Cz 550 wont feed from magazine

[Taylorz1]

Hello,

I could use some help with a cz 550 in 375 H@H that I recently purchased. It wont feed at all from the magazine. When trying to feed the bolt picks the rim of the cartridge up fine but the cartridge gets stuck 1/2-3/4” out of battery going into the chamber. It looks like the cartridge is coming into the chamber at a nose up attitude and the side of the case is catching on the sharp lower lip of the chamber. I dont know if the issue is that the case is not snapping fully into the extractor soon enough and is wedging itself or of the edge of the chamber is just so sharp that its catching the case. It does seem like the feed ramp should be getting the cartridge fully seated on the bolt face sooner than it is but im not sure what the causative issue is. Im attaching some pics of where the cartridge gets stuck, the relationship of the rim and the bolt face at that point and the damage to the cases that im seeing from the sharp edge of the chamber. If I drop a cartridge in on top of the magazine and close the bolt on it the gun with chamber the round no problem. Appreciate anyones input. Thank you

Zack

 

[Ontario Hunter]

It would appear the extractor claw has a bit too much metal left on the bottom of the lip where case is picked up and that's keeping the rim from slipping up onto the bolt face.

 

[Taylorz1]

yup thats exactly what it was. I took a needle file and some emory cloth and reshaped then polished that area of the extractor claw and the gun feeds perfect now. Amazing it would t feed at all. Completely locked up feeding out of mag. The fix literally took less than two minutes. Thanks very much Ontario Hunter.

 

[Taylorz1]

Dont know if the difference is obvious but here is the after pic

 

[Tally-Ho HUNTING SAFARIS]

Does it feed all rounds well from a full mag
Best to test this

 

[runningman]

The CZ 550 has controlled round feed. The bolt closes harder on guns with controlled round feed because of the non-rotating extractor. The bolt on my new CZ 550 in 9.3X62 closes very hard. i just slap the bolt handle harder.

After firing about 200 rounds the bolt on a friends CZ 550 in .30-06 worked smoother.

 

[Taylorz1]

Thanks Tally-Ho. It feeds a full mag of soft points and monolithic Barnes without a hitch. I need to check feeding with solids now. At first I thought that the round was getting caught under the rail but that little work on the extractor claw fixed it. Runningman- the cartridge was getting wedged tight in the chamber and there was no seating it. The first time I ran the bolt on this gun I just tried to push harder and it ruined the cartridge. Thankfully it was an easy fix. I should have been able to figure it out but wanted to think about it 10x before removing metal once. Thanks again

 

[Ontario Hunter]

The CZ 550 has controlled round feed. The bolt closes harder on guns with controlled round feed because of the non-rotating extractor. The bolt on my new CZ 550 in 9.3X62 closes very hard. i just slap the bolt handle harder.

After firing about 200 rounds the bolt on a friends CZ 550 in .30-06 worked smoother.

Huh??? Of course the claw extractor rotates!, Otherwise it would disappear underneath the bolt when bolt is rotated closed. Both my 98 Mauser 404J and Springfield 03A3 30-06 are CRF and they close slick as glass with one round or full capacity magazine. You need to get your gun tuned by a gunsmith! Slapping the bolt closed is NOT how CRF rifles are supposed to operate. As I read various threads on this forum, it's become apparent that quality control re feeding is a very common problem with CZ 550 rifles.

Both rental rifles I used in Africa were CZ550 (30-06 and 375) and I had no problems forcing the bolt closed. Indeed, I would not have gone after buffalo with a gun that operated that way. Your gun is screwed up. Better get it fixed.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Dont know if the difference is obvious but here is the after pic

View attachment 646665

Yep. That's what it should look like. Here's the extractor on my 404J built from 8mm Czech Mauser. I had to considerably reshape it after opening the bolt face. The extractor, which was apparently from another Mauser 98, was very troublesome. Even after properly reshaped it still wasn't letting rims up onto the bolt face without significant force. Turns out the extractor had too much spring tension. Slightly bending it and reshaping the rear pivot to match this bolt did the trick. Rims fly up onto the bolt face with almost no resistance. Relieving some tension also solved snap over failures. Works perfectly now.

Edit: The bolt face machining is not as rough as it looks in this photo. Crappy lighting in my camper trailer (hunting camp).

 

[Taylorz1]

Thanks for the pic of the bolt face. Building a 404 j is on my bucket list in the shop. Im a little intimidated by the conversion so am still trying to gather as much info on it as possible. Best of luck in hunt camp and thanks again.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Thanks for the pic of the bolt face. Building a 404 j is on my bucket list in the shop. Im a little intimidated by the conversion so am still trying to gather as much info on it as possible. Best of luck in hunt camp and thanks again.

I never did anything like that before and my 404 turned out great. I didn't have the equipment to install the barrel or open the bolt face, but the rest of it I did myself. Duane Wiebe's booklet was an immense help. $25 well spent! Enabled my local machinist to open up the bolt face with no difficulty. I went with 416 Rem bottom metal which required no modification. Changing the 8mm feeding ramp and rails to cycle 404 was tricky. Took a couple of days. I also installed 3-position Model 70 safety, Timney trigger, and Winchester crossbolts. If I can do it, you certainly can too. Be glad to help.