Recieved my brand new CZ 550 "American Safari" in .416 Rigby the other week...

Whilst I wasn't totally impressed with the finish (and fitting) on first looking at the rifle straight out of the box, I did think that it would still make a very good bush gun. I do a lot of buffalo shooting so I didn't really want a gun that I would be worried about getting a scratch here or there.

I was planning to get some minor work done on the gun to fine tune it and a couple of other little things.

I then had a closer inspection...

The express sights were interesting. When flipping up the 200 yard sight, the white sight line was about 1.5 mm to the right of the 100 yards sight line. When the 300 yard sight was flipped up, it was about 1mm to the left of the 100 yard sight line (I was going to work out the variation over the distances but could'nt be bothered).

I wondered which one was actually correct (maybe none of them).

I then placed the bolt into the receiver...

Yes, a little rough but I didn't expect anything different from a brand new rifle. I worked the bolt a few times and it actually jammed when working the bolt rearward. The bolt actually jumped a little when it cleared the front receiver and then jammed when it was about about 5 to 10 mm rearward.

Well, tried as I might, I couldn't work out why it was doing this. I thought it might just be because it was new and needed it to be worked over gently and worn in a little bit.

I did this for a while, working the bolt back and forth. it didn't help, it only got worse.

I decided to send it to the Gunsmith that was going to do the work for me (he just happens to be an authorised CZ dealing as well).

He had one look at it and gave me a call and told me the bad news. He was going to send it straight back to the importer for them to have assess the rifle. He said he wasn't going to touch the rifle (and rightly so) because he believed the fault was quiet serious (no kidding).

I just can't believe that a new rifle of this quality (or lack of it) can pass quality control, not once (factory) but twice (I was told the Aust. importer looks at each rifle as well??).

I haven't even had a shot of the rifle yet. Not impressed (which is an understatement but continuous swearing on the forum isn't the right place for it).

I don't know if they'll give my money back (they should), but I am hoping they'll give me another rifle. I have been told the Australian importer for the CZs is quite good to deal with, I hope so).

I was considering the Ruger M77 in 416 Rigby but at an extra $1000 more (than the CZ) I wasn't going to get that passed by the bank manager (polite name for the wife).

I really didn't think that I could go too wrong with the CZ, as I owned an early BRNO 602 in 458 and it was a great solid rifle. But sadly, there is no comparison between the two.

I hope that I do get my money back and I'll order a Ruger and seeing that it'll take three months to arrive, it might give me enough time to scrape up the extra money or i might sell another one of my rifles (which I dislike doing).

I'm just shaking my head, I've read the other posts about some of the problems with CZ rifles but I thought these people were just damn unluckly, "how wrong can a brand spanking new rifle be". Well, I get more pissed off the more I think about it.

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers