Tinker: the addition of the "tactical" bolt knob was a custom job by a local smith. If I recall correctly, the knob itself is a Badger Ordinance item that I got thru Brownells way back when, and just had it laying around for this project. Yes, it gets noticed A LOT at the range.

This 453 has what I'd call a medium heavy barrel. It's significantly thinner than what I'm seeing on the 455s coming into the LGSs lately.

When I purchased this 453, it was my intention to make it into a cheap-shooting .22 analog to my precision .308 Remington PPS. Along with the bolt knob, the local 'smith also channeled out the foreend of the stock so as to keep the barrel free-floated. Then I set it up with a 3-12x scope, bipod, stock pack, sling, etc. The 1" Osprey scope actually has a dual illumination feature that let's you choose either red or green for lighting-up the mil-dot reticle.

Though discontinued now, the 453 was essentially a 452 with a set trigger and much nicer wood. The wood on this one is really well-grained, so maybe I lucked out (the pics don't do it justice).

A screw inside the trigger guard controls the pull of the set trigger, and I've got mine set pretty light - again to mimick the sweet let-off of the Jewel trigger on my .308 precision rig.

Don't have a pic of the target to show you, but from 50yds using the set-trigger I put 6-shots into something like .400" - basically a small ragged hole. Admittedly, this was done off a bench, using the bipod with a bag under the rear of the stock, but the amazing thing was, the ammo was ordinary Winchester fodder (36gn HPs, I think), not the super-grade Match stuff, like from Eley.

The 453s just flat out shoot, but so do most CZ .22s.