I‘m still waiting on ATF approval for my YHM Phantom .22, and in the meantime I’ve been actively acquiring hosts. I picked up a Ruger American Rimfire a while back and set it up with some tech sights to use as an iron-sighted bolt-action, but I’ve still been shopping for a host that I can scope. I’ve always wanted to try a CZ rimfire, and I managed to score a NIB 457 Scout off of a local auction this week. I’m far from done building it out, but I figured I’d start a post and share my impressions, and compare it to the Ruger.

First impressions out of the box: This thing is NICE. The action is smooth, bolt throw is clean, and the walnut stock is gorgeous and very stiff. I like a .22 that feels like a “real” gun, and this is definitely that. The short barrel and overall length is very handy, and my 8 y/o and 10 y/o love it…they both said they preferred shooting it to the Ruger.



Build Quality and Quality Control: The CZ wins this one hands down out of the box. It feels solid, and there are no machining artifacts anywhere. The bolt to receiver engagement surfaces are nicely radiused, and the action is very smooth. The Ruger required quite a bit of stoning, polishing, chamfering and deburring on my part to get to where it is now. I’d say it’s now the equal of the CZ in this area, but it took some work to get it there.



Stock: No debate here, the CZ wins again. The walnut is gorgeous, comfortable, and very solid. My kids love shooting it, and the short LOP isn’t even an issue for this 6’5” giraffe. It feels the way a rifle is supposed to feel. The Ruger, in contrast, has a flimsy plastic thing on it that is completely functional, but not terribly confidence inspiring or attractive. I will say that the Ruger stock is easily adjustable for LOP and came with both a short and high comb insert for using it scoped or without. The compact insert for the kids was also inexpensive and readily available. So Ruger gains some points for ingenuity, included amenities, and product availability.

Trigger: Neither trigger is bad. The CZ trigger is a more traditional design, and I hear it’s adjustable, but I haven’t tried yet as it’s pretty excellent right out of the box. The Ruger trigger is the more modern design with a “safety blade.” Shooting them side by side, I think the CZ trigger is a bit crisper with smoother takeup. The Czech takes the win here.

Sights: This is where things started to fall apart for the CZ. Literally. The factory Ruger sights are pretty rudimentary…a flip-down rear notch with a fiber optic front. I swapped them out for tech sights, which mounted right up and are superb. The CZ has a notch and post style…they are pretty wide and provide a rather coarse sight picture. I get that it’s a little carbine, but for a .22 I like something a little more precise. I could have lived with them, except about 30 rounds into our shooting session, the rear sight blade fell off. I looked at it, and determined that it is adjustable for windage by tightening or loosening a set screw on either side. However, these set screws engage a stud inside the rear sight base, the entirety of which is made of plastic. Somewhere along the line, likely at the factory since this thing came NIB with the stickers still on it, somebody had tightened those set screws hard enough to crush that plastic stud and now the sight blade wouldn’t stay in.



I currently have some JB weld drying in an attempt to fix it. I called CZ customer support this morning and they told me it should be covered under warranty, and directed me to their online form to request a replacement rear sight base. I filled it out and submitted it…we’ll see how that works out. I told the CS rep that I was planning to mount a scope anyway and asked if they could just send me some plug screws for the sight base holes, and he said they don’t offer those and I would have to find someone to make custom screws for it. Which takes us to the next point…

Scope Mounting: The Ruger comes drilled and tapped for scope mounts, in addition to a traditional rimfire dovetail. There are numerous picatinny rail options available from both the factory and aftermarket companies. And the threads on the plug screws are traditional SAE and replacements are readily available both from Ruger and the aftermarket. As mentioned above, the rear sight blade flips down to allow for scope clearance.



The CZ is not drilled and tapped. There are dimples milled into the top of the receiver to assist with locating the screw holes if you opt to have it drilled, but you will need to either do it yourself or pay to have it done. It seems like this would have been an easy thing to do at the factory. If you don’t want to drill and tap it, you are stuck working with their proprietary 11mm dovetail, which limits you to either CZ factory rings or a couple of aftermarket options. There are also some clamp-on picatinny adapters out there, but by design they sit pretty high and are EXPENSIVE.

The rear sight base is also very high, which poses a problem (unless it falls off on it’s own for you…maybe that’s a feature!). The screws from the sight base are apparently M 3.5X0.6…good luck finding that anywhere on this continent. And take my word for it, I tried. Apparently they are very close to 6-40, and people reported success with running those through a 3.5x0.6 die to clean up the threads, so I have the necessary items on order to try that. Once again, though…if the factory is going to opt to use that idiotic thread pitch you’d think they could at least offer to sell the proper plug screws out of their parts catalog.



Magazines: The Ruger American uses a standard 10/22 magazine. These are fantastic in that they’re cheap, available literally everywhere, hold 10 rounds, and are flush-fit to the bottom of the rifle. Like the rest of the rifle, I did have to disassemble and polish up my mags to get them to feed smoothly and consistently drop free, but it was a small amount of effort for an otherwise excellent product.

The CZ doesn’t even come with a magazine. The “Scout” model is intended for kids, so apparently they don’t need a magazine. It ships with a single-shot adapter. This is idiotic. It’s a bolt-action rifle for crying out loud. If you only want them to shoot one round, only give them one round at a time…but include a damn magazine with the gun! The magazines themselves are “available” in both metal and polymer, both 10-round and 5-round versions. They’re single-stack, so the 10-rounders stick way out of the bottom of the gun. I’ve only ever handled the polymer ones, and they give the impression of being a flimsy plastic POS. The metal ones are apparently very hard to come by, and I’m told they’re very expensive. The crappy plastic ones are listed anywhere from $35-$50, so I hate to see what the expensive metal ones cost. Oh, and I said “available” in quotes, because apparently they made magazines at one point in history, but they’re nowhere to be found now. Nobody reputable online has them in stock, including CZ themselves. So I now have a rifle that they intentionally shipped without a magazine, and I can’t even buy an overpriced crappy plastic magazine for it. That’s just incredible !

Accuracy: The Ruger has fallen short of what I’d hoped. It’ll shoot one-hole groups at 50 feet, but I’d like to be able to do that at 50 yards. Some of it may be my limitations with iron sights, but I’ve done pretty extensive testing with it and I’m pretty sure I’m running into the limitations of the gun and the ammo. It seems to favor CCI Blazer 40gr, but I’d like to see more consistency.



The CZ, well, I’ll have to report back on that, because the damn sights fell off the gun before I got a chance to really shoot it. I really hope it’s good, because if not I’m going to wish I’d saved my money and just bought a new stock for the Ruger.

I bought a scope and some rings at the LGS today, and Amazon says they’re getting me my die and plug screws tomorrow, so hopefully I can report back with an actual shooting data before the weekend (although it’s gonna be one round at a time). I hope it’s positive, because this thing has me pretty pissed off right now.

I love these CZ rimfires and have several, all have been outstanding.
To some of your points:
M3.5x.6 screws are readily available (assuming you don't need some odd configuration) try mcmaster carr and if they don't have what you want post about more about the size and configuration and I'm sure we can find a source.
CZ mags seem available. The 5 rounds are in stock at midway at the moment if that's the size you want. If in the end you simply cannot find any email me and I'll solve it so you and the kids can go shoot.
I use the EGW dovetail to picatinny base and have no complaints about it.

In any case thanks for the detailed comparison posting.

Thanks for the offer! I'm going to hit up a few shops in the "big city" an hour away tomorrow, and if I can't find anything I'll let you know. I've struck out everywhere locally, but it didn't stop us from shooting a couple of hundred rounds through it tonight. The single-shot adapter is a huge pain...not just becasue you have to drop one at a time, but they also tend to miss the groove and jam up against the inside of the receiver. It re-enforced my belief that whoever thought it was a good idea to sell a gun with one of those instead of a real magazine ought to be smacked.

I know I saw a CZ 457 Magazine at Sportsman's warehouse a few months back, so maybe they'll still have some on the shelf tomorrow. The one at Midway is a .22Mag/.17HMR mag, not .22LR. It seems those are available everywhere, but nobody has the .22LR variety.

I did pick up a scope and some CZ rings at my local shop yesterday, though (He didn't have any mags, but he did have a single-shot adapter...go figure!). I wish the rings were lower, but they'll do. I could have probably found exactly what I was after online, but that shop owner takes good care of me and I like to give him business when I can.

The 6-40 plug screws and tap came today. That turned into an all-out amature machining debacle (involing a drill press, a busted off bit, a punch, and a needle file), but I ultimately got it done and they threaded into the holes very nicely. I removed and plugged the front sight too, which in contrast to the rear sight is a very nicely constructed metal blade in a metal base, adjustable by allen screws. One word of caution...the sight hood appears to be the only thing holding the front sight-blade pin in, and it's not a press-fit, so if you're planning on getting one of these and using the irons, I wouldn't remove it or your front sight pin and blade will likely fall out.



I'm pretty happy with the end result...It's a short, handy carbine that won't be outrageously long once the supressor is mounted.



We got it out to the range and I zeroed it at 50 yards. The dang thing will shoot! And it doesn't seem to be ammo picky at all (although the point of impact change with the SK Match was kinda weird). I was shooting off a rest without a rear bag, so the targets below definitely have some human error factored in...I need to go back witha rear bag and see if I can tighten it up any more. But it's already better than the Ruger....admitedly using a magnified optic against iron sights isn't a totally fair comparison.

The boys started on paper and then were plinking shotgun shells off the plate rack stand at 50 yards.





Zeroed it with Automatch, because I have a ton of the stuff. I shot three targets with this stuff, and this one was the last and best, but the others weren't far behind. The two off to the right were completely my fault...I felt myself shank them:


My Ruger really prefers the Blazer, but the CZ didn't seem to care much.


The SK match was weird...not sure why the horizontal point of impact shift. I wasn't doing anything different, and there's no way I threw all those rounds.

While there are rare exceptions, if you really want the best accuracy potential do not waste time and money on domestic 22 ammo. The SK you did try ( surprising it looked to not shoot all that great for you) lapua eley rws and you will eventually find something the gun loves.
Also when doing group testing, it is advised to shoot 10-20 rounds before you group test to let the barrel become accustomed to the variations in bullet lube

quote:

Originally posted by captain127:
Also when doing group testing, it is advised to shoot 10-20 rounds before you group test to let the barrel become accustomed to the variations in bullet lube

I absolutely agree with this.

92fstech -- I realized this when I bounced between ammo types for accuracy testing. Going from one line to another within the same manufacturer may require only 5 rounds before a group's POI and size settles down. Switching between manufacturers almost certainly requires 10+ rounds to settle down. Not all ammo switches act the same.

One way to determine the effects is by using a large target paper that has 4 columns of small-ish bullseyes, maybe with 5 rows of bullseyes. For each row shoot a different type of ammo, with 5 rounds per bullseye. See how your groups change with each new type of ammo, and with successive groups of the same ammo.

Official Smallbore fifty foot target~



https://www.midwayusa.com/product/101520265

or, fifty meter targets
https://www.creedmoorsports.co...gets-and-Accessories

Yeah, I realize that this wasn't the greatest test, but I had the boys with me, I was single-feeding the damn rifle, and we were kind of racing the clock because a storm was coming in.

Once my outrageously overpriced plastic magazine comes in (I struck out at 6 shops in Ft. Wayne today, including the big box places...finally broke down and ordered one from Numrich for $63 shipped. It was the only place I could find one in stock...at least it's the 10-round variety) I'll go back out and try to give it a more scientific test.

Thanks for posting the comparison, both are nice rifles but I believe the scout sports a beech stock rather than walnut. My 452 Ultra Lux has a nice looking beech stock as well. Crazy that they don't furnish a magazine though!

I have a 457 American Combo on order from the LGS which should be here Monday or Wednesday, looking forward to my first 457.

quote:

I believe the scout sports a beech stock rather than walnut.

You are correct, sir! I guess I'm just not used to beech being stained that dark. Regardless, it's a nice piece of wood.

quote:

Crazy that they don't furnish a magazine though!

I'm still annoyed at this. Their website says it comes with the single-shot adapter to "teach ammo conservation"...which sounds like "we cheaper out and didn't want to pay for a magazine" to me. I don't normally do stuff like this, but I almost feel like I need to email them just to tell them how dumb that is.

I thought your CZ metal magazine comment was hyperbole, but they do appear to have disappeared.

Maybe its an inventory problem.
Five and ten round magazines sold out, lots of single shot adapters on ha d to ship with rifles?

quote:

Originally posted by Voshterkoff:
I thought your CZ metal magazine comment was hyperbole, but they do appear to have disappeared.

The steel 10 rounders are going for $120 on ebay . That's like unobtanium milsurp magazines that haven't been produced in 80 years money!

quote:

Maybe its an inventory problem.
Five and ten round magazines sold out, lots of single shot adapters on ha d to ship with rifles?

Maybe so, but that should be foreseeable and preventable. Especially the polymer ones...it's not like there's a shortage on plastic. I envision some supply specialist in a meeting and his boss is like

I'm curious whether the CZ mag availability problem is due to supply or demand?
Has anyone asked CZ about this?
Edited: Well I see Brownells is out of stock on CZ pistol mags, not just the rimfire rifle mags.

I can hardly wait for my almost 1-year-old grandson to get old enough to shoot one of my numerous .22 rifles, including 3 CZ's and 3 Ruger 10/22's.

Whether my daughter will approve of her daughters shooting is a subject we have not discussed.

Magazine capacity alone is why I swapped from CZ back to Ruger. Trying to shoot rats and changing mags in the dark every 5 shots was a pain on top of beating up the stock.

The CZ's ability to attach a grown up telescopic sight leaves much to be desired with the antiquated Glenfield type receiver. They both have good bolts and sear assemblies, though.

I have a Ruger M77/22 that absolutely smokes any 22 rifle I have ever owned, but it's an expensive, forged receiver gun. There's no comparison with the CZ.

Both my RARs are fine rifles that shoot extremely well. Good enough to be popping rats over 50 yards at night.

The CZ has a nice wood stock, but it will get beat up with a lot of usage. The Ruger is a reliable tool rifle all the way around.

CZ makes 25rd. mags. I use picatinny to attach optics and I personally don't see any difference between bolting it to the receiver (ruger) and bolting it to the dovetail (cz), but maybe I'm missing something in the discussion.

The CZ can be made to do what the Ruger does, if one wants to drill and tap the receiver, or use a clamp-on base. And yeah, at one point there was a 25 round CZ mag, but who knows when one one last seen in the wild.

Ruger just makes all of those things easier. The Ruger mags are unarguably a better design (and they even include one with the gun!). The gun comes drilled and tapped from the factory, with a thread pitch that can be easily acquired in the continental US. CZ changed their muzzle thread to 1/2x28 to accomodate the US market...why not change the rest of the threads on the gun at the same time?

Don't get me wrong...the guts of the CZ are clearly of higher quality than the Ruger, and Ruger corporate has annoyed me enough lately that I'm not dying to say anything nice about their gun. Trying to be as objective as possible, though, I've got to admit that Ruger thought through the details better on the American Rimfire than CZ did with the Scout.

I got out today with a rear bag and put the CZ back on paper. I shot enough fo each that there should have been plenty of time for the barrel to settle in to each type of ammo. I think I'm limiting the gun more than the ammo at this point. The SK Match is still hitting consistently high left, and of the three I feel like the Automatch actually shot the best....not just from what the paper shows, but when I was behind the gun and knew I really broke a shot clean it went right where I expected it to go.

All targets shot at 50 yards:

Excellent Comparo-Reviews lately 92fstech...Thorough and complete! You've clearly put in some serious time/thought on both this AND the P245/P220 Compact thread. Thank you for that!

I decided that shoooting the iron-sighted Ruger against a scoped CZ wasn't exactly a fair comparison, so I threw an old 3-9x Tasco that I had lying around on the Ruger and went back to the range. It's not the greatest scope, but good enough for the square range at 50 yards off a bench. I took the old Glenfield 25 (scoped with a Nikon Prostaff 4x) along to use as a control.

I shot each gun at 50 yards with what I've found to be it's favorite ammo. The Ruger got the CCI Blazer 40 grain, the CZ the Automatch, and the Glenfield Aguila Super Extra 36 grain.

Out of four targets each, the groups averaged the following:

Ruger: 0.775"
CZ: 0.720"
Glenfield: 1.486"

I'm clearly a factor here and I'm sure a better shooter could put up more consistent results, but in my hands, while the CZ comes out on top, there's not a statistically significant difference between it and the Ruger.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Excellent Comparo-Reviews lately 92fstech...Thorough and complete! You've clearly put in some serious time/thought on both this AND the P245/P220 Compact thread. Thank you for that!

Thanks. It's kinda fun, and it's the sort of info I'm typically looking for when I'm researching before a new purchase, so hopefully it helps somebody out someday. I agonized between the CZ and the Ruger when I first bought the Ruger, and couldn't find a good in-depth comparison review out there anywhere. I went with the Ruger, but couldn't kick the idea that I was missing something by not buying the CZ. When I came across a good price on this one in that auction, I couldn't pass up the chance to try it out.

Ultimately, I'll probably go back to the tech sights on the Ruger and keep both.

Been shooting the 457 a lot the last few weeks, and I've decided it needs a new stock. The shorty works ok for the kids, but I'm 6'5", and combined with the long eye relief of the scope and the drop at the back, the factory stock just isn't working for me. It's more of a chin-weld and my head has to be craned back near the butt of the stock to get into the scope's eye box.

My goal with this setup is to keep it light and handy, so I don't want a heavy varminter or bench rest stock. I'm also not wanting to go "tactical" with this and don't want a chassis system. I've narrowed it down to three options:

1. Find a used 457 American factory stock. Seems like a reasonable plan until you try to find one. Even CZ's own marketing materials for the scout suggest that it can be mounted in a full-size stock as the kids grow into it. But like I'm finding out with the magazines, CZ hates their customers and sucks at delivering product. If anybody knows of a good source for a take-off American stock, I'm all ears.

2. Boyd's At-One. The adjustability is interesting on this one, as I could set it up for both me and the kids without having to swap stocks. Downside is it's a bit pricey, and the one I've seen in person was a little rattley. Granted, that was at the NRA show and it was a brand new product at the time, so the one I handled may have been a poor example. Anybody have experience with these that can speak to the quality and weight?

3. Boyd's rimfire hunter. I have the prairie hunter for my Savage Model 10, and it's a nice enough stock although a bit heavier than the factory options. This is kind of the way I'm leaning as it's readily available and not hatefully expensive...but it lacks the adjustability of the At-One and isn't as nice or as light as a factory CZ American wood stock would be.

If anybody has any experience with these, input, or other suggestions, I'd love to hear them!


ETA: Oh, one other update on the 457 and the warranty claim I opened with customer service about the defective rear sight: I never heard back from them. No followup email, no call, no part in the mail, nothing.

Good thing I'm a master with JB weld, and I'm not using the "iron" sights anyway. Like Beretta, they make a nice product, but their customer service really sucks.

I did get the plastic 10-round mag in from Numrich, and it works. Midway just got metal 5 rounders back in stock, so I ordered one of those too so I'll have an option that is more flush with the bottom of the gun.