As you know, the Anschutz barrels are press fit and pined to the receiver with a taper. It takes a serious force to remove that barrel from the receiver... After having removed some of these Anschutz barrels from their action, I have complete confidence that nothing will ever move in that Anschutz design.
As for the CZ 455, what advantages does it offer...? If you change barrels on this gun on a regular basis, the set screws which hold the barrel in place are probably going to fail, and how would you duplicate the factory torque settings (equally) on both screws. Perhaps I am overly cynical of the design, I just don't like it.
Yes, the Anschütz barrels are solidly mated to the receiver, I've knocked a couple out myself. Interesting that you say the CZ 455 set screws will fail, there have not been any reports of this occurring that I've seen, and it'd probably take a very long time and many uses to occur. It is common knowledge in the CZ circle that the factory tends to over-torque the barrel screws, so it is usually advised to loosen them off then re-torque to 30-35 in-lbs. The factory torque is irrelevant, and at the suggested torque setting the barrel locks up very solidly to the receiver and is repeatable with a quality torque wrench.
To their owners? Very little, in my opinion. To CZ? Likely, a less expensive manufacturing process poorly disguised as a "value-added" thing...the ability to swap calibers. To me, you're gambling a rigid barrel/action connection (aka, CZ452) in favor of a feature most people will never use, and potentially..compromised accuracy. In the interest of transparency, I've never owned/fired a 455. I do own a 452 and a BRNO 2E. My opinions are based on superb results with both, superb results with the 452 17HMR I once owned, and reports I've read about problem 455s.
So, you recognize that what you're saying is merely speculation and opinion. I own three 455' in various stages of customization, and I certainly do not identify myself as a CZ "fanboi" of any sort, I am very honest and transparent in my observations about the rifles I shoot. The "problems" with 455's are 99% due to barrel defects, since as far as I have observed CZ does not perform any sort of quality control on their chambering and crowning processes. I do know from personal experience that a 455 action with a good barrel attached to it is capable of very impressive accuracy results. The 455 action is much easier/cheaper to fit a custom barrel to compared to a 452, and I've enjoyed being able to swap the .17 HMR and .22 LR barrels in my Full Stock rifle. Actually, I only wanted a .17 HMR but they were only available as .22 LR's, so I had to buy it that way and also get a .17 HMR barrel set to do what I wanted. If it weren't for the barrel swap capability, I probably would not own a 455 Full Stock rifle. I'll take on your Anschütz 64 Tactical Trainer in competition vs my Custom 455 any day, and feel bad about taking your money, since I know you don't stand a chance, my rifle is that dialed in. If the 455 action suffers from it's barrel attachment method, I cannot observe it.
I find it hard to understand why this can be expected to reduce stresses on the chamber. Maybe someone can explain that. Perhaps threading was necessary with their new two-piece chamber.
Think of their press-fit barrel attachment method like a Chinese finger trap, the I.D of the receiver is about 0.001" tighter than the O.D of the barrel shank. Once the barrel is pressed in, the receiver constricts around the barrel shank, firmly gripping it in place. Such constriction cannot come without some sort of stress or distortion to the barrel. When I slugged two different 64 rifles, it was very apparent that the bore diameter loosened off at the end of the receiver, indicating that the press fit compressed the bore diameter. With lead being a dead soft metal that does not rebound once swaged down, such a tight spot in the barrel near the breech can never benefit a rifles accuracy potential. Bill Calfee has commented that he has never been able to get a rifle to shoot with the press fit method, though he recognizes it is possible as obviously some Anschütz rifles are extremely accurate, it just seems to be beyond his abilities to pull off this method successfully to BR standards. A threaded barrel does not have this compressive, distortion effect on the barrel at the breech end.
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