A different kind of Africa rifle

Ardent

Ardent

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Northern BC, Coastal BC, or Africa. Depends on the
Been over to Africa a few times and it feels like the other home despite modest time afield there. Have a contract offer to go back wildlife support in the day job and while I probably won’t do it with three little ones at home didn’t stop me putting together my rifle and dreaming wistfully of a return. If I can get a shorter contract, I’m gone, but that’s reality and another matter this is dream time.

Grabbed a CZ527 7.62x39 and one of the old Kevlar stocks. 7.62x39, 7.62x51, .30-06, .375 H&H and .458 Win are the only rounds I’ve encountered in quantity there with particular emphasis on the x39. I wouldn’t be hunting so went x39 for a light carbine that fits unobtrusively in the heli with detachable mags. Yet to see how reliably it’ll fire a variety of hard comm bloc primers, and if it doesn’t what options I have for harder strikes or more pin pressure. I’ve owned this gun before but shot all handloads. Grabbed a half dozen mags for this sweetheart and a Leupold 1.5-5x20 Mk 4 that’s serving double duty on my 6.5 Grendel unless I do something rash and piss of the wife again to go. .300 Blackout reticle which happens to work nicely for x39.

My first .375 lead me to the dark continent, then my first double did, gotta love a rifle with dark continent gravity. This one has it again for me. Barrelled action will likely get nitrided or coated, and gotta find a rear sight needless to say. The blob on the rear bridge is a scope base was mocking up a peep sight out of. Going to the Mark 4 instead. Man does this thing handle and point sweet... will be fun even just in the north if it never makes it to the dark continent.

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Neat rifle. I'm often tempted by the 527. The 527M is supposed to be setup for hard primers.

No idea what ammo is around where you may go, but South African 7.62x39 was around 20ish years ago, IIRC it was brass case.

Zimbabwe "Cheetah" 7.62x39 was imported into the US as well.

It may be possible to find and test these.
 
Mine is stock, with a nice piece of walnut. Bought it for the "wife", ya for the wife. She is always going to have me standing beside her, shes rather disabled, knee replacement this coming Monday, and a newbie. Perfect rifle for lilliputian coastal blacktail.

That rifle and stock would be perfect for a bushplane coastal survival rifle. I have never been to Africa, I have been chased by Bears. Too old for the windfall hurdles, can't imagine having that caliber and defending against a great cat.
 
Handy little rifle, my son has one here and it gets out now and again, as much as I am a Ruger guy, he is a CZ guy and has several rifles and small game doubles. If you do take that contract, I may hide away in your suit case and finally get after my kudu bull... ;)
 
Unfortunately big cats and all the animals of dreams are the lowest worry in the African bush these days, the primary threats are all bipedal, but it’s nice to have a rifle that isn’t overtly militaristic. Space and weight are at a premium so aside from a folder sourced locally this is the best option, and travels well being a sporting arm. I would do some culling again with it on lighter species if I go and fill the pot here and there.

As for ammo locally MiG I’ve never paid attention to headstamps and likely wouldn’t interpret them correctly anyhow. But I bet most stuff is Chinese and Comm bloc, as the guns I’ve encountered are and sure the ammo followed them.
 
I have the model and caliber in a traditional wood stock. I is a fun gun to shoot , easy to carry, and I think it's a good choice for what you have in mind. Mine isn't fussy about ammunition that I have tried, it shoots decently with PPU, Federal, Hornady, and Barnaul. Killed a nice little whitetail with it last November, one shot in the right spot and done.
 
I believe the CZ527 in 39 was originally developed around and for military cartridge with steel case. It should be perfect for what you are thinking.
 
You may want to get a variety of lacquered steel cased ammo and do some rapid fire. Some Mosins will lock up after a few rounds of laquered 7.62x64R.
 
Buckmastr said:
Right on. I thought it looked like it had a reciever peep on it.
Click to expand...

Made a peep out of a scope base for the interim, just drilled a CZ ring base, but it’s being replaced as the Leupold is pretty handy.

MiG25 said:
You may want to get a variety of lacquered steel cased ammo and do some rapid fire. Some Mosins will lock up after a few rounds of laquered 7.62x64R.
Click to expand...

Have a few different kinds of surplus and some old Norc silver box, will put it through the paces and see how it does. Also going to handload some 174gr Sierra MKs in real ammo, rifle has a fast twist rate and stabilises them no issue.
 
I found a lot of milsurp to expand too much and jam up the action. would take a couple good hits to unlock and a big tug to pull back and eject. after that I stopped running milsurp through it...besides the fact the rifle is too good for milsurp. gots to treat it with some respect. ;)
 
That would be a very handy little rifle for a lot of things, not the least of which would be for a guy hunting out of a glorified outhouse in the eastern whitetail woods.
 
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