Broken magazine housing and other problems with a CZ 455

[54rndball]

  I had my CZ 455 FS out to the range yesterday. I decided to switch barrels at the range and managed to bash and break the plastic magazine housing in a couple places. I presume I can get a replacement part through the CZ website. But it really pisses me off that CZ puts cheap plastic parts on their rifles. High quality aluminum or even stamped metal would be preferable. At least my ugly Savage would never have this problem. There is also that plastic muzzle cap on the FS as well. Is this magazine housing replacement an easy fix or does it need to be done by a gunsmith. I am not happy that this barrel replacement did not go well and may leave it as a dedicated 22 WMR rifle. The other problem is that I installed a Skinner peep sight on this rifle and the front sight is not high enough. The rear peep sight is adjusted as low as possible and I can't get it zeroed on the target. I might just get a CZ American 455 stock and use that to scope the rifle for 22 WMR only. I thought I was getting a rifle which could swap barrels easily, but that does not seem to be the case. Any help or advice with these problems would be appreciated.

[david s]

As you mentioned CZ will ship you new magazine well, if your willing to spend the money D I P Products sells aluminum replacement mag wells. Its an easy fix to swap out the old to new magazine well, no gunsmith required. I dont care for the plastic nose caps myself, CZ still sells painted aluminum nose caps but it's been ten years since they offered blued steel muzzle caps. The painted aluminum nose caps have an earned reputation for paint flaking/scratching so aren't much of an up grade in my opinion. And there is a company that make aftermarket sights for CZ rifles that offers a taller front sight blade for the rimfire rifles, I'm sorry that I cant remember the companies name at the moment. A web search couldn't hurt, if I remember the name I'll post it later. Good luck

[david s]

I think it was Tech Sights that made the taller front sight.

[DWARREN]

When removing the stock you have to be careful on reassembly to get everything lined up right or you can damage the mag well.

[54rndball]

What are these CZ unique tools that are needed to remove the under metal from the 455? Looks like some kind of Czech hex tool and it seems a smaller one is needed to take off the magazine housing. Are these screws held tight with loctite also? So many questions!

[Starr1]

My 455 has normal hex screws that can be found a almost any hardware store in a variety of different sizes.

[david s]

It's really pretty basic, if you can run a Allen wrench you can replace the magazine well. The screws are standard #3 Metric hex(both the same on my rifle) and in my experience are not Loctite'd. If I was to set up a 455 in single caliber then I would maybe use blue Loctite but not if I planed on doing barrel swapping regularly. The screw closest to the trigger also holds the bolt guide/ejector (the silver piece inside the action around the mag well) in place so when you replace this mag well screw make sure you also catch this piece. The biggest hassle switching the magazine well will be taking the magazine release and spring from the old part and reinstalling it in the new magazine well. Even taking great care and paying close attention to every thing it shouldn't take more than 25-30 minutes. The only tools you should need are the hex driver and a push pin to swap the magazine release and blue Loctite if you want it. Just look every thing over carefully before you begin, pat attention to how everything comes apart and reassemble in reverse.

[54rndball]

Yeah, I installed the magazine housing yesterday and it was no problem. The hardest part was getting the magazine release with the screw put in the new housing, but that was not too difficult either. So I have new confidence in my gun smithing skills, as rudimentary as they are. So I took off the Skinner peep and think I will put a scope on the gun. That should help get full use of the 22 Mag. Any recommendations?