CZ 455 American 22LR Review

[louie the fly]

I recently picked up my PTA for my new CZ 455 American in 22lr and as I had a bit of leave saved up from work I decided to head down to the farm for a week and see how she shoots.

This is my first “serious” 22lr that I have owned. I grew up learning to shoot with my old man’s Lithgow single shot and his browning trombone pump action which at the time were great fun. I dare say a single shot Lithgow 22 is probably the ideal rifle to teach kids and beginners how to shoot and how to safely handle a firearm. My current arsenal consists of a 17hmr, 204 ruger, 223 remington and a 25-06 Rem which have all served me well shooting varmints and small game from close ranges out past 350 yards. I didn’t have a firearm which could pop off rabbits and foxes at close range without making considerable noise and didn’t have a rifle which was suited for plinking and general shooting around the house and sheds. The 17hmr is close but it’s generally too loud and powerful for shooting pest birds and too expensive for plinking with friends on a Sunday afternoon. That was the rationale behind getting a 22, plus I just wanted another rifle.

Once I decided I wanted a 22 it came about decided what rifle. This was actually pretty easy in the end. I wanted a CZ, either 452 or 455. CZ’s seem to be a part of the Australian outback identity, or more so Brno, there aren’t many farmers around my way who don’t have an old Brno model 1 or a CZ of some description. There is considerable debate surrounding the 452 vs 455 and if the changes CZ made to the 455 were worthwhile. I did some research but ultimately decided I was going to go to the gun shop and decided on the day what I liked and what I didn’t. I handled a CZ 452 special and American and a CZ 455 varmint, American and standard. I liked the comb on the American and the check weld it offered. The varmint model was very nice but didn’t really suit my criteria of a walk around rifle. When comparing the 452 and 455 american models I liked the 455 as I thought it had a superior fit and finish and I liked the free floated barrel. The decision was made and about 4 weeks later I had my PTA.

Fit and Finish:
After handling the rifle for a few days it’s clear that the fit and finish of my CZ was excellent. I’m no expert on walnut stocks but I liked the figure and look of this one. The blueing of the barrel and action was very good and the rifle fitted into the stock very well. The stock has a very generous channel allowing the barrel to be free floated from the action to the forend of the stock. Overall I was very impressed with the fit and finish of the rifle and is exactly what I expect from CZ with my cz527 carbine being of equal quality.

Handling:
The American is nicely balanced when shooting from the shoulder and isn’t overly heavy. Shooting it on the table with a bag was also easy with the gun ‘benching’ well. As I mentioned previously the comb of the rifle allows a very good cheek weld and your eye to be aligned straight down the scope which gives the rifle a nice pointability trait. I also liked the sling studs which some other models didn’t have. Carrying the rifle around either over the shoulder with a sling or just with one hand was very comfortable.

Scope:
I was originally going to put a Zeiss terra 2-7 x 32 which I picked up pretty cheap online on the CZ, I put this on my 223 carbine over Christmas to test it out. The idea was to buy a new scope for the 223 and the Zeiss goes on the 22. Well that didn’t go to plan. I picked up a Swarovski z3 3-9x36 to go on the 223 originally but I ended up liking the size of the zeiss on the carbine so that stayed where it was and the z3 now lives on the 22. Some might say it’s overkill for a 22 but since I will probably be using the 22 the most over the next few years I figured it might aswell have some good glass. I was very impressed with this scope. It’s nice and light and compact and would be the ultimate hunting scope on a light weight centerfire rifle. The clicks are very precise and the overall build quality is what you would expect from Swarovski. The optical quality is also very good, I would rate it better than my Zeiss terra, leupold vx3, Minox ZA5 and old Zeiss conquest. Not as good as my kahles cbx but that is to be expected. I wanted Leupold medium rings but the guys in the gun shop gave me 11mm ring mounts instead of 3/8’’ so I had to make do with a set of 3/8 $30 ring mounts. They did the job but will be replaced with the Leupolds.

Range testing:
I set the rifle up on my bench with a pretty big solid shooting bag as a front rest and a but bag for the rear. If any of you have shot in the Great Southern of Western Australia during this time of the year then you know it will either be too hot or too windy. Unfortunately every afternoon I did my shooting I was up against pretty strong easterly winds. I pulled my table around near our big machinery shed which gave me some cover, but the wind was more gusty and swirly around the sheds but still better than being out in the open. I had 2 bricks of Winchester subsonic and power point ammo and only one packet each of eley match, cci minimag, Winchester long zzz and the federal bulk stuff. Unfortunately I only took pictures of the Winchester subsonic and powerpoint results.

The subsonics shot well at 50 yards with the average of 8 x 5 shot groups being around the 0.5’’ mark with 10 shot groups being around the 1’’ mark. Powerpoint 10 shot groups were also a little over 1’’. I was surprised that the rifle wasn’t particularly fussy with it shooting all the ammo I fed it around or under 1’’ with it having its favourites. The match ammo was around 0.5’’ for 5 shot groups and the CCI mini mag shooting pretty well into around 0.7’’. Federal bulk ammo was the stand out shooting groups around 0.5’’.The Winchester long zzz were printing 10 shot groups around 1’’ at 25 yds but were pretty inconsistent. For the entire testing time I was battling the wind so I feel there may be a few fliers because of that. The targets look a bit messy in terms of POI but I was fiddling with scope adjustments etc. Overall I’m very happy with the accuracy. I’m keen to get some more match ammo and really stretch her legs. Interestingly, the Winchester power points and subsonics have a pretty similar POI at 50yds with the powerpoints printing around 1.5’’ higher. This works fine for me as it is pretty easy to switch from subsonic to high velocity ammo without too much trouble.

In the field:
I took the CZ out to a mates old shearing shed which had a few bunnies running around. I mounted my wolf eyes sniper II on the scope with a simple ring mounting system and used this in conjunction with my wolf eyes sea lion. Taking head shots on rabbits out to 50 yards was not problem at all and I managed to harvest around 10 rabbits with the subsonics. This was the perfect ammo as the subsonics didn’t make much noise and scare the surrounding rabbits away. I was also impressed with the damage these bullets do. I managed to also shoot a small fox in the shoulder and dropped him on the spot. On closer inspection the bullet had entered in one shoulder breaking the bone and exited just behind the rear shoulder causing a considerable exit would. Although it was only 30 odd paces away I thought this was good performance on fox sized game. Overall the rifle is very easy to use in the field. Its accuracy and handling characteristics make shooting rabbits out to 50 yards pretty easy. The Z3 also performed very well under the light with most shots being made with the scope on 6x power.

Functionality:
I experienced no major problems while shooting solidly for about a week and going through probably close to 1000 rounds of ammo. The rifle fed all ammo without hesitation but every so often it would fail to eject the last round in the magazine out of the action. The spent shell would simply sit in the action and would need to be removed by hand. No big deal really, and I’m not sure why it happens but it doesn’t worry me as the magazine is empty. I purchased 2 x 10 shot mags and the rifle came with a 5 shot. They performed perfectly throughout the week.

Final thoughts:
I was very impressed overall with the CZ 455. It does everything I need it to do and more. I know I can get more accuracy out of it with some match ammo but when it shoots well with standard hunting ammo there isn’t really much to worry about. The next challenge will be finding more small game to shoot with it!

For reference the other rifles pictured are (top to bottom):

Tikka T3 Varmint 25-06 with Kahles 8x56 cbx
Tikka T3 Super Varmint 204 with Leupold 6.5-20x50
CZ 527 Carbine 223 with Zeiss Terra 2-7x32
Savage 93R Varmint 17 HMR with Leupold VX-1 3-9x50 (which is getting a new stock soon)
CZ 455 American 22lr with Swarovski Z3 3-9x36

[louie the fly]

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[Branxhunter]

Looking good.

You need to update your tag line list now.

Marcus

[fenring]

They are a good rifle mate.

[Knackers]

I'd be happy with that, nice line up of rifles btw.

[bigfellascott]

Seems to shoot fine to me - Why the variation in POI do you think?

[Knackers]

Seems to shoot fine to me - Why the variation in POI do you think?

It's because some of the different brand ammo has left hand threads.

[louie the fly]

Seems to shoot fine to me - Why the variation in POI do you think?

The top line of groups were shot a day before the four groups at the bottom. The rifle got a clean the night before and was taken out of the stock etc. I fired 5 fouling shots and then the first group with the POI to the left. I made the scope adjustment to the right then fired the next 3. Although, I guess given that 10 shot groups have a variation of about 1'' most of those groups fall into the 1'' variation.

As I also mentioned there was also considerable amounts of wind which didn't help much.

[bigfellascott]

Thanks for that Louie, had me scratching my head trying to work out why they were like that considering they were all the same ammo.

Cheers mate and happy shooting

[Camel]

G'day Louie, that is a very good comprehensive review of your new rifle, well done, Im sure you will get years of enjoyment from it.

Just a couple of things, have a go at the Win 555 bulk box ammo, it will surprise you, it did me, and it out shot power point ammo in the few rifle that I have tried it in.

Re the scope mounts, have you looked at the Lynx line up of stud mounts, I don't think you will find a better mount system anywhere. I have some bases in the spare box, if you would like them, let me know and we can discuss it further, I may even have some spare 1 inch low rings in the box as well.

[louie the fly]

G'day Louie, that is a very good comprehensive review of your new rifle, well done, Im sure you will get years of enjoyment from it.

Just a couple of things, have a go at the Win 555 bulk box ammo, it will surprise you, it did me, and it out shot power point ammo in the few rifle that I have tried it in.

Re the scope mounts, have you looked at the Lynx line up of stud mounts, I don't think you will find a better mount system anywhere. I have some bases in the spare box, if you would like them, let me know and we can discuss it further, I may even have some spare 1 inch low rings in the box as well.

Hey mate,

Thanks for your comments. I will give the win 555 a go. I was surprised how accurate the federal bulk pack was aswell. Also keen to give the SK magazine a try. What rifle do you use the win 555 in?

In regards to the scope mounts....I'm definitely going to change them. I have Leupold ring mounts to go on so I was going to use them. Thanks for your offer anyway. Unfortunately I don't think low rings would allow the bolt handle to clear the ocular housing of the scope. Medium rings just give enough clearance.

[Camel]

G'day Louie, that is a very good comprehensive review of your new rifle, well done, Im sure you will get years of enjoyment from it.

Just a couple of things, have a go at the Win 555 bulk box ammo, it will surprise you, it did me, and it out shot power point ammo in the few rifle that I have tried it in.

Re the scope mounts, have you looked at the Lynx line up of stud mounts, I don't think you will find a better mount system anywhere. I have some bases in the spare box, if you would like them, let me know and we can discuss it further, I may even have some spare 1 inch low rings in the box as well.

Hey mate,

Thanks for your comments. I will give the win 555 a go. I was surprised how accurate the federal bulk pack was aswell. Also keen to give the SK magazine a try. What rifle do you use the win 555 in?

In regards to the scope mounts....I'm definitely going to change them. I have Leupold ring mounts to go on so I was going to use them. Thanks for your offer anyway. Unfortunately I don't think low rings would allow the bolt handle to clear the ocular housing of the scope. Medium rings just give enough clearance.

I use them in a CZ453 that I use as my work rifle, other have tried them in are a Brno mod 2 sporter from 1971, and a standard cz452 sporter. Luckily for me they are also pretty cheap and can usually get them for around 35 or so per box if I buy them in bulk, 4 or 5 cases at a time.

I use the Lynx low mounts on my varmint weight barrel with a Ziess conquest with a 50 mm objective lens and haven't had any trouble with the bolt handle and have around 2mm gap under the objective. One of the best thing about the stud mounts is having the ability to adjust windage with the mounts rather than the scope turret. Im not a real fan of turn in mounts, though they do seem to work well.

[Knackers]

A little off topic, but how does your CZ Carbine shoot Louie?

[Camel]

Bang.

[Knackers]

How did I know that was coming, lol, what about after the bang bit?