Dave .,., Congratulation .,.,.,., A true large bore rifle is quite a wonderful object.......If for some reason the recoil gets to be a bit too much,, try shooting it not more than 10 times a day ., Don,t do all your practice with full power ammo.,.,The 450 gr Barnes 50-110 bullets work well for reduced practice bullets........Does your rifle have the mercury recoil reducers in the stock.........Don,t be afraid to put a muzzel brake on it...... I have 3 CZ,s... I had to work on the feeding of 2 of them ,,, just a little tinkering and they now feed 100 %.. The 9.3 Medium always did feed well....I hope you relly enjoy your rifle......

Gumboot:

I plan to try Reloder 15 first. I figure about 110 grains with a 535 grain Woodleigh RNSP ought to work pretty well. I am also going to try IMR4831. I am pretty sure that when the .500 Jeffery was loaded with Cordite, the Cordite charge was 95 grains. That would translate out to be about 127 grains of IMR4831. I will work up a reduced load using Accurate 5744 too. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Yes, the rifle does have one mercury recoil reducer in the stock.

Dave

/

Alf, I thought that too but I have found Cordite load data for the .500 Jeffery in about three different places. Perhaps Kynoch produced some ammo for the .500?

Dave

Alf gave me the same correction many moons ago.

I was just quoting Craig Boddington on that 95 grain Cordite load for the .500 Jeffery.

Jonathan Tomlinson of UK has some evidence of Cordite loads for the 500 Jeffery ...

Now Dave, no phoney excuses needed if you don't have time to load and shoot the CZ for a while. We understand, and would be glad to see any chronographed load data whenever it happens.

/

ALF, thanks for the info. I stand corrected!

Dave

Most importantly about the CZ 550 Magnum in 500 Jeffery: DOES IT FEED ???

This can be assessed with dummies ...

Ok, I couldn't wait any longer to shoot this thing so rather than wait for the stuff from Lee, I took RIP's advice. The cases are new so they didn't need to be trimmed. I just used the RCBS dies to roll crimp a few rounds.

Weather was nasty here today but managed to shoot five rounds. The load was a Horneber case, Federal 215 magnum primer, 110 grains of Reloder 15, and a 535 grain Woodleigh soft point. At least loaded singly, the rifle functioned flawlessly! Feed and extraction were perfect. Not one round got hung up and the stock did not fly to pieces! I was wearing a past recoil pad and recoil, while stout, is nothing to be concerned about. Five milk jugs full of water were more or less vaporized!!

Now, I promised you guys that if there was any problem with the gun, I would let you know. When I got home, I noticed that the fire formed brass was "rippled." It's hard to see with the naked eye but you can definitely feel it if you run your fingers around the fired brass. My gun guy says that it is from what's called "chatter" from the reamer when they were putting the gun together. Perhaps there was something wrong with the reamer itself. Remember, this is the first .500 Jeffery from CZ and when I ordered it, they were still waiting on the reamer. Anyway, we are going to put a call into our guy at CZ tomorrow to see how they want to proceed. I am not at all sure that this would effect the function of the gun in any way but it may be necessary to send it back to CZ if it needs to be straightened out.

Dave

Sorry to hear that. Not surprised, but disappointed for your sake. Hopefully, this will all work out -- for both of us.

Thanks for the pictures, great looking rifle, I just ordered one for myself in .458 lott , can't wait until it get's here

Your brass is showing ringing of the chamber by reamer chatter?

That is not good. It may cause sticky extraction in a bad situation. I once had an apprentice gunsmith chamber a .375/.338Winmag, working for a gunsmith in Anchorage Alaska.

It was bad enough that the chamber rings could not be polished out. had to cut the threads off the shank and rethread and rechamber. That is why my .375/.338WinMag came out with a 21.5" barrel, eventually, luckily the barrel had enough shank.

It sounds like the CZ 500 Jeffery will need a new barrel.

Single loaded function does not test the feeding from both sides of the box.

Please load the box 3 down and tell us how the other rounds come out of the box. You need to know that too before sending the rifle back to CZ.

Pretty please.

First look at the chamber with a good bore light see if you can actually see any rings. If so, pull the action from the stock, get yourself a long 1/2 inch diameter wooden dowel and crazy glue a wrap of 400 grit emery cloth to it. Put the dowel in a electric drill and polish till you can't see any rings. Since they were not bad enough to effect extraction. By the way your loads were a little light. After polishing you will be just fine. Don't worry you probably will wear out the drill before you loosen the chamber too much.-Rob

Rob, sent you a PM on another issue.

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Bush:
My gun guy says that it is from what's called "chatter" from the reamer when they were putting the gun together. Perhaps there was something wrong with the reamer itself. Dave

I'm just waiting for Idaho Sharpshooter to comment on this, or more likely with CZ lovers, to start makeing excuses for them. Well, they are cheap I guess.

I don't know bugger all about it but I would think it's up to CZ to know if the reamer is faulty, and whether it is chattering or not.

And Idaho, we Aussies can run down a Rolls Royce, especially if we don't own one.

RIP, I couldn't get out to the range today. The weather here just to dreary. However, I did load up some more .500's to test the feeding as you requested. Magazine capacity is three. It feeds perfectly from both the left and right side of the staggered magazine box. The feed is smooth and slick just like my .404. Put your mind at ease. I don't think feeding is going to be a problem.

After futher examination of the once fired brass, the lengthtwise "rippling" of the brass that I am seeing seems to be more pronounced at the shoulder than the web. I think Robgunbuilder is right. I am thinking that a little judicious polishing of the chamber will cure the problem but will rely on what my smith and CZ suggest.

Dave

Dave, you say it is the first made by C.Z? I think there was 3 made originally, 1 was sent to a dealer here in U.K not far from me, he had to send it back because of a chambering problem.
I waiting for wifey to buy me a 500 Heym,think I`ll have to do a bit of grovelling first

Dave,
Wonderful that it feeds!
If it is just minor brass marking from a rough chamber, by all means get your local smith or yourself to polish the chamber, and not risk letting CZ have at it again .

When I mentioned my previous unpolishable .375/.338 that required rechambering, it was a pretty bad/severe problem.

Any DGR would do well to get a chamber polishing.

Lengthwise rippling? That doesn't sound like chamber rings. You sure you don't have some patch material jammed up into the chamber? Usually a chamber ring is caused when the reamer flutes are overloaded and a piece of swarf rides the flute and burnishes a ring around the chamber. Sometimes they are caused when a reamer sticks and has to be backed out with power off or slowing down.. These look like long spirals on the case. I HAVE NEVER SEEN ONE THAT ACTUALLY CAUSED POOR EXTRACTION. In all cases they are easily polished out. I've cut many many chambers and learned to back out and clean my reamers every
.050 to .075 even with a through the barrel cutting fluid system. This approach causes no rings whatsoever but is very time consuming. Can you post some pics to help the diagnosis?-Rob

All, If anyone finds one of these (CZ .500J) anywhere in the US please let me know. I want one today. gduffey

It's funny that none of the safair's have made it to Australia...............404's, .505's etc.

Mike I think I'd still like a .500 J CZ just for a while to I am a little more financial I think it could make an adopted big brother to my .404 J but could never be blood related

You do know I have a fetish for the cz's don't you

Robgunbuilder:

I printed off your response and took it down to my gunsmith. My local guy is really good. He has built some stuff for me and I have absolute confidence in his ability.

He looked over the brass and said that the problem was that the reamer "flexed" when they were cutting the chamber. He says that the larger the caliber, the greater the chance that this can happen. He said that he has seen this happen before and even had it happen to him when he was putting a rifle together. He agrees with you that in all probablity if would not affect extraction in any way but that it shortens the life of your brass because when you resize, your sizing die is working the high spots in your brass.

We are going to return the gun to CZ and one of three things are going to happen. I think that they will look at it to see if they can polish it out. My bet is that they can but, if not, they are going to have to either rebarrel it or just send me a now one.

I REALLY like this gun and love the caliber so I am willing to put up with some fussing to get things right. I will keep you posted on my progress.

Dave

PC,

Last pictures of I saw of your 404 it was on or in the bed

You could always get the CZ 500 J and store in the outdoor shithouse

Mike

quote:

Originally posted by Mike McGuire:
PC,

Last pictures of I saw of your 404 it was on or in the bed

You could always get the CZ 500 J and store in the outdoor shithouse

Mike

Stand it in the corner and use it to store dunny rolls on the barrel

seriously whats the chance of getting one of these to Australia ??

I think bringing one in yourself is the best bet. On the other hand Winchester Australia (are they still CZ importers) might be keener with the end of the M70. But if Winchester Australia are still as fucked up as they were you might be waiting forever.

Of course you could always buy a used 30/378 Synthetic and put a 500 J barrel on it. The 500 J is about the same diameter across the head as a 378 belt so good chance the Wby vertical stack would feed OK without alteration....or just widen the lips of the box. You can also buy the floor plate that allows three 378s so probably hold three 500 Js.

Now that would be one abortion. A 500 Jeffery on a Wby action with the tupperware stock

Mike

JAL,

there has only been one perfect person ever walk this earth...we celebrated his coming this week, and we will celebrate his death to bring us salvation at Easter.

The situation here is not that the rifle has an problem, it is how quickly and how well CZ takes care of the problem. I currently own three CZ's, a pair of 416 Rigbys and a 9,3x62. I have not had ANY issues with any of the three as of today. Both 416's will shot one moa out to three hundred yards with my loads, and the 9,3 is a bit better ...at least at 100yards where I have been testing it so far.

As far as you bashing CZ's; have you ever owned one that did not function properly, or are you just trying to build on a bit of "Urban Mythology"? You sound suspiciously like the now-famous quote regarding a number of "bashing stories" that rip on some product stating that "..my wife's sister's next door neighbor's best buddy at work's wife's dog grooming business #1 groomer's elevator operator's hairdresser's boyfriend's second-cousin knows this guy that had this______________________________________________ happen". It is why hearsay, or second-hand knowledge, is not admissable in court.
Stories grow. "I heard that... " is the great anonymous option. It would be like me stating that you are obviously a criminal, a degenerate and have no moral values because you are a native Australian and we all "know" that Aussies are all descended from the convicts originally sent there a couple hundred years ago.

Dave's rifle will be fixed under warranty or they will replace it. It feeds perfectly, which does confound and disappoint a few here.

regards,

Rich
NRA Life Member
DRSS
Proud CZ owner and shooter

I've never seen a reamer flex without breaking. They can and will chatter at times, but this usually ends near the end of the chamber cut when the reammer is totally supported in the barrel. I've got some BIG chambering reamers and they are solid carbide with pilots. I've had reamers stick in the barrel but never broken one. In all cases when I retracted the tailstock the reamer came free. However, depending on what CZ used to hold the reamer I could easily see how this could happen. Now its possible they broke a reamer while doing your chamber and finished it with another one. Now that would produce a wierd looking chamber.especially if it broke during the last few thousanths of cutting. Maybe they had to force the broken reamer out of the barrel thus causing a longitudinal scratch. It should still polish out unless it took a big chunk of metal out of the chamber. can you post a pic of the brass?-Rob

Robgunbuilder, I don't think posting a picture of the brass would help. It's not something you can really see. In fact, I didn't notice it until I got home from the range but you can definitely feel it if you run your fingers around the brass. Anyway, the gun has been boxed up and returned to my local dealer. It should be on its' way back to CZ next week. I'll keep you posted.

I guess I have to say that I agree with Rich here. Look guys, as I said in one of my previous posts, these are not Empire Rifles. However, they are less than half the price of an Empire. On this particular .500, I would have to say that the fit and finish was excellent and it fed perfectly from both sides of the box. I have two other CZs, a .404 and a 9.3X62 Mauser and both are great. My .404 is very accurate and my 9.3 is a tack driver.

The one thing that got me interested in CZ rifles was the fact that they offered me a choice that few manufacturers made avaiable to me, a .404 Jeffery. The .404 has a great history in Africa, much more so than the .416 Rigby, and I always told my friend that if I could find a .404 at a reasonable price, I would buy it. The CZ Safari Classic was just what I have waiting for. Another great African caliber that has been largely ignored on this side of the pond was the 9.3X62. CZ filled that niche for me too. Then they came along and made affordable rifles for us in calibers like the .505 Gibbs and now, the .500 Jeffery. As a shooter and genuine rifle nut, I have to take my hat off to these guys.

I think that Rich makes one other legitimate point. Sometimes it seems that a problem can get blown out of proportion, particularly on the internet. A good example is the .416 Remington. Everyone praises the .416 Rigby and expresses concerns about the possible pressure problems and sticky extraction with the .416 Remington. Never mind that no one seems to know anyone who actually had such a problem. It's always something like "I knew a guy whose cousin heard about "someone" who had a problem with this an such. I don't own a .416 Remington now but I did. I never shot it in the African sun but did shoot it quite a bit under a pretty hot midwestern sun and never had a problem with it. But then again, I didn't try and load it to 2600 FPS with a 400 grain bullet either. Nor did I ever know anyone who personally did have a problem with it.

When I ordered the .500 Jeffery I knew that CZ was just tooling up for this caliber. I anticipated that there might be some problems. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and, as Rich has pointed out, I am hopeful that they will take care of the problem for me with alacrity.

Dave

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
JAL,

there has only been one perfect person ever walk this earth...we celebrated his coming this week, and we will celebrate his death to bring us salvation at Easter.

The situation here is not that the rifle has an problem, it is how quickly and how well CZ takes care of the problem. I currently own three CZ's, a pair of 416 Rigbys and a 9,3x62. I have not had ANY issues with any of the three as of today. Both 416's will shot one moa out to three hundred yards with my loads, and the 9,3 is a bit better ...at least at 100yards where I have been testing it so far.

As far as you bashing CZ's; have you ever owned one that did not function properly, or are you just trying to build on a bit of "Urban Mythology"? You sound suspiciously like the now-famous quote regarding a number of "bashing stories" that rip on some product stating that "..my wife's sister's next door neighbor's best buddy at work's wife's dog grooming business #1 groomer's elevator operator's hairdresser's boyfriend's second-cousin knows this guy that had this______________________________________________ happen". It is why hearsay, or second-hand knowledge, is not admissable in court.
Stories grow. "I heard that... " is the great anonymous option. It would be like me stating that you are obviously a criminal, a degenerate and have no moral values because you are a native Australian and we all "know" that Aussies are all descended from the convicts originally sent there a couple hundred years ago.

Dave's rifle will be fixed under warranty or they will replace it. It feeds perfectly, which does confound and disappoint a few here.

regards,

Rich
NRA Life Member
DRSS
Proud CZ owner and shooter

G'day Idaho. I have posted here before my reason for disliking Brnos, which is basically because of all the people here (and there) that rave and drool over them. IE I'm contrary. But I first read a famous gun writer state in print Brnos had had some mechining quality problems, must have been way back in the 50's. Now I read it all over AR still. Sure others have problems, but it seems to me not so much so often for so long.
But I suppose if you pay cheap you get cheap. Anyway, I have never owned one, hardly ever fired one, and probably will never buy one. I also have here on AR joined in in bashing Remington Sako Tikka etc., whoever deserved it. EG some Win featherweights came out here with misaligned barrels/actions, so I haven't been game to get into that lottery either. Anyway, you aut to be ashamed of yourself, buying that foreign brand over good old USA stuff. But I'm not all anti. I don't mind a bit of plastic, stampings, cast parts, as long as it looks OK works OK and shoots OK. Doesn't even have to be as accurate as CZ/Brno's.
Anyway my roll in life is to warn others, then they can do what they like, as I do.

G'day JAL,

aha! The devil's advocate of the AR forum. As long as I know that is yur job here, I'm good to go with your posts. Mine is the Allied Commander of the CZ Brigade, so we may have to...whatever we may have too...

The thing here is how CZ handles this. And yes, I wish they were made here too...but that is left to Remington (for another year or two) Ruger, and Savage.
Is it next year yet in Australia? Took an R&R in Sydney in 1971. I'm really keen on them leggy blonde sheila's and the RSC.

regards,

Rich
NRA Life Member
DRSS
Proud CZ owner and shooter

I have spoken to U,S poaters on other forums ref, American shooters seem to buy not neccessarily cheap guns, but lower end of the market and seem to spend fair bit ot time and money making the rifle something nice.Was explained to me that your import taxes makes buying a nice out of the box European rifle a bit expensive.Is this right?
One thing about my rifles they all shoot well, handle well and are lovely to look @ as soon as I get them home.
All my rifles are Heyms.what prices are Heyms in the U.S.A?

John, I found some Heym Express Rifles for sale on the Guns America site for $6750 US dollars. I don't know what that is in pounds or euros. A CZ Safari Classic would run about $2600 here.

Heyms are indeed a fine firearm. Do you have a .500 Jeffery?

Dave

Not got the 500 Jefferey yet, is next on the list hopefully.
I use a 458 heym safari alot, love it, is easy to shoot,comfortable, and doesn`t knock you about at all.It`s quite heavy which it should be, and holds 5 +1 rds which is handy.
and it does tend to stop whatever it`s aimed at
I am thinking of selling mine to finance the new one, it`s complete with Apel Q/D mounts,Swarovski 1.25-4 x 24 `scope.Shop price for all that would be £5,500 before haggling

Ok guys, I got my .500 Jeffery back today from CZ. They took one turn off the barrel, re-chambered it and polished the chamber. They also test fired it and said the fired case was okay. It took almost exactly six weeks.

Couldn't get to the range today. It is bitter cold up here. Will try and get out on Sunday to shoot this thing and give you guys a report. Keep your fingers crossed!

Dave

Good luck to you!

The only thing I want back from CZ is my money.

Guys, as I posted last week, I got my .500 Jeffery back from CZ. It took exactly six weeks from the time that I sent it to them. We headed out to the range today to give it a try. My friend has a brand new Heym .500 NE double and we had a Dakota .416 Rigby along for the ride as well.

Results are a bit mixed. As I posted, CZ took a turn off the barrel, re-chambered the gun and polished the chamber. I think the chamber is still a bit rough. However, I am happy to report that the action is very slick and it feeds and functions perfectly. I saw several posts on AR to the effect that there are only a handfull of gunsmiths in the world that can make a .500 Jeffery feed. Well, CZ must have one because mine feeds just fine. Frankly, I think all the concerns over feeding with this fine cartridge are GREATLY overstated. IMHO it is much, much harder to make a .505 Gibbs feed properly than the .500 Jeffery because the Gibbs is just so much larger.

If you check back in this thread, there are a couple of pictures of my gun. It has a brown laminated stock. CZ's brown laminated stock is really quite attractive and although it it not nearly as attractive as a nice piece of exhibition grade wood, it is hell for stout. Even with the recoil generated by a 535 grain bullet at 2400 fps, I doubt that this stock will crack.

I have not had a chance to put it on paper yet. Today, we just blasted gallon milk jugs and five gallon buckets filled with water. (If you are looking for a good source for five gallon buckets to blast, stop at your local Burger King. They usually have a good supply of empty pickle buckets and we buy them here for a buck a piece.) Not one of them got away!

Okay, now this is for the guys in Texas. Up here in Nebraska (the NUMBER ONE BEEF STATE and the place where we have REAL COWBOYS, not the snakeskin boots kind), we practice with our big bores by shooting jackrabbits from the back of a galloping horse

Peace brothers.

Dave

Dave, glad the preliminary testing has gone well. When are you heading to the range?

Whit, I am going to pick up some Accurate 5744 today and work up a reduced load to shoot from the bench. Maybe I can get something put together for this weekend. I'll keep you posted.

Dave

Dave,

I gotta tell you, I REALLY admire a man that can shoot jackrabbits off the back of a galloping horse with a 500 Jefferys. Hit many?



Rich
DRSS