Savage vs. CZ 452 or CZ455

Had a CZ 455 and a Savage Heavy Stainless with a lovely Boyds Stock. CZ was more accurate but the AccTrigger on my Savage was light years better. The CZ had a horrible trigger. Also the new CZs are coming with BEECH Stocks now where the older ones were Turkish Walnut. You'd think for the price difference CZ could build a decent trigger.

Take the cz apart and it's pretty obvious how to adjust the trigger. Hint. Nut that holds spring pressure.
 
If you buy a savage you 'might' get a zinger of a barrel, meaning super accurate. Every once in a while Savage produces a sleeper barrel which will outshoot everything, even some annies. chances of this happening? 1/500,000, it does happen. Most accurate factory 22 I have ever seen was a sporter savage. That includes bleikers, customs, suhls annies, walthers and others. That is an oddball savage. Fit and finish on savages for the most part is not great, and they often feel like a club in your hand

CZ 452, these, ALL of them except the varmint can shoot and shoot very well. In fact some guys are tuning them to shoot competition. from rifle to rifle they are extremely consistent, accurate, well made and will last you lifetime of shooting pleasure. Right now Frontier Firearms is bringing in several new ones. The Varmint isn't a good shooter due to the barrel screw. Fit and finish on the 452 is good.

CZ455, opinions on these vary. CZ switched to making these as they are cheaper to manufacture than the 452 and are considered an upgrade by CZ and a downgrade by some shooters. Many shoot as well as the 452 and if you can't buy a 452 they are a great second option.

Your money your choice.
 
I like my savage (mk II F). Bought it for a mix of target use and hunting rabbits/grouse.

It was cheap, and shoots 5/8" groups at 50yds with cci standard. Probably shrink that more, as the scope is sighted in for "normal" 22lr velocity ammo so the cci standard prints a few inches low at 50yds. I'm also not the best shot...

Never shot a cz so i can't compare though. Hear good things, but my savage does what i want out of a 22lr bolt gun so I haven't been driven to buy another yet. Too many other guns to buy before doubling up on 22lr bolt guns...
 
Had a Savage MKII BTVS for several years, my first foray into accurate bolt guns. It delivered on the accuracy, and the accutrigger is fairly decent (can also mod to ~1# by clipping and swapping springs). Action looks and feels cheap, mags are cheap (some say they have issues), bottom metal way too thin and bends when screws are torqued, stocks are grossly over-inletted and do not leave enough material to support pillars. Seen somewhere that someone reinforced the stock with metal U-channel so that pillars could be added. Neat, but way too much work to invest in a Savage... Sold the rifle last month, was collecting dust.

CZ. It is fair to say the action is of a higher quality design and build than Savage, stocks are nicer and overall fit/finish is better. Trigger can be easily adjusted and modded under 1# with a lighter spring and possibly shim kit. Magazine feeds reliably. As far as accuracy goes, I have yet to witness in person any of these glorious "tack drivers" people like to rave about. My own 455 was so bad I deemed it defective. Unfortunately, CZ warranty service in Canada sucks, and they did nothing for me. Shot a couple other ones, and while they could be considered "acceptable", they certainly were not "laser beams". My Savage was more accurate, and I would consider my Remington 597 comparable in accuracy to the CZs I've shot. It could just have easily gone the other way, with the Savage being bunk and the CZ's being great, they are production grade factory rifles and there is considerable individual variance in accuracy. It doesn't matter what the brand is, it's a gamble every time.

What is "acceptable" accuracy, or "tack driver", for that matter? Vague descriptors without tangible quantification. I would expect rifles like Savage and CZ to provide ~1/2"-3/4" 5 shot groups at 50 yards with most types of decent (or better) ammo like CCI Std and up. Find something your rifle really "likes" and you should be able to produce more consistent 1/2" groups and under. You're dreaming if you think either of these brands will give you 0.2's and 0.3's off the shelf, and if you got such a specimen, go buy a lottery ticket right now-you lucky dog.

So yeah, I sold the Savage, still have the CZ. The 455 action is great for custom build projects ;) Did anyone order one of the Lilja group buy barrels? I did.
 
Quote Originally Posted by dizzy View Post
CZ 452, these, ALL of them except the varmint can shoot and shoot very well.... The Varmint isn't a good shooter due to the barrel screw. Fit and finish on the 452 is good.

Funny how my 452 Varmint keeps pulling in top score at our Club's monthly Fun Shoot. Maybe I got a 1/5000000 version.
 
Quote Originally Posted by dizzy View Post
CZ 452, these, ALL of them except the varmint can shoot and shoot very well.... The Varmint isn't a good shooter due to the barrel screw. Fit and finish on the 452 is good.

Funny how my 452 Varmint keeps pulling in top score at our Club's monthly Fun Shoot. Maybe I got a 1/5000000 version.

yah, mine was a shooter also. Barrel lug tuned it right in.
 
Having owned 3 savage heavy barrelled mk2 rifles 22lr,22mag,17hmr which were all awesome shooting rifles . for me the over all build quality of my 2 cz 452 22lr rifles is steps beyond savage . smooooother bolt and much more reliable feeding . the trigger is a simple fix with a yo dave kit . I guess you already figured out I am going cz452 .
 
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What is different about the varmint that makes it not as accurate as the other 452's. That's the one that I found. Don't want it if it isn't as accurate.
 
Sorry guys apparently I missed the fact many czs have barrel lug. Spoke wildly out of turn. My bad. The 452 is still a preferred rifle over the 455.
 
What is different about the varmint that makes it not as accurate as the other 452's. That's the one that I found. Don't want it if it isn't as accurate.

The CZ rifles with the barrel lug, including the Varmint, are just as accurate as those without. One model of CZ is not any more accurate or less accurate than another model. Individual CZ rifles, whatever the model, may be more or less accurate than another. There may be a caveat, however, and that is that over on Rimfire Central many who own several models often say that the Full Stock is the best shooting of all.
 
Sorry guys apparently I missed the fact many czs have barrel lug. Spoke wildly out of turn. My bad. The 452 is still a preferred rifle over the 455.

Ya, I was going to call you on your earlier post re the 452 Varmint; it was clear you had no idea what you were talking about. But everyone gets to have opinions.
 
IMO the barrel lug actually works quite well. The issue is that not every rifle comes out of the factory with perfect inletting. Some rifles have high/low spots between the main action screw and the barrel lug and that doesn't help accuracy. The ideal way to deal with this is to do proper glass bedding of the action all the way up to the barrel lug. I also glass bed the lug so there is no preload and mark the lug so it can always be re-installed exactly the same way and not flipped 180 degrees from its original bedding set up. The barrel is than free floated forwards of the lug. I am not surprised that most 452 Americans and pretty much all 455s benefit from bedding the first 2 to 3 inches of the barrel; something about a pressure point on the cz barrel in that general area.
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