By the grace of God, and one helluva lovely wife, I received a CZ455PT and Bushnell 3-12x44 G2DMR for Christmas. The CZ went straight to Hooper Ordnance to thread the barrel for an AAC Element2, which should be in hand at the end of April, and to add a nice bolt knob. Hooper recommended an smaller bolt knob to scale to the rifle. It was definitely the right choice. The smaller bolt knob leaves just enough clearance between itself and the scope's power adjustment ring. Instead of a thread protector I thought it would be a nice touch to add a vortex flash hider. A 20MOA rail was had from DIP. Midway had Leupold M4 30mm medium rings on sale and I added a Harris bipod and Pod-Loc to the basket. The brown truck delivered the rifle yesterday and I immediately stopped all work and put the scope assemblage together. I headed out to the range this morning to see what this rifle, and myself, could do. I wanted to get straight to it so I had 5 sighters with Federal bulk ammo, another 5 of the same for good measure and then ran through 17 different loads. I am a long time small bore competitor so I used my Walther KKM for comparison. It should come as no surprise that what has worked well in the Walther for the last 20 years (Eley black box and a few Lapua loads), is not what worked best in the CZ.
Bolt Clearance:
Side View:
Flash Hider. More swank than a basic thread protector:
I'm quite happy with Hooper's Threading and Bolt Knob work:
The loads tested were:
Federal Value Pack (sighters)
Aguila Golden Eagle Match
SK Rifle Match
Lapua Midas L
Lapua Polar Biathlon
Federal Target, 711B
Federal GM Ultra Match
CCI Stinger
CCI Green Tag
CCI Mini-Mag HP
CCI Quiet 22
Fiocchi Performance
Eley Match Black Box
Eley Team Match
Aguila Super Extra
Aguila Sniper Sub Sonic
Wolf Match Extra
Eley Subsonic HP
A word first about the rifles. The CZ is to be little brother to a 6.5CM build I hope to have in the coming months and sports the T4A stock. Being well into the post gun range bottle of Bordeaux, the best I can come up with is... once you go Manners you never go back. They are solid, comfortable, ergonomic, attractive (yes, that counts for something), and it's a company that stands behind its products. I own a few CZ rifles and all of them have excellent fit and finish. The 455 is no exception. The KKM is as much of a precision instrument as I own. The trigger is better than any I own, hands down. I have Jewel, Timneys, Geissle... This is not a trigger I want on a hunting rifle, but for smashing gnats at the range you can't ask for any better. I'm not sure of the pull weight anymore, but it is in the ounces. It wears a 27" no taper barrel that drills the center of NRA 200 yard targets like nobody's business.
Once I got the CZ sighted in I set the Zero Stop. This a wonderful feature and I will not do without it on any future scope. I flipped back and forth between 50 and 100 yards and it worked wonderfully. The features on this scope make it a bargain. FFP, great reticle, mil/mil, very nice glass. After a few hours of use I did not need to look at the knobs to make adjustments. If there is one thing I would add it would be illuminated cross hairs. There is much debate about this and I am beginning to think that everyone who takes the opposite view must be younger and/or shoot only against contrasting targets in reasonable daylight.
So how did it shoot? Very well. It is a MOAish rifle out of the box, and with almost every round tested, with the notable exception of the subsonic rounds. The Eley did come close, though. Besides being much less accurate than the faster rounds, the point of impact for the subsonics was severe enough that I am going to have a subsonic specific test session in the future. Wind today was gusting between 10 and 20 mph, and shifting between 6 and 9 o'clock. Conditions were not ideal and having to go through about 500 rounds I didn't have the time to wait for the wind to settle down between shots. The effect of wind on the subsonics was much greater. I'm guessing this has do with increased flight time. At 50 yards the fight with shifting winds was negligible, but at 100 yards it became more of a test. All shooting was performed off of a bipod and sand sock.
But I have to waste no more time in logging the first complaint about the rifle, the trigger. I feel this feature kept the rifle from shooting nearly as well as it could. The pull wasn't terribly heavy averaging 3.75lbs. This is beyond where I like my rifles to gauge, but it's the slightly crunchy and inconsistent feel that got me. There were several times I expected to rifle to go bang but instead I just had to reset myself and give it another go. I'm sure this will smooth with time. I will address this problem soon enough and am leaning towards the Rifle Basix.
Which ammo won? One of the least expensive of the test group, Federal 711B. Only the Federal bulk ammo and Aguila cost less:
What difference does a trigger make? I think it makes the difference between this world and the next. Admittedly, I have many, many thousands of rounds with the Walther, but aside from familiarity I believe the trigger was the biggest difference. Although the CZ didn't digest the Eley and Lapua as well as I thought, it still enjoyed plenty of 0.5" to 0.75" 50 yard groups with this ammo. Yes, the CZ is not yet broken in, but here is a comparative difference using the same box of ammo.
By the end of the day I think the rifle had smoothed out to the point where maybe testing should have begun. So from here I will send the rifle off to Accurate Ordnance for bedding, cerakote, maybe some stock paint. And of course it will have a sweet trigger to boot. By the time that is complete I should have the Element2 and I will repeat the test and update this post. I expect the CZ to shoot much better in the future. In the mean time I will continue to enjoy it.
Bolt Clearance:
Side View:
Flash Hider. More swank than a basic thread protector:
I'm quite happy with Hooper's Threading and Bolt Knob work:
The loads tested were:
Federal Value Pack (sighters)
Aguila Golden Eagle Match
SK Rifle Match
Lapua Midas L
Lapua Polar Biathlon
Federal Target, 711B
Federal GM Ultra Match
CCI Stinger
CCI Green Tag
CCI Mini-Mag HP
CCI Quiet 22
Fiocchi Performance
Eley Match Black Box
Eley Team Match
Aguila Super Extra
Aguila Sniper Sub Sonic
Wolf Match Extra
Eley Subsonic HP
A word first about the rifles. The CZ is to be little brother to a 6.5CM build I hope to have in the coming months and sports the T4A stock. Being well into the post gun range bottle of Bordeaux, the best I can come up with is... once you go Manners you never go back. They are solid, comfortable, ergonomic, attractive (yes, that counts for something), and it's a company that stands behind its products. I own a few CZ rifles and all of them have excellent fit and finish. The 455 is no exception. The KKM is as much of a precision instrument as I own. The trigger is better than any I own, hands down. I have Jewel, Timneys, Geissle... This is not a trigger I want on a hunting rifle, but for smashing gnats at the range you can't ask for any better. I'm not sure of the pull weight anymore, but it is in the ounces. It wears a 27" no taper barrel that drills the center of NRA 200 yard targets like nobody's business.
Once I got the CZ sighted in I set the Zero Stop. This a wonderful feature and I will not do without it on any future scope. I flipped back and forth between 50 and 100 yards and it worked wonderfully. The features on this scope make it a bargain. FFP, great reticle, mil/mil, very nice glass. After a few hours of use I did not need to look at the knobs to make adjustments. If there is one thing I would add it would be illuminated cross hairs. There is much debate about this and I am beginning to think that everyone who takes the opposite view must be younger and/or shoot only against contrasting targets in reasonable daylight.
So how did it shoot? Very well. It is a MOAish rifle out of the box, and with almost every round tested, with the notable exception of the subsonic rounds. The Eley did come close, though. Besides being much less accurate than the faster rounds, the point of impact for the subsonics was severe enough that I am going to have a subsonic specific test session in the future. Wind today was gusting between 10 and 20 mph, and shifting between 6 and 9 o'clock. Conditions were not ideal and having to go through about 500 rounds I didn't have the time to wait for the wind to settle down between shots. The effect of wind on the subsonics was much greater. I'm guessing this has do with increased flight time. At 50 yards the fight with shifting winds was negligible, but at 100 yards it became more of a test. All shooting was performed off of a bipod and sand sock.
But I have to waste no more time in logging the first complaint about the rifle, the trigger. I feel this feature kept the rifle from shooting nearly as well as it could. The pull wasn't terribly heavy averaging 3.75lbs. This is beyond where I like my rifles to gauge, but it's the slightly crunchy and inconsistent feel that got me. There were several times I expected to rifle to go bang but instead I just had to reset myself and give it another go. I'm sure this will smooth with time. I will address this problem soon enough and am leaning towards the Rifle Basix.
Which ammo won? One of the least expensive of the test group, Federal 711B. Only the Federal bulk ammo and Aguila cost less:
What difference does a trigger make? I think it makes the difference between this world and the next. Admittedly, I have many, many thousands of rounds with the Walther, but aside from familiarity I believe the trigger was the biggest difference. Although the CZ didn't digest the Eley and Lapua as well as I thought, it still enjoyed plenty of 0.5" to 0.75" 50 yard groups with this ammo. Yes, the CZ is not yet broken in, but here is a comparative difference using the same box of ammo.
By the end of the day I think the rifle had smoothed out to the point where maybe testing should have begun. So from here I will send the rifle off to Accurate Ordnance for bedding, cerakote, maybe some stock paint. And of course it will have a sweet trigger to boot. By the time that is complete I should have the Element2 and I will repeat the test and update this post. I expect the CZ to shoot much better in the future. In the mean time I will continue to enjoy it.
