I bought my 1st CZ in Feb '01. 550 mag .416 Rigby. To say I wasn't in awe of the big cartridge would be an understatement. It was not without its problems though. Solids would slide right in, softs on the other hand would hang up (jam) on the chamber edge. These were 400gr. Hornady Interlocks, now, sadly discontinued. A very affordable bullet, changed now to the interbond, a not so affordable bullet. I like to shoot, alot, and throwing premium bullets into a back stop as practice, to me is a waste. Anyway, chamfering the chamber edge cured the problem. Anybody who doesn't like the "humpback" stock is looking at it cosmetically. Throw one up to your shoulder, 9 1/2 times out of 10 that bead will be smack dap center of that shallow vee, gaurunteed. The bolt knob seems, to me at least, to be a little on the small side and tucked in a little to much. In a tense situation I feel one could have trouble making a good purchase on it, something you don't need to do on a dangerous game rifle. My solution is to either have the knob bent up and possibly a little forward or have it checkered. I'm right now having a Win Mod 70 style safety fitted to it. When thats done the bolt knob will be addressed.
I just recently bought a BRNO 602 ZKK .300 Win Mag. A CZ when they were in Calif. Complete with straight set trigger and a safety that is pull back to fire. ( not a bad thing if your used to thumbing the hammer back on a levergun). The stock on this gun seems to be about the same amount of drop ,as it to comes up to align the sights perfectly. The difference being a little thinner in the pistolgrip and receiver area than my .416. The bolt seems to stick out a little further allowing a better grasp.
My plan is to get this stock reinforced to handle the more potent recoil of the .416. Then get the .300 redone to a .358STA and set that in a glass stock, probably a McMillian. Premium bullets are now going to be used for load development and hunting only,(I'm going to give those northfork 370gr a try next). Cast bullets will now be used for practice, alot of practice, affordable shooting to say the least.
In my opinion all production guns need a little bit of owner attention, I like to tinker with mine, kind of like personalizing them to the owner. I like CZ's as much as any of the others out there, its nice to have another quality rifle out there to choose from. Oh and one more thing, I also just picked up a CZ Ringneck SXS 20 ga. 28" bbl w/chokes. These are made in Turkey, again quality and good value. CRASH87
