Fianlly bought the cz 550 in 22-250 yesturday. Loved the look and feel, stock was beautiful, trigger was real nice and fully adjustable. Then the trouble started. I had narrowed my scope choices to either a Leupold vx-III in 6.5-20 x 50 or Burris Black diamond 6-24 x 50 with the varmint or mil dot reticle. Sportsmans wharehouse had neither scope in stock. So I came home and spend an hour researching it and finally called Bear Basin cause their price was a little better than Optic Zone and much better than Cabela's . When I told him what I wanted, and what gun I wanted to put it on, I got several moments of silence, then put on hold, then when he came back on, he told me there was no way to mount a 30mm scope on the CZ 550 cause No one made Rings for them. All my hours of research and deliberation shot down in a instance and I had no plan B, So I said OK, I'll take a top of the line scope with a 1 inch tube with a 50mm bell, what do you have? Again put on hold, then he comes back and says he's contacted Leupold, and Burris and there are no rings currently made that will allow a 50mm bell on a CZ 550. Turns out the best I could do was a burris signature select 6-24 x 44 with some custom mounts. Then they called back this morning and said the custom mounts were not necessary and Leupold Med. rings would work. Which saved me a few bucks, but here's my question.

First How much of a drop off in quality will I suffer through with the signature select over the black diamond or leupold? Does any one else have and like this scope??? second
Were they wrong or is there really no-one out there with a 30mm tube and 50mm bell on their CZ 550?

thanks
Ricky

You're going to hate this: 30mm CZ-550 rings for sale.

And the Lynx B-square High rings work with Burris and Leupold???? AAARRRRGGHGH If it does I'm totally ticked off. I had $2000 dollars to outfit a rifle anyway I wanted, and I wanted to get a top quality scope. This was the first and probably last time my wife gave me the green light to get exactly what I wanted (within reason) and I may have ended up with less than what I wanted. Very frustrating

Ricky

I have no idea about what mounts will work on a CZ but I do know that I would not put a Burris on any rifle I have. I would especially not put one on a gun I expected to be my top notch varmint rifle. If this has all only just happened, don't mount the scope and send it back. I am currently shooting a 8.5-25 VX-III with the Varmint Hunters reticle on my Swift and what a great tool that is. The optics are extremely nice and the reticle is great once you get used to it. It has definitely helped me make some longer range shots this year. I just think it is well worth trying to salvage the situation to do things right now versus spending 500+ now and then wanting to spend another 1000 in a year because you were not happy with your initial choice. I realize that is not always feasible but it sounds like what you should do here. Good luck.

[I think warne and talley both do the rings you want as well !!

Guess I must be unlucky but the only Burris I ever had crapped itself on the first shot fired out of my .220 Swift. To be fair , they fixed it and I kept it for a couple of years with reasonable results .

Ahhhh, here we go again with another episode in the predictable saga of "I hate your brand of scope; you should have bought the kind I own."

When you get to moderate-to-higher-end scopes, you should expect all to perform reasonably well. Select one with the features best suited to your situation and don't look back or listen to the naysayers.

Yes, you may run into a lemon. NO company is PERFECT all of the time. And yes, even the vaunted "L" scopes are prone to fail. They've failed for me, and the only scope to take on water when our home was ravaged by a flood in 1997 was a Leupold 2x EER (and there were some cheapies in the house at that time).

For me, the brand that best bridges the gap between value and performance is Nikon. The Monarch scopes are simply superb. But the glass in the upper-end Burris scopes happens to be quite impressive as well. ANd I must add that I don't judge scopes on performance and apparent brightness alone. As someone who relies daily on optics to put bread on the table, I am able to assess characteristics that many specific- brand enthusiasts fail to address or even consider.

Yes, the golden-ringed saviors are good, solid scopes, But they are not optimum for everyone's situation, and their customer service, once the best in the business, has been modified over the years to eliminate the "no fault replacement" that was in effect for a very long time. No longer can one claim that brand "L" has unmatched customer service and be accurate in stating such.

I've put Nikon's CS to the test, and it passed with flying colors. During a photo shoot, a 6.5-06 took a fall, and the Monarch 4-12x40 AO took the brunt of the impact onto a concrete floor. I sent in it on a Monday with a note explaining what happened and a contact # to provide me with an estimate of repair costs. The following week, on Tuesday to be exact, I had a package from Nikon -- and was not charged a single cent.

One last stand on the soap box: I've seen a number of scope "failures" that were brought in to me for assessment or verification. For the most part, the failure was not the fault of the scope but rather the result of improper mounting. Put a tried-and-true Swaro on a heavy kicker and have less than equal pressure exerted by the rings (or other mounting errors present), and you are going to have a broken $1500 scope...

But back to ricky's original dilemma: As you've found, there are a number of options out there to allow you the scope of choice on your rifle. It sometimes takes a little searching to unearth that info, though. Good luck with the project. Sounds like you'll have quite the long range rig when all is said and done.

Thanks, everyone. I spent most of the day yesterday deciding what to do and twice I had the order form all filled out, down to the credit card number, on first the Leupold then a Zeis Conquest. I had called bear river and told them I was sending the scope back when it came. Three things made me change my mind and give the Burris a try first. First I talked to a couple of hunting buddies who have both Burris and Leupold options in their gun case and reach for their Burris's first. For one a Signature. The other has a Fullfeild he really liked. Second, I kept thinking back to the 45 minutes AFTER closing hours that Bill from Bear River spent with me on the phone, tying to find a scope to fit my needs. True, he had told me that I could not mount the scope I wanted on my gun. But what he meant was THEY didn't carry any ring options that would work. I could have got rings from elsewhere. Plus when I called them (More than a little peeved) to tell them I was sending the scope back, again, I was treated politely and the guy very nicely told me that if they sold me something that wasn't what I wanted they would gladly take it back. (even though I wasn't gong to buy anything else from them) Anyway my point is I HATE bad costomer service and really appreciate good service, so I'm gonna give that scope a look see and hope it will work for me just so I can support a company that has some Customer Service. Third, I decided to spend the money left over from buying a less expensive scope on a new MP3 electronic game caller

So that's where it stands right now, when the scope comes in on tuesday, if it don't look like a P. O. S. out of the box, I'll keep the Burris.

Ricky