Zachary: Thank you and Yes, it IS refreshing what CZ is doing. I called the CZ office in Kansas City and talked to someone there and was told that they had been talking and LISTENING to hunters and shooters, and had been working with the factory to upgrade their products. The new stock design and better fit and finish is a direct result of that. American shooters wanted a stock that was more slim and lively in their hands, but had the classic style butt, made for scope use. Another outcome of this attitude of listening is the new version of the 527 with the flush magazine. They had received a lot of complaints about the protruding one from American shooters, so they've come out with the much more flush version. They know that we would rather have more than two rounds of magazine capacity, but it would take quite a bit of modification of the 527 action to accomodate a dual-stack magazine rather than a single-stack one.
They had heard reports of the stocks of both the 527 and 550 Americans bearing against the right side of the barrel near the front of the barrel channel, and when they checked with the factory, sure enough, they found a CNC programming or setup error in the stock carving machine.
They also acknowledged numerous requests from customers wanting a lighter weight version of the 550 American. But they wouldn't say whether or not we would get that wish. Drat! Also acknowledged was the wish for a wider selection of calibers. However, they stressed that there was a lot going on at their factory and they couldn't do everything everybody wanted all at once. It was going to take time, but they WERE doing what they could, within the constraints of time, tooling, and R&D dollars, and that there ARE new things coming.
The person's attitude and responsiveness was refreshing compared to most conversations I've had with the large US gunmakers.
And they are also working on new web pages and a new catalog.
