CZ 527FS in .222 Remington

[loose noose]

16turbo, what height are those rings, they look higher than the medium rings, however they do look just fine, just the same. would be interested in ascertaining the height of those rings? BTW thanks for the heads up on the end caps, I'll definitely check that out, you do have a couple of beautiful rifles there.

 

[I6turbo]

16turbo, what height are those rings, they look higher than the medium rings, however they do look just fine, just the same. would be interested in ascertaining the height of those rings? BTW thanks for the heads up on the end caps, I'll definitely check that out, you do have a couple of beautiful rifles there.

The FS has the standard CZ rings and the Classic has Leupold. Both are called medium height by the manufacturer, but the Leupold rings are just slightly shorter in height. I prefer the height and also the looks of the Leupold.

One thing I definitely suggest you do when you get your 527 is to spend some time to get the set trigger adjusted precisely to your liking. I used to not really like the set trigger much at all, so I kept it in standard mode and adjusted it so that the set feature wasn't usable, and the standard pull was pretty light. I had three 550s and four 527s set that way. Then I started shooting my 527 Varmint and really trying for the best possible groups (that I'm capable of) and realized the set trigger is very helpful and useful for that purpose. I then spent some time to get all of the set triggers really light, and to the point that I can fire the gun precisely at the time that I want it to fire. It's almost as if I can just *think* that I want it to fire, and it fires. With that kind of adjustment on the trigger, I love the set feature for shooting from a rest.

 

[loose noose]

Thanks again turbo, for the info on the scope mounts, I did check with Bud's Guns and found out there .222's in the 527 FS were all made for the US market, so it should have the steel nose piece, if not at least I do know where I can get one.

 

[Mowgli Terry]

My .222 Remington prefers IMR4198 with 40gr and 50gr bullets. Nice find and congrats on the rifle!

My old Remington 700 VS is just a short action 700. No problems finding scope mounts. The 50gr bullet using IMR4198 was among the most popular combinations in the day. I can testify you'd have to work to beat that performance. Worked great on groundhogs and the like. Getting another CZ rifle is on my list.

 

[loose noose]

I used IMR4198 on my .223 and 52 grain projectile, and Federal Bench Rest Primers, it would shoot one hole groups of 5 at 100 yards, and was deadly on P-Dogs out in the Seligman, AZ back in the early 90's, before they got outlawed.. I plan on using the cartridges I've got loaded up with 50grn HP and H335 to sweeten the barrel and see what kind of accuracy I can attain with those, and then I'll go back to the IMR4198, as I've got a full can of the IMR4198, as well as a full can of H335.

 

[loose noose]

Well I finally took possession of that CZ 527 FS In triple deuce, The wood on it looks fairly nice but nothing to write home about, although the wood to metal fit is really neat, the nose cap is steel and nicely blued as is the remainder of the steel. The bolt operates really nice and smooth also. The only drawback is the 16.5mm dovetail where the scope mounts, it is a special mount that won't accept the Weaver type of mounts, so I had to order some Burris mounts. Any way below are the pictures.

 

[adcoch1]

Well I finally took possession of that CZ 527 FS In triple deuce, The wood on it looks fairly nice but nothing to write home about, although the wood to metal fit is really neat, the nose cap is steel and nicely blued as is the remainder of the steel. The bolt operates really nice and smooth also. The only drawback is the 16.5mm dovetail where the scope mounts, it is a special mount that won't accept the Weaver type of mounts, so I had to order some Burris mounts. Any way below are the pictures.

Looks a lot better than the Tupperware on most rifles nowadays

 

[loose noose]

I do like that set trigger, and the ability to make it even lighter, which isn't in the best interest of safety, as it has it right at 12OZ trigger pull when set, and right at 3.5#'s on the unset trigger pull. The adjustment is really simple, as well as the trigger stop.

 

[loose noose]

Well it finally stopped raining out here but the wind is picking up, as I was thinking about going out and test firing it with the open sights, looks like I'll have to wait till a better day, according to my tracking the mounts, should be here by this coming Tuesday. Now back to the loading bench.

 

[wanderinwalker]

I like it! That little bit of figure in the buttstock looks pretty nice. I certainly agree it's an aesthetic improvement over the trend toward black plastic stocks on everything these days.

Good luck on the weather! I can sympathize. My first 3 range trips with my .223 527FS were with temperatures in the teens and blowing wind. Needless to say I did a lot of shooting at 50 yards.

 

[I6turbo]

Nice! And that's definitely better than average wood. As you probably know, you play the so-called "wood lottery" when buying a CZ sight unseen. You may get okay wood (which is still better than the tupperware or pallet wood that's on most stuff these days, IMO), or you might get anything up to outstanding nice walnut. I'd be very happy with that one.

One other thing, there is almost ALWAYS some very nice grain hiding under the factory "mud finish" that CZ uses (except the Americans, which have a nicer factory finish). That gun of yours there would show some outstanding wood grain if it were refinished. The 550 below looked kind of like your 527 when it still had the factory finish. This isn't a very good picture, but you can see that the heavy factory finish hid a lot of the natural feature of the wood.

 

[loose noose]

Wow 16turbo that is a beautiful finish on that rifle, this summer I'll have to redo mine when it gets too stinking hot to even drag out the targets let alone the shooting bench. The wife and I are going to take the motorhome and go back to Missouri the end of May for my grandson's graduation, so that would be an ideal time to start the stock. BTW do you know what type of rifling CZ uses in there rifles? It kind of looks like button rifling, as it it's really sharp, with deep grooves and what appears to be high lands? Also when I cleaned the bore I noticed a lot of brown coming out on the patches, however it definitely wasn't cosmoline, but it took quite a few patches to get them coming out clean.?

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

My example has been strictly a range queen since I purchased it in 2007, so I cannot comment on field use. Mine is currently set up as an ersatz MS carbine, with the 3-shot magazine option and a peep sight setup from NEGC -- a very classy and pleasant rifle to shoot. My only criticism is that my rifle came with a ventilated recoil pad rather than some sort of solid buttpad/plate. I also have two other CZ 527s in different chamberings, as I am very fond of this action in general.

 

[I6turbo]

Wow 16turbo that is a beautiful finish on that rifle, this summer I'll have to redo mine when it gets too stinking hot to even drag out the targets let alone the shooting bench. The wife and I are going to take the motorhome and go back to Missouri the end of May for my grandson's graduation, so that would be an ideal time to start the stock. BTW do you know what type of rifling CZ uses in there rifles? It kind of looks like button rifling, as it it's really sharp, with deep grooves and what appears to be high lands? Also when I cleaned the bore I noticed a lot of brown coming out on the patches, however it definitely wasn't cosmoline, but it took quite a few patches to get them coming out clean.?

CZ makes their barrels via hammer-forging.

The brown junk that seems to take forever to clean out of a new barrel using patches has been debated a lot as to what exactly it is. I think the general consensus is that it's left-over bluing salts residue. A lot of people who have bought several new CZs have cleaned and cleaned until they finally got clean patches, and several have run a few patches through, maybe brushed a little, run some more patches until they were slightly clean, then shot the gun some, after which they were able to start getting clean patches pretty quickly. Nobody that I know of seems to have been able to correlate any good or bad results from either method. From what I personally seen, the rimfires seem to take longer to get clean, seem to have more of the brown stuff in them.

I'm SURE that tons of CZs have been fired without even being cleaned after coming from the factory, and many more have had a couple of patches run through them and off to shooting. Sounds like you did plenty of cleaning.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

Man oh man, I do love the looks of those little full stock rifles...

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

To append my own posting, I'd like to add that extra CZ527 magazines have proven a little fiddly at first. I haven't had problems with my original 7.62x39 magazine, but one of my three .300 Blackout mags required some gentle polishing to remove sharp edges on the inside of the feed lips, and of my four .223 mags only the one that came with the rifle worked 100% without tweaking. The problem was tolerance stacking between the followers and mag boxes. I measured all of mine and swapped around to get the best combinations, but I still had to do a little stoning on the sides of one follower to get it to work smoothly in the short 3-round .223 mag box. Your mileage may vary.

 

[loose noose]

Dave, that rifle looks really nice, you can definitely tell it is walnut, 7.62X39 is a real neat caliber, I've got a Russian AK-47, as well as a Ruger Mini-30, both are a real hoot to shoot. Well anyway talking about shooting, my rings came in the mail yesterday on that CZ, so I installed them and placed the Bushnell scope on it bore sighted it, and off to the range I did go. I took some of my handloaded 45grn JHP Remington, some loaded in H335, and some loaded in IMR 4198. That little rifle didn't care for either of the loadings at 104 yards according to my range finder. (It was absolutely calm with no rain in sight). Both of those loads were all over the paper using 5 rounds, The best groupings I was getting was just over 3.5".

Next I went to Hornady's SUPERFORMANCE VARMINT 50grn V-Max and that little rifle really started to perform. I had 3 rounds just about touching and the last two were right on top of each other for a 3/4" MOA. I had so much fun shooting those rounds, after getting it sighted in I started shooting at the head of my steel silhouette at 200 yards and even managed to put a smile on it, definitely not on purpose, but I do believe it is going to make a fantastic varmint cartridge. Note I also had some Remington 50grn PSP, that shot really well (MOA -slightly over MOA) also but the Hornady out shined them all. I do believe the overall length of the 45grn Remington HP were just too short and had to leap too far from chamber to rifling. Anyway I'm gonna have to do some more reloading as I've got quite a few 52 and 53grn. Sierra BT, and Hornady V-Max, and quite a bit of IMR4198 and H335 powder I need to burn up.

Incidentally that after mounting that scope I noticed that it only had about 1/16" when activating the bolt. Just might have to move the scope back but I've only got about 1.5" to move it back.

 

[Mosin Bubba]

Dave, that rifle looks really nice, you can definitely tell it is walnut, 7.62X39 is a real neat caliber, I've got a Russian AK-47, as well as a Ruger Mini-30, both are a real hoot to shoot. Well anyway talking about shooting, my rings came in the mail yesterday on that CZ, so I installed them and placed the Bushnell scope on it bore sighted it, and off to the range I did go. I took some of my handloaded 45grn JHP Remington, some loaded in H335, and some loaded in IMR 4198. That little rifle didn't care for either of the loadings at 104 yards according to my range finder. (It was absolutely calm with no rain in sight). Both of those loads were all over the paper using 5 rounds, The best groupings I was getting was just over 3.5".

Next I went to Hornady's SUPERFORMANCE VARMINT 50grn V-Max and that little rifle really started to perform. I had 3 rounds just about touching and the last two were right on top of each other for a 3/4" MOA. I had so much fun shooting those rounds, after getting it sighted in I started shooting at the head of my steel silhouette at 200 yards and even managed to put a smile on it, definitely not on purpose, but I do believe it is going to make a fantastic varmint cartridge. Note I also had some Remington 50grn PSP, that shot really well (MOA -slightly over MOA) also but the Hornady out shined them all. I do believe the overall length of the 45grn Remington HP were just too short and had to leap too far from chamber to rifling. Anyway I'm gonna have to do some more reloading as I've got quite a few 52 and 53grn. Sierra BT, and Hornady V-Max, and quite a bit of IMR4198 and H335 powder I need to burn up.

Incidentally that after mounting that scope I noticed that it only had about 1/16" when activating the bolt. Just might have to move the scope back but I've only got about 1.5" to move it back.

Sounds cool! Got any pictures of the gun with a scope?

 

[loose noose]

Below are the photos with the Bushnell scope.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

Below are the photos with the Bushnell scope.

Yeah, scoping the 527 leaves things pretty tight between the bell and bolt, even with fairly high rings. The issue is the longish bolt root, which sticks up further than most other bolt designs when the bolt is raised. One reason I reoutfitted my fullstock .223 with metal sights was to get around the problem, but my other two 527s are both scoped and I've just gotten used to working the action carefully, with my fingers around the knob instead of using the rest of the handle.