Okay folks, today was the day. The new 455 Varmint arrived and it was time for initial impressions and range review. It took a visit to the CZ rep and a bit of searching on his part to get this so my hopes were relatively high.
My initial impression of the rifle was good. Fit and finish overall of the rifle is good. The walnut stock looks decent and has a consistent satin finish on it. All the metal is blued in a satin. A good cleaning was in order. I took it apart and cleaned it up then mounted my SUPER DUPER 4-12 Cabelas Pine Ridge BDC on top in a set of windage adjustable Weaver Grand Slam rings in medium height. If going along this same route you may want to go with High rings as this only allows about 1mm clearance between front scope bell and barrel.
During reassembly I noticed the bolt felt a little gritty so a greased accordingly with Shooters Choice High Temp. grease and it cleared most of it up. I wanted a true first impression so I didn't do anything with the trigger.
Now it was off to the range!
I started out bore sighting at 25 yds, ran through 5 shots to get zero then headed to the 50 yard range. I brought along the following ammo as it was what I had on hand:
Remington Thunderbolt
Remington Subsonic
Federal Champion 510
Federal Gold Medal HV Match 719
CCI Mini Mag
I ran through around 50 rds. bouncing around among the various loads to get it fouled up a bit and then shot 10 round groups of all the above. I shot all of these in 5 rd sets in a round robin format to try to keep progressive fouling out of the mix as much as possible. The ten round groups showed the following:
1.8" Remington T-bolt (no surprise here)
1.6" x10 1.2" x9 Federal 510 (not bad for cheap plinking ammo)
0.9" x10 0.5" x8 Federal 719 HV MATCH (nice)
1.25" Remington Subsonic (nice random circular group no obvious fliers in this one)
1.2" x 10 0.6"x8 CCI mini mag (same POI as subsonics )
There was a slight variable breeze but nothing over 2-3mph so I'm not considering wind much of a factor in these results.
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't change anything out of the box on this gun and to be honest, I don't know if I want to now! The trigger was a little creepy but smooth and broke just above 2lbs. Smooth takeup then crisp break, easy to accomodate. I know it can dicked with but I really don't think I will. I will probably bed it shortly and see how it goes from there. Overall, I think CZ has another winner with this one!
Next up will be trying to find some Wolf Match somewhere and give that a go.
My initial impression of the rifle was good. Fit and finish overall of the rifle is good. The walnut stock looks decent and has a consistent satin finish on it. All the metal is blued in a satin. A good cleaning was in order. I took it apart and cleaned it up then mounted my SUPER DUPER 4-12 Cabelas Pine Ridge BDC on top in a set of windage adjustable Weaver Grand Slam rings in medium height. If going along this same route you may want to go with High rings as this only allows about 1mm clearance between front scope bell and barrel.
During reassembly I noticed the bolt felt a little gritty so a greased accordingly with Shooters Choice High Temp. grease and it cleared most of it up. I wanted a true first impression so I didn't do anything with the trigger.
Now it was off to the range!
I started out bore sighting at 25 yds, ran through 5 shots to get zero then headed to the 50 yard range. I brought along the following ammo as it was what I had on hand:
Remington Thunderbolt
Remington Subsonic
Federal Champion 510
Federal Gold Medal HV Match 719
CCI Mini Mag
I ran through around 50 rds. bouncing around among the various loads to get it fouled up a bit and then shot 10 round groups of all the above. I shot all of these in 5 rd sets in a round robin format to try to keep progressive fouling out of the mix as much as possible. The ten round groups showed the following:
1.8" Remington T-bolt (no surprise here)
1.6" x10 1.2" x9 Federal 510 (not bad for cheap plinking ammo)
0.9" x10 0.5" x8 Federal 719 HV MATCH (nice)
1.25" Remington Subsonic (nice random circular group no obvious fliers in this one)
1.2" x 10 0.6"x8 CCI mini mag (same POI as subsonics )
There was a slight variable breeze but nothing over 2-3mph so I'm not considering wind much of a factor in these results.
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't change anything out of the box on this gun and to be honest, I don't know if I want to now! The trigger was a little creepy but smooth and broke just above 2lbs. Smooth takeup then crisp break, easy to accomodate. I know it can dicked with but I really don't think I will. I will probably bed it shortly and see how it goes from there. Overall, I think CZ has another winner with this one!
Next up will be trying to find some Wolf Match somewhere and give that a go.
