I have some CZ550 Safari Magnum, a good buffing action is the only thing to do, are very accurate weapons in any caliber, all of my CZ rifles are the stocks of kevlar HSprecision, the sizes I use are 458LOTT, 338Lapua , 375HH, I can say that you will have a great weapon for a fair price!
sent a gunsmithing make a CZ550 in 460Weatherby to my subistituir 375HH which showed a caliber little insurance in case of attack by buffalo.
is a great weapon!
Here is an article that appeared in a publication that despite being paid by a text CZ reports and their qualities;
For one thing, even though Paul Mauser had done his good deed for the world more than a decade earlier, Roosevelt's idea of an elephant gun was a Mod-1895 lever-action Winchester in .405 WCF, the rifle and chambering never seen before and seldom seen since on the entire African continent.
Whenever possible, however, "Big Stick" Roosevelt preferred to use one of his other Winchester lever guns in the decidedly 'Little Stick' 30-03, a cartridge designed to punch small holes in half-dressed soldiers.
Roosevelt arranged for 15 cases of Winchester rifles to be shipped to Mombasa and he used them to shoot up most things in British East Africa, the Belgian Congo and all the way up to Khartoum. He managed to bag more than 500 animals in a year, but his safari was not noted for a high incidence of clean, one-shot kills. Not only did Roosevelt know nothing about guns, he was half blind and a poor shot to boot.
One after the other, American writers Ernest Hemingway and Robert Ruark eventually followed in Roosevelt's bloody footsteps, talking a lot about using 'enough gun' but mostly using the small-bore 30-06. Hemingway and Ruark, both of whose sporting backgrounds consisted mainly of fishing and shotgunning small birds, were apparently unaware that chasing a wounded animal all over the countryside and shooting it a dozen times in order to kill it, usually meant you were not a very good shot or you were shooting the animal with an inadequate cartridge, or both.
As their reports, a selective mixture of fact and fiction writerly, filtered back to American hunters of limited experience and American Gunwriters of limited mental faculties, gross misunderstandings naturally followed.
Because Roosevelt, Hemingway and Ruark did not know any better than to press the 30-06 well beyond its design parameters, the idea sprouted in America that the 30-06 was a proper cartridge for Africa had anything to
offer.
This undeserved promotion of a mediocre cartridge reached its peak with the safaris of CJ McElroy, founder of Safari Club International, who attempted to shock and awe half of Africa with his barely functional pump-action Remington 30-06, and Jack O'Connor, the recoil-allergic journalism teacher and small-bore writer who even considered his wife's little ladylike 30-06 too much gun for most uses.
The herds of shot-up, angry and wounded animals left behind in the bush to terrorize the locals was not reported by these megalomaniacs, and more ignorant gun-shooters were encouraged to continue to follow in their footsteps sub-caliber.
Before long, the large quantities of cheap American-made rifles and easily obtainable 30-06 ammo had seduced even a surprising number of Africans who could not or would not spend the money for more suitable equipment.
The .30-06 has its limits in Africa.
Eventually, more experienced American hunters in Africa began to realize that they did, indeed, need more than any American gun cartridge could provide.
Unfortunately, the response of American gun and ammunition companies, rather than offering a Mauser action chambered in the African cartridges already perfected by Germany and Britain during their African-nization, was to design (or steal) something different proprietary and which they could market the 'new and improved' and which was actually either redundant or inappropriate.
Thus Roy Weatherby's crackpot theories applying rodent-killing techniques to pachyderms, Winchester's poorly designed and marketed dishonestly .458 Winchester Magnum, Remington's long line of kidnapped and abandoned wildcats.
Even Ruger (who was wise enough when Bill Ruger Sr. was running things to the chamber Safari Ruger rifle in .416 Rigby - thus forcing companies to manufacture ammo the grand old cartridge) now sees a burning need to introduce a proprietary .375 Ruger cartridge that has absolutely no benefits over the timeless .375 Holland & Holland.
Your editor wanted me to take a softer line on us Americans and our insight into African rifles and cartridges, but the truth is - very few of us have progressed beyond the Theodore Roosevelt - Jack O'Connor indoctrination and it is a truth to be told.
We can only be thankful that the indomitable Elmer Keith insisted that the Winchester Mod-70 rifle he helped develop be offered in .375 H & H, making it the first American factory rifle ever chambered in a proven African big game caliber. In fact, this was the only decent choice in American factory rifles until 1964, when the idiots running the company replaced the Winchester Mod-70's Mauser-type action with a cheap-to-make push-feed contraption no better than the lowly Remington Mod -700, thus relegating America's only Africa-class production rifle to the dustbin of history.
Thereafter, every proper African hunting rifle made in America had to be custom-built by the talented few gunsmiths who knew what an African rifle was, and the guns were priced accordingly.
It would be many years before a moderately priced factory-made rifle suitable for African hunting would be available in America.
And it would not be America that produced it, but a new-old country called the Czech Republic finally emerging free and independent from the toxic swamp of Soviet communism where America's left-wing politicians had cast it in the aftermath of World War II.
A few CZ-550 Magnum rifles had been trickling into the U.S. since 1991, but few shooters paid much attention until 1998 when Ceská established Zbrojovka CZ-USA in Kansas City.
The CZ-550 was, in fact, the latest iteration of the Brno ZKK 602, the true Africa-class-type action Mauser rifle and famous all over the world. The Brno name was little known in the U.S., however, and even the CZ name was associated almost exclusively with handguns.
It took us a while to Americans realize that the proven-controlled-round feed rifle in real African calibers was available for the price of the common 'Remchester' at our local gun shop.
Eventually, shooters and hunters began to discover and understand this amazing fact on their own with no help from the Gunwriters and magazine editors who, in this country, are genetically incapable of conceiving a story that does not begin: "The new home-grown super-duper perfect rifle for whitetail deer unveiled at the SHOT Show is ... 'The authorities who unraveled presumed to inform the American hunter do not really believe in their heart of hearts that smokeless-powder rifles larger than .30 caliber exist in the real world outside of literary fiction, and they were shocked to discover how many of their readers were far ahead of them.
Pretty soon, American game from deer to elk were falling to hammer blows from Bavarian CZs stocked in 9.3 x62mm Mauser, .375 Holland & Holland, .416 Rigby, .458 Winchester Magnum and .458 Lott. Even jackrabbits and ground squirrels were being blown to bits by the big guns.
Having discovered too late that shooting big-bores quickly becomes an incurable addiction, Americans started joining Safari Club International by the tens of thousands and boarding jets to Africa.
The rich ones packed Mausers custom hand-made by the best American gunmakers who are, quite ironically considering the low quality of American factory rifles, among the best custom gunmakers in the world.
The not-so-rich ones mostly packed CZs, off-the-shelf or customized moderately, and were just as proud.
Alice Poluchova is recognized as the architect of CZ's successful invasion of America. She went to work for CZ in her native Czech Republic as Export Sales Manager while she was still working on her Master's Degree from Silesian University.
After graduating with honors, she was soon on her way to Kansas City to open the new American arm of CZ as Vice President and Chief Financial Offi cer. She expected to work six months, the offi ce get up and running and then go home. But Alice fell in love with America, and Americans soon started falling in love with CZ.
When Alice was named President of czus, big-bore rifle lines utilizing the CZ-550 action started growing even faster.
A medium size CZ-550 action is ideal for the 9.3x62mm Mauser cartridge, and this classic African loading from CZ is available in a full-length Mannlicher-style stock that's handy, elegant and uncannily accurate. The large-CZ 550 Magnum action is used for the bigger cartridges - .375 H & H, .416 Rigby, 458 Winchester Magnum and .458 Lott.
These 'Safari Magnum' rifles are available with CZ's famous schweinsrucken or 'hogs back' the stock with Bavarian cheekpiece, or with a straight-combed 'American-style' stock.
The recent line of CZ 'Safari Classics,' with upgraded walnut and a variety of custom options and features, are available in .300 Holland & Holland, .404 Jeffery, .450 Rigby Rimless, .500 Jeffery and .505 Gibbs.
The most popular size in this line, perhaps surprisingly, is the .505 Gibbs, and virtually any other size is available on custom order. The Safari Classics McGowan typically use barrels, and are stocked, fit and fi nished in CZ's Kansas City Custom Shop rather than the Czech Republic.
While many consider Czech superior workmanship, the level of customization offered in this line of rifles would not be possible without utilizing local talent. Each rifle is built to the customer's specs.
Jason Morton, head of CZ Marketing and Public Relations, says: "Our Custom Shop really does offer anything that's technically possible. It's just a matter of time and money.
Our Safari Classics are meant to show what can be done, but there are an unlimited number of options that are possible. We provide a list of standard options and we can go well beyond that. We'll do that to any of our rifles, not just the Safari Classics. We've always included fancy-grade American walnut, barrel-band sling mount, mercury recoil reducer and glass bedding in the .505 Gibbs.
Throughout this year we've added glass bedding to all those rifles, and we're going to double crossbolts on all those rifles. We're offering more services from simple things like smoothing up the action, shortening barrels, making stock from customers' blanks, to all kinds of customizing across the whole line. '' It feels good to build something, "says Poluchova. 'When we started, most Americans had little idea what a CZ was or where it came from. That's really changed. I'm very proud of the heritage CZ and I really believe our guns are superior. Our big-bore rifles account for as much as 70 percent of the market in some African countries. When we go to the Safari Club International convention in Reno there is always an extremely high level of awareness and interest in our guns. It is very exciting. "CZ's impact on the American market has been tremendous. I am not alone in giving CZ much of the credit for making the quality control problems of Winchester painfully clear and bringing about the discontinuation of the Mod-70 and the final demise of that company, is forcing to import Remington Mauser-type actions from Zastava Oruzjem in Serbia as a last resort before selling the company off to private investors, for the money and asset haemorrhaging of Ruger, and for the bankruptcy of Dakota which was temporarily saved from total extinction only by financial sleight-of-hand.
CZ has been a contributing factor in the American hunter's realization that there is more to life than whitetail deer and 30-06 push-feed rifles, that Africa and African hunting are accessible, and that Africa-worthy rifles can be affordable and are fun to shoot even in your own backyard.
If this expansion and intensification of the market has led to the downfall of non-competitive manufacturers of medium and lowend American rifles, it has had the opposite effect on the high end.
Shooters who can afford to have custom hand-built rifles on Mauser-precision design actions such as those from Granite Mountain Arms, Stuart Satterlee, and Hein Waffenfabrik are doing so.
The custom rifle business in the United States is more vibrant than at any time in history. Hunting by African Americans is on a powerful upswing with no end in sight.
Classic cartridges are being recognized for their excellence of design and are seeing use in the hunting fields again.
Safari Club International, the most sophisticated and influential hunting organization in the United States - and the world - has a membership of 50,000. None of these exhilarating developments would have such a sharp edge to them had it not been for CZ's swashbuckling entry into the market a decade in August 'I was born in a communist country,' says Alice Poluchova, 'so of course we were not allowed to own guns. We were not even allowed to protect ourselves. There were no shooting sports. Hunting was forbidden. It was exactly the way the communists and leftists and anti-gun people all over the world want it to be, and that makes me shudder. When the Czech Republic became a free and independent country in 1993, legislation was passed so that citizens could once again own firearms, and I became much more involved in shooting. "Indeed, CZ does not make a handgun, shotgun or rifle Alice Poluchova does not shoot - on a serious, regular, competitive, sporting basis.
'One of the nicest parts of my jobs is that I get to shoot every gun we make. That includes IPSC and trap and skeet and taking all of the guns safari to Africa. I've been to Zimbabwe and South Africa three times, for both plains game and dangerous game. I have two of the Big Five so far - a lion with the .450 Rigby, and a buffalo with the .458 Lott.
'The African hunting market in the U.S. is stronger than it ever has been. I think what's happening is that it's still relatively reasonable to hunt in Africa. You can pay X amount of dollars in the U.S. for a single elk hunt, or you can spend the same money and, once you're over the fear of the long flight, you can hunt five or ten animals in South Africa. Thanks to SCI and the world community of hunters and the stability we're seeing in RSA and the fact that other African countries are opening up, the people who have always dreamed of hunting in Africa can now do that. "I'm happy to hear that Alice's favorite rifle is the .450 Rigby, because it's certainly one of mine as well, and I believe it was a brilliant and courageous move by CZ to offer the .450 Rigby as a standard chambering. Another thing I'm happy to hear is Alice's talk of plans for CZ's future.
'There are people who can afford to spend $ 50,000 on a full custom gun that's a work of art,' she says, 'but most of us work hard for our money and are conscious of value and want to get the most gun for the money . When we go to Africa, we'd rather spend say $ 2,000 or $ 3,000 on a perfectly working gun and the rest of the money on hunting more animals. 'We're going to introduce a left-handed-CZ 550 magnum action, and we've talked about bringing back some of the CZ over / under rifle. "Back in the old days, during the communist time, the state-owned company in the city of Brno was one of the l largest small arms manufacturers in the world. In terms of sporting guns, the Brno ZKK-602 bolt-action rifles were actually made by CZ in Uherské Brod but they were called Brno anyway. That all changed when the Cold War ended and the company historically known as Zbrojovka Brno eventually went bankrupt. This year, the owners of the CZ factory in Uherské Brod bought them out and now we can use the name Brno again. That factory is producing sporting guns for the European market and will begin producing guns for the world market in 2008.
'The last ten years we worked hard to change the name of Brno to CZ and now we can use it again.' 'Our plan for the next few years is to reestablish the Brno name along with the CZ name in the U.S. in the dangerous rifle-game market. I go to Africa and see the ZKK-602S in the hands of outfitters and PHs've used them for 10 or 20 years, and it makes me proud. No product is perfect, but the historical record shows that our guns work year after year in the most demanding conditions. Dangerous-game hunting is one of the markets where we have long been one of the top in the world. "Indeed, those of us for whom the dangerous-game rifle represents the absolute pinnacle and quintessence of sporting arms have always known that you can never have too many CZ / Brnos.
So on those occasions cocktail party when somebody tries to tell me all about how Theodore Roosevelt and his 15 cases of Winchesters opened up Africa for American hunters, I usually take the opportunity to point out what Alice Poluchova has been up to in the Kansas City last few years.
