Some of you may recall my previous posts about the problems I experienced with a new, out of the box CZ550 Safari Classic in .404 Jeffery. There were two serious issues with the rifle, (i) it was keyholing Barnes Banded Solids, and (ii) it would not feed from the left side of the magazine. Suffice it to say I was .

Here is a bit of an update. Turns out that CZ actually has a gunsmith in Missouri assemble the Safari Classics for them. The name of the shop is Triple River Gunsmithing. It is in Warsaw, Missouri and run by a fellow named Harlan Satrang. Anyone familiar with him? Harlan called me after CZ shipped the rifle back to him and here is the report. Shooting the rifle with A-Square ammo, there is no keyholing, however, he also gets keyholes with the Barnes ammo. The Barnes solids are slightly undersized, about .422. The barrel on the CZ is a McGowen barrel with a 1-in-10 twist, which should be more than fast enough to stabilize bullets. However, the McGowen barrel is slightly oversized. So it appears that the combination of the undersized Barnes bullets, the oversized bore and the length of the Barnes bullets is just a combination that will not work. Harlan maintains that with other ammo the rifle shoots fine. I guess we shall see.

On the feeding, the story is that if you slam the bolt home it will feed. It would not feed for me from the left side of the magazine -- with any ammo, A-Square, Barnes or NorthForks. I told Harlan I would appreciate him working on the feeding to see what can be done since I do not expect to have to cycle the action like the Incredible Hulk to get it to work. I guess we shall see.

For others that are looking at the Safari Classics, all I can say is buy it somewhere that has a good return policy. This may all yet work out, and if it does I will be the first to report that fact. But it certainly has been frustrating.

S'what ya get for buying a weirdo caliber!!



Rich
NRA Life Member
DRSS
416 CZ that does feed and shoots like a house-afire!!!!

Or maybe it was a function of buying something from a gunshop in Idaho.

Mike,
that's crap.. OVERSIZED bore is exactly that, and, frankly, let it get hot, say 5 quick shots into a departing buff, and it's now oversized for ANY bullet.

total CRAP

jeffe

Jeff,

So why would it shoot fine with the other bullets (taking the fellow at his word). He insists that the other bullets will shoot into 2 inches open sights at 100 yards. But the Barnes bullets are sideways at 100 yards.

Mike

Mike,

If I may speak for Jeffe, I believe he is saying that oversize is oversize. Its not right. They should fix it, even if it will stabilize most standard bullets, because...

...if a marginally oversize bore is heated up with 5 quick shots or so, the bore will expand and then may be oversize enough that it won't stabilize any of the bullets. Which won't help much with a cape buff bearing down on you!

Cheers
Canuck

I hear you. Sort of surprising since I tend to think of McGowen barrels as being good barrels. Odd that they would have this sort of problem.

How many times do you guys have to go down this road?

Manufacturers have to oversize the bore as they cannot control what bullets are going to be fired in it, including those that are oversized.

How many hundreds of times have folks warned others that 404 Jeffery's usually have feeding problems?

Shoot bigger diameter bullets and hope they can fix the feeding. When you play with fire, sometimes you get burned.

quote:

Originally posted by MJines:
I hear you. Sort of surprising since I tend to think of McGowen barrels as being good barrels. Odd that they would have this sort of problem.

I am sure everyone puts out the odd over-spec barrel once in a while.

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
How many times do you guys have to go down this road?

Manufacturers have to oversize the bore as they cannot control what bullets are going to be fired in it, including those that are oversized.

How many hundreds of times have folks warned others that 404 Jeffery's usually have feeding problems?

Shoot bigger diameter bullets and hope they can fix the feeding. When you play with fire, sometimes you get burned.

Pardon me but that is total bullshit. If you are a responsible manufacturer if you cannot put a workable product out, then do not put one out at all. But to suggest that the consumer is to blame is completely asinine.

North Fork Mike:
I assume that since my McGowen shot your grooved SP bullet so well, that my gunsmith was correct in saying that my Mcgowen barrel slugged "0.423." This grooved bullet has less bearing surface than a fully landed bullet and still worked well.

I know that Lost River Ballistics makes the .408 Chey-Tac bullet (fully landed/smooth shank monometal) slightly sub-caliber by only .0003" and they are very emphatic in specifying that the the bullet is .4077" to match the .4080 groove diameter.

I wonder how much leeway Barnes figues they have in making sub-caliber bullets?

Is it supposed to be a full .0010"?

Do other bullet makers consider themselves screwed if the full shank diameter is .0008" below groove diameter?

I figure true driving banded and grooved bullets such as you make must be as close to exact groove diameter as possible, for quality assurance across the board. And mybe a few 1/10,000'ths of an inch oversize would be better than any undersize with these bullets.

I have measured your bullets, assumed as a calibration at exactly .4230" by my crude methods, and this gave me a crude estimate on the Barnes TSX of .4217".

It will be interesting to hear how some .4241" grooved .404 Jeffery barrels left McGowen. Could this be from too much bore lapping of an incidentally rough barrel that should have been discarded instead of finished? Hopefully not a more systemic error like an over-size button?

Here is a McGowen .423 barrel of 10" twist shooting North Fork bullets, about 0.6 MOA at 100 yards and about 0.7 MOA at 300 yards, for three shots:

Shot #1 was the fouler, zeroed 3" high at 100 yards, as an African Sheep Rifle:


Then I moved out to 300 yards, with a second target below the one I was aiming at to measure the drop:


I have not tried the "banded" Barnes bullets in mine, but it should be interesting. I think they are smaller than 0.422" if a North Fork is exactly 0.423", going by the samples I have.

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
How many times do you guys have to go down this road?

Manufacturers have to oversize the bore as they cannot control what bullets are going to be fired in it, including those that are oversized.

I totally disagree, Will. Barrels MUST be spec or they aren't. Oversized is REJECT.

Now, that the 404 is a PITA, I totally agree, but that stance is horsehockey

over sized barrels, like ovesized inletting and poor feeding, are best returned to the maker/builder/supplier and told to FIX IT NOW

jeffe

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
When you play with fire, sometimes you get burned.

How is buying a new factory rifle playing with fire? Or have I missed something in a previous post?

The best thing for an over sized barrel blank, it another trip to the boreing machine for the next size up. Not on a rifle action.

Keith

I would suspect that a majority of barrels are "oversize" more than .001.
In addition a lot of the "oversize" barrels will shoot well with jacketed bullets. Check a Mauser 7X57 barrel and see if it doesn't measure about .287 groove diamter.

I know of at least one .45 cal barrel that grouped about 18" at 100 yards due to constrictions from the barrel band and front sight. The constriction was about 1 inch long at the sling band and was .001" under the bore size.
The constriction was .0015" at the muzzle for the length of the fornt sight band.

I own 9 McGowen barrels, all big bores, and have more on the way, in .395 caliber.

They have all been excellent, so far.

Harry McGowen has the specs requested for the .395:
bore/land = .3870"
groove = .3950"

As the .395 bullet supply currently available for the .395 is limited to GSC, which are never under-sized, I don't think there will be any cause for worry.

I would like to know if Harlan slugged the bore of that CZ .404 Jeffery to actually measure it as greater than .423" in the grooves? If so, what did he get as the measure?

Hmmm?

Until we have that proof, the bullet is faulty.

Shite can happen in the strangest ways sometimes.

How does one barrel get over-sized when another of the same make is not?

The McGowen barrel that fired the above groups was slugged at 0.423" groove diameter.

Another thing about McGowen barrels is that they have narrow lands and wide grooves, and this may not take well to undersized bullets with decreased bearing surface caused by the 5 wide and deep cannelures that make for the "pseudo-banding" on the subject bullet.

Mike Brady of North Fork slugged a Lothar Walther barrel and got groove diameter of .4226", in his usual precision, IIRC, but even that would be oversized for the Barnes bullets currently being produced.

ElCaballero,
I must have missed something also. How come CZ's have a McGowen barrel. Don't they make their own?

As for fingers getting burnt, it seems for the price we are prepared to pay, most factory rifles have problems on and off. And even if fixed under warrenty it can still be a hassel.

CZ's for instance seem to have problems with stocks spliting, feeding problems, rough actions, safetys getting bumped (on) actions and barrels out of line, and at least one fella had the front sight fall off (completely) after 17 rounds of .458 Lott. (That I can believe)

To give them their due, if and when they work, they usually shoot like a house on fire.

PS. A local barrel maker here reckoned he has a few thou. tolerance with button rifleing due to the metal springing back. As far as I know he only had one split in usage, a cut stainless I think.

Harry McGowen has been supplying all the big bore barrels to CZ-USA lately for the rifles built here in the USA, with parts and labor from Kansas City, Kansas, to Warsaw, Missouri and St. Anne, Illinois, actions made in Czechoslovakia, I think.

McGowen has even been lapping some of the rough hammer forged Czech barrels for CZ-USA for things like the .416's and .458's, as needed, for smoothing the bores, whenever problems have been found in the usually excellent CZ made barrels.

McGowen made barrels are button rifled and cryogenically treated.

I'd like to hear Will correct me on any of this if I am wrong.

Thanks RIP, and I thought CZ-USA was only a branch office.

JAL,
You are welcome.
I see you don't have me on "ignore."
There are indeed some US citizens building those "foreign made" CZ rifles.

MJines,
The undersized bullets by Barnes do not obturate to any significant degree, they are way under-sized, and have reduced bearing surface due to the cannelure-pseudo-driving-bands.

A Woodleigh or Swift will obturate/expand in diameter upon firing.

North Fork grooved soft point bullets (as well as their banded FP and CP solids) and GSC banded bullets (HV, FN, SP) are full diameter, and some of the GSC's I have measured have some voodoo in the true driving bands that may be slightly oversized in mysterious patented patterns.

And furthermore,
does not the heat expansion of a rifle barrel cause it to swell inwardly as well as outwardly, and have no significant effect on land and groove diameters?

How about those machinegun barrels?

Good God Almighty! There are other monolithic bullets besides Barnes, to feed that 404 Jeffery.

Tried those NOrth Forks yet, Mike?

Rusty,

I have not. If the keyholing had been the only problem, I certainly would have taken the NorthForks out and shot them (I have them loaded). But when the rifle would not feed the Barnes, the NorthForks or the A-Square, I felt that it needed to go back so why continue to shoot my ammo through it.

I used Barnes this year on my buffalo with good results (TSX bullets in a .416 Rigby). That said, I seem to have a lot of problems with their monometal bullets. Even one of my buffalo bullets seemed to have stability problems. With so many other good bullets out there these days, Swift, Woodleigh, NorthFork and GS to name a few, I have about decided to just leave the Barnes alone and spend my money on the other bullets.

Mike

Rip,
heat makes the barrel EXPAND think ballon...

if a barrel is more than .0005 over/undersized SHOULD be a reject, and .001over/under sized is a reject from nearly every aftermarket maker... I don't know on shaw.


anything past .001 is not a barrel, it's a kid's shop project.

anything past .0005 for a CUSTOM SHOP rifle is CRAP

Mike,
tell harlan to either replace the barrel or buy the gun.

Here's the deal,
CZ contracts with McGowen and Harlan to build the custom shop rifles. These are a $1500 PREMIUM over the base model, before extras. The McGowen barrel, at least here, has a reputation for accuracy. A custom shop rifle should have a reputation for accuracy. and, dang it, most CZ just shoot really well.

It is a SHAME and a SHAM that a high dollar custom shop rifle doesn't shoot as well as a bottom of the price structure, run of the mill barreled, cz 550 magnum.

jeffe

I called Douglas just a month ago about a .423 barrel and was told, " you mean .425" I said no, .423 for a .404 jeffreys barrel. He said no, we make them .425 to the old specs".
Whats going on with the sizes anyway??

i called shilen the other day to get a .423 barrel.. they don't make one.

.425? now THATS one I haven't heard before... .418, sure, we've all heard that one.

jeffe

RIP,

Cylinders also expand inward when heated, unless my professors lied to me.

And to others,

So Barnes don't shoot well. Woooo... now there is a shocker. How many times have you heard that one? There are a bunch of brands of bullets that don't shoot well in many brands of rifles.

I wonder how many barrel makers can tell what their actual bore diameters are to less than 0.0001 inches.

While you are at it please insist that CZ's are made entirely made in the USA, and oh yeah, for twice the price. No one will bitch about that? I can hear it now: "I won't pay that much no matter how good they are. Rotten bastards."

And don't forget to get all those "custom" rifle makers to use new Mod. 98 actions, that are made in the USA, not that cheap, military surplus shit.

Hey, you have that already. The Remingtons. Never heard a bad work on this forum about those rifles!

Like I said originally, shoot bigger bullets and hopefully they can fix the feeding.

Will,.
if a cold barrel has problems with a .422 bullet, and a hot barrel expands .001 (it WILL go more) then what happens 5 rounds into a shoot out with a pissed off buffalo?

keyholing bullets..

the "trouble" we frequently hear with rifles not shooting barnes bullets is 90+% of the time due to loaders inability to RTFM (please read the enclosed documentation, sir) and not seat the bullet back.

we nearly NEVER hear of the keyholing....

nearly every .475 bullet maker makes their rifle bullets .474, including woodleigh and barnes.. but they shoot fine.

the barrel is crap, the end.

If it is the barrel, then how come it shoots other brands of bullets just fine?

The "END" will only come when you, 500 grains, and surestrike have a threeway suicide match!

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
If it is the barrel, then how come it shoots other brands of bullets just fine?

The "END" will only come when you, 500 grains, and surestrike have a threeway suicide match!

will,
it shoots the barnes fine, if you shoot them slow enough. *I* was there to see it happen.

or are you supporting a marginal a marginal barrel in a DGR?

the barrel is junk, and should be replaced.

you could think about that same suicide club... but dan and I we arguing a point of (ir)relevance. a bad barrel is exactly that, bad.

so, in the interest of not having another sprawling thread, feel free to have the last word here.

quote:

Originally posted by Will:


Cylinders also expand inward when heated, unless my professors lied to me.

What is the difference between expanding inward and contraction?

Dr. Will,
Thanks for the assistance with the technical aspects as well as geo-politico-socio-economic aspects. Thermal expansion of a hunting rifle barrel changing the land and groove diameters is a non-issue.

What is interesting is that jeffe says the Barnes bullets would make round holes at low velocity and oblong holes at higher velocity in the problem barrel. How can this be explained? It stripped at higher velocity and did not strip at lower velocity? That would tend to indicate it is just a wee bit too small to work in this barrel. DUH!

This would tend to indicate the bullet is indeed less than .4220" diameter and probably close to .4215" diameter, when it should be 0.4230" to function well in this barrel.

IIRC, one bullet maker here has said that 0.0012" below groove diameter can spell trouble pretty reliably.

And we still don't know what the accused barrel slugged specifically. Surely Harlan can say to the nearest .001", that's good enogh.

how's about the owner "mikes" some of those Barnes and other brand bullets and reports back?

That's information I would like to have.

Rich
NRA Life Member
DRSS

When a bbl. gets hot it gets bigger in dia. The mass of the circumference is greater than the mass of the wall thickness.

quote:

Originally posted by R D Show:
When a bbl. gets hot it gets bigger in dia. The mass of the circumference is greater than the mass of the wall thickness.

Well that is some jibberish!

How do you measure the mass of a linear, one dimensional measurement such as a circumference?
What is the mass of a linear, one dimensional measurement such as wall thickness?

What is the thermal coefficient of expansion for barrel steel?

The heating barrel will expand in wall thickness and it will grow longer too.

I have a 404 with McGowen barrel that so far shoots, Swift, Woodleigh softs and solids and Barnes X bullets fine. The barnes are not as tight of group as the Swifts but they do not keyhole.

Between me and friends we have several McGowen barrels and all shoot well.

Call Harry McGowen and ask him why the barrel does not shoot. He likes to talk.

Does Northfork still make a 404 solid, the last time I talked to him he was having trouble getting the raw material to make the bullet in 404.?

BigB

Barnes Banded Solids mike out at .422. They are also 1.441" long. I intend to call Harlan tomorrow to ask about whether he slugged the barrel.

quote:

Originally posted by RIP:


What is interesting is that jeffe says the Barnes bullets would make round holes at low velocity and oblong holes at higher velocity in the problem barrel. How can this be explained?

Because...as velocity increases, so does bullet yaw. That is why a low velocity caliber like a 45-70 can get away with a slower twist than a 458 Lott.

quote:

Originally posted by 500grains:
...twist...

I knew that was coming!

quote:

Originally posted by Will:
How many hundreds of times have folks warned others that 404 Jeffery's usually have feeding problems?

If a manufacturer makes a rifle and it don't feed they should discontinue that chambering or fix it until it does feed.

This arguement is not valid.