In my last post I made mention and posted a picture of my customized CZ550 in 375 H&H. I wanted to take a chance to talk about this rifle as I had a truly enjoyable time working on it.
I had wanted a 375 Holland & Holland ever since I got a chance to fire Julius Glogovcsan's 500 Jeffery. I had, through some form of logic or another, determined this caliber was right at my upper threshold of recoil tolerance. There was also the nostalgia associated with the cartridge as it the 30-06 of Africa.
The cartridge came about in 1912 and has become popular as the caliber to hunt everything in the world. While the 375 H&H may be capable of killing everything, it may not be the first choice of a sheep hunter or what you want in your hands to stop a charging elephant. Never the less, the 375 H&H is very good at doing pretty much everything. I had a limited budget when I purchased my rifle, so I was debating between the Winchester M70, the Ruger Safari Magnum, and the CZ 550 Magnum. I had eliminated most other brands of rifles as they were either too expensive or did not have all the features I wanted. Most important to me was to have the claw extractor for controlled round feed. Maybe I'm a victim of marketing hype, but I can definitely see the validity of being able to feed a cartridge into your rifle from all positions. I had never had a CRF type action before either, so I was eager to see if they were really that great.
After many months of researching, talking with hunters, and trying some rifles out at the gun store, I made my decision. I chose the CZ 550 as it offered a very nice platform for a dangerous game rifle. It has a very generous magazine capacity of 5 rounds and, since looks were just as important to me for this rifle as function, the double square bridge receiver was just too good to pass up.
I took my brand new rifle to the range to try it out and break in the barrel. I was pleasantly surprised to find the rifle did not recoil as bad as I had expected and even more thrilled to find that it grouped about 1" at 50 yards with iron sights. My only complaint was the claw would not snap over a cartridge fed directly into the chamber and that all the brass got a scratch on one side while being fed from the magazine. I had heard of a gunsmith in Montana who does wonders with the CZ rifles, so I gave him a call when I got home.
The gunsmith offers 3 upgrade packages for CZ owners that allow someone to improve both the functionality and aesthetics of their rifle. I had certain features in mind and discussed them with the gunsmith who said it would be no problem. The price was very reasonable and the turn around time was short, so I boxed my rifle up and sent it to Wayne Jacobson at American Hunting Rifles. I had never used a gunsmith before, but I had read lots of great things about AHR and Wayne was very knowledgeable over the phone.
Something like 6 weeks later my rifle was on its way home and I was excited to see all the things AHR had done to it. Upon opening the box, the rifle looked excellent. As per our discussions, Wayne had straightened and filled the bolt handle and added a barrel band sling swivel. I grabbed a round to run through the chamber and found that the bolt worked smooth as butter and did not scratch the brass anymore. I did not mention the claw not snapping over a round loaded directly into the chamber, but was very pleased to learn Wayne had addressed this issue without me asking. Wayne is an expert when it comes to the CZ-550, so it really shouldn't have been a surprise everything looked and function perfectly. Now that all the metal work had been done and I had a flawlessly functioning dangerous game rifle, I set about to make the stock look a little better.
I attempted to modify the stock originally and, although functional, it did not meet my expectations. A call back to AHR found Wayne had an extra stock laying around from a rifle he restocked for a customer. It didn't have crossbolts, but Wayne said he could install these. Perfect! I bought the stock and Wayne boxed it up and put it in the mail. Using what I had learned from the first stock screw up, I set out sanding and shaping the new stock. I ended up adding a rosewood burl forend tip and grip cap from Brownells, installed a brown NECG Universal recoil pad, slimmed the stock up a bit, shaped the cheek piece into a pancake style with a shadow line, and covered and sanded flush the crossbolts. I also wanted to structurally reinforce the stock so I glass bedded the action and installed a wrist pin made of threaded rod. Despite all this, the rifle still shot to the same point of impact that Wayne had sighted it in to back when it left AHR.
After shooting the rifle a few more times, I did make two more modifications. I got a red fiber optic sight from CZ so the front sight was easier to see and I made a slight modification to the safety. Somehow I managed to bump the safety into the safe position while doing a little "charging cape buffalo" practice. Using a modification I found on the web, by taking just a slight bit of metal off a certain spot on the safety (picture below) the safety will always go to fire when the bolt is closed. This modification does not affect the safety when the bolt is closed and it will remain in safe once placed. It only turns the safety off if the bolt is open, the safety is then put into the safe position, and then the bolt is closed. If the safety is on with the bolt closed, the bolt will remain locked down in the closed position as it did when it left the CZ-USA factory.
It's been a year and a half since I first got my CZ, and I have finally gotten to the point where I'm happy with it. There is still some things I'd like to change, like shorten the barrel, I just have to stop spending my money on hunting trips and guns and send the rifle up to American Hunting Rifles again. I'll probably just wait until I get my next CZ and send them to Wayne together. A 458 Lott sounds nice ...
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