fiber/Kevlar/aluminum framed, Aramid belted radial stocks are designed to go just short of 1/2 way from the front receiver ring to the muzzle. Just shortening the front end of the stock will not improve the aesthetics.

The best one could do would be to use the synthetic stock as a pattern for a sturdy, straight grained walnut stock. You could re do the whole forend on the wooden stock until it looked "right" to you, and save the synthetic stock for the actual hunt.

quote:

That sticky brass problem may have been the perfect storm. Brass arrived after a 2 year wait, two weeks before heading to Tanzania.

Darn it Ron,

I told you to cut up your own damn sleeping pad to cushie up your stock. I guess you wanted a, "blue pad special" ("Ladies and Gentlemen, for the next fifteen minutes there will be a blue light/blue pad special over in sporting goods next to the Remington 'viper special' 22 LR ammunition."

BTW, where did you get that nice leather wrap-around? It looks rather tasteful.


L/D

Ron,

What style of McMillan stock is on that 375/338 Lapua Magnum?

Thanks,

L/D

quote:

Originally posted by lawndart:

quote:

That sticky brass problem may have been the perfect storm. Brass arrived after a 2 year wait, two weeks before heading to Tanzania.

Darn it Ron,

I told you to cut up your own damn sleeping pad to cushie up your stock. I guess you wanted a, "blue pad special" ("Ladies and Gentlemen, for the next fifteen minutes there will be a blue light/blue pad special over in sporting goods next to the Remington 'viper special' 22 LR ammunition."

BTW, where did you get that nice leather wrap-around? It looks rather tasteful.


L/D

L/D,
I tried to use a Thermarest pad from REI inside that Pachmayr leather/velcro slip-on.
However after I cut it up, it would not hold air when I tried to inflate it.
So I resorted to the cheapie blue rubber.

The Pachmayr slip-on was shaped with Tandy leather shears, to fit the cheek piece,
then dyed black (Fiebing's leather dye) and came out as a very dark brown.
Do you prefer Bud Lite or Bud heavy?

The .375/.338LM stock is an ARM-TEC stock made in South Africa.
I bought it from Nickudu, ages ago.
Apparently he decided it did not belong on his .505 Gibbs CZ, which he had built long before CZ USA was making them.

Muchos Garcia for the information.

FWLIW, I think that SA stock looks just great on a CZ action.

I have a "heavy weight" Sako stock, designed for their A-Vs in 416 Remington Magnum. I may use that as a pattern stock for CZ based projects. It does a good job on the recoil, because it fits pencil necked people like myself.

L/D