[pepper51]

I have and use a Hawkeye and Teslong bore scopes and find them a handy tool. Never had one drag in a barrel. Can't image one that bad.
There is a rabbit hole option with a CZ 527 in .22 Hornet especially with a bad barrel. Send the gun to James Calhoon and have him barrel the gun to .19 Badger. Easy conversion when the gun is a Hornet. I had Calhoon build one and it is very accurate and superior to the Hornet. But you won't walk into a Gunshop and buy ammo. Neat cartridge though.
Or just rebarrel with Hornet and not look back. Hard to beat the CZ 527 with small calibers.
Good luck.

 

[TEDDY BEAR RAT]

Just to be more clear, the Cabela’s question was regarding the likelihood of people, not CZ or any other maker, dumping lemon used rifles.

My statement regarding CZ was meant to be a hypothetical emphasizing the poor condition of a bore, not infer CZ incompetence. I personally doubt those barrels left CZ in that condition. To restate, IF CZ had known a new rifle bore looked like the OP’s, they would not have passed it, not CZ should have caught something like that.

I have owned plenty of CZs and never had a bad bore in any of them. Again, emphasizing the OP’s bad fortune and legitimate complaint, not CZ QC.

Taking the opportunity to slam Cabela’s, a common occurrence here, when it has no connection whatsoever to this situation, and then telling the OP he’s wrong to use a bore scope and wrong to base decisions on bore inspection is the stretch.

 

[Rimfireraptor]

I have had SEVERAL members here state "you should/must shoot the gun" to give it the true assessment as to whether the pitting/rusting is causing an issue and the gun is "worthy" of keeping and to disregard the bore scope findings, let the gun do the "talking". Now.... if I'm a farmer and just shoot woodchucks out to 150 yards I feel your philosophy will work but for a benchrest shooter that is looking for dime size groups at 100 yards here is the scenario you are painting:

If I take the gun out and it shoots 1 1/4" groups do I blame the barrel and send it back ?

If I take the gun out and it shoots 1" groups do I say, not too bad but gun is compromised by bbl and return ?

If I take the gun out and it shoots 3/4" groups do I give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down ?

If I take the gun out and it shoots 1/2" groups do I give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down ?

Point is.... as a benchrest shooter you will AWAYS be haunted by the "what if" the barrel was perfect.

Shooting it proves absolutely NOTHING as that 3/4" might have been a 5/8", that 1/2" might have been a 3/8" and so on...

plus as you know the Hornet can be finicky as far as which load it likes so you are spending a lot of time and jumping through a whole bunch of hoops to try to prove what ???? if the pitted barrel is worthy ???

Fact: The gun WILL be compromised by that pitted barrel. How much..... only god knows but for a benchrest shooter you don't start out with a compromised barrel and try to make it work.

I forgot to mention in last post.... TBR stated that James Calhoon stated "James Calhoon once told me that he thought almost all the CZ barrels were "crap" based on his 100s of inspections over the years". That raised my eyebrows as I think it's a fair statement to say that for the most part everyone agrees that CZ's make a very accurate rifle and the barrel is first and foremost in accuracy so for him to say that has me really scratching my head.

Papow: I am going to give that gun a SERIOUS scrubing with a wire brush, solvents, Sweets, and rescope to help evaluate the situation.
and stop Papo

 

[PaPow]

Papow: I am going to give that gun a SERIOUS scrubing with a wire brush, solvents, Sweets, and rescope to help evaluate the situation.

Great! I`d love to see that outcome, sir!

 

[Jdhasty]

My .22 Hornet...

Not a bad shooter either...

If I miss its me...

I use mine late in the season at rockchucks that hide and peek out from between boulders on talus slopes. I can trust it as much, or more, than any other rifle we have to shoot that way w/40 V-max.

 

[TEDDY BEAR RAT]

Like I said, James Calhoon is in the business of selling barrels and re-barreling rifles, so you have to take anything he says with a grain of salt. If they didn't think their barrels were better, custom barrel makers wouldn't be in the business. It's just that the reality is a custom barrel does not always improve accuracy. Most seasoned RFC members can attest to this.

As I mentioned in previous posts, and as Pepper51 reaffirms, the Calhoon conversions do have a great reputation, as do his .19 wildcats. They are great options if one is willing to go with something other than the factory options. I've not owned a .19 Calhoon (the Hornet-based wildcat) but I have owned and shot a couple of .20 Vartarg rifles (.204 Fireball), and I agree that the .20s do very effectively combine the best of .22 and .17 performance.

 

[gmd1950]

I have a .204 Ruger that despises 40gr bullets and that's all I've found locally, I reallty want to try the lighter bullet weighjt as many CZ shooter say they shoot best, even with less than stellar accuracy they get to the target like NOW...it has the 3 shot mag adaptation which does not feed well at least in my rifle.

 

[Jdhasty]

“… the .20s do very effectively combine the best of .22 and .17 performance.”

Sounds like what Labradoodles were being advertised as. Let’s just say (and in the case of the four legged examples, I’m being extremely charitable) that I’ve never seen either work out as well in theory as they sounded in practice. I’ve had a 204 for two decades and it is fine, but as far as supplanting 17 and 22 calibers, it doesn’t come close to being as good as either when I really need what they have to offer. It gives you quite a bit of what they have to offer, and is possibly a good choice if you want a versatile single caliber, but it doesn’t even come within striking distance of offering up the best of what the others actually deliver.

 

[DJMHOYT]

It's been mentioned in a couple of posts that this barrel didn't leave the CZ factory in this condition. So, what combination of cartridges and lack of care can create that damage? I've seen some rusted bores from guns left out in barns and washhouses etc. and most had some pitting but not really any roughness after they were cleaned and shot again. This damage isn't from the barrel boring equipment and the quality of the steel?

 

[Jdhasty]

It's been mentioned in a couple of posts that this barrel didn't leave the CZ factory in this condition. So, what combination of cartridges and lack of care can create that damage? I've seen some rusted bores from guns left out in barns and washhouses etc. and most had some pitting but not really any roughness after they were cleaned and shot again. This damage isn't from the barrel boring equipment and the quality of the steel?

I’m not familiar with damage of that sort and in no position to offer a guess on the cause. It is appears to be localized and corrosion related.

 

[DJMHOYT]

Also, guns that had rust damage on the inside of the barrels also were equally damaged on the outside. Not sure how only the inside of the barrel can be damaged, and the rest of the rifle is almost pristine. Very odd to me.

 

[fourbore]

OP wants a baseline before cleaning & shooting it? Sorry, that is a very bad practice of doing things. I don`t care what the barrel looks like before i clean it, i care more what it looks like AFTER i`ve cleaned it. THEN, i would check the bore with the bore scope to make sure the barrel is in good condition to actually shoot the gun. How can you know if you have a bad or unsafe barrel if you didn`t clean it first. There could be hidden unsafe things going on without you knowing it unless you clean it and give it a thorough inspection.

I would like to see a few cleaning patches after they come out of the barrel just the way the gun was received. Then after a good brushing and solvent are used, i`d like to see the cleaning patches. When its done, i`d like to see what the bore looks like after the proper cleaning with your bore scope.

Once that is accomplished, lets see some ammo tests at 50 & 100yds. Specify the ammo used, and how many rounds were used to acclimate the ammo to the barrel. Show us the bench and the rifle rest used during range time.

We all said this already. Why the extra UPPER case? I suggested he shoot for a baseline before he lap the barrel or think about a replacement. The OP and nobody here suggested he not clean and lube the gun. And nobody needs a bore scope to that. It is a nice extra.

As for what "we need". Not for me to say, but the OP has two identical guns so my preference as owner or advise giver would be both guns side by side. Same everything.

 

[fourbore]

It's been mentioned in a couple of posts that this barrel didn't leave the CZ factory in this condition. So, what combination of cartridges and lack of care can create that damage? I've seen some rusted bores from guns left out in barns and washhouses etc. and most had some pitting but not really any roughness after they were cleaned and shot again. This damage isn't from the barrel boring equipment and the quality of the steel?

No idea, about how it left the factory or what ahppen later. But, I was tempted to do a search and see if there was any eastern European or other source for cursive primers or corrosive Hornet ammo. I admit I don't known about this. I though corrosive primers would corrode the whole barrel. Combined bad ammo and cleaning routine might result in uneven damage? It might also be a question, not an answer, if strong ammonia copper cleaner could do that?

 

[PaPow]

No idea, about how it left the factory or what ahppen later. But, I was tempted to do a search and see if there was any eastern European or other source for cursive primers or corrosive Hornet ammo. I admit I don't known about this. I though corrosive primers would corrode the whole barrel. Combined bad ammo and cleaning routine might result in uneven damage? It might also be a question, not an answer, if strong ammonia copper cleaner could do that?

 

[fourbore]

Very nice. Thank you

 

[Rimfireraptor]

I have to admit, I am shocked that no one hear hasn't been able to diagnose the specific problem. With all the shooters I was confident that someone would have known or been able to decipher the problem. Like it someone might have purchased a CZ new, shot it a fair amount, did not clean it then just put it in the cellar or closet for a very very long time and when they took it back out this is what they found.... something like this scenario. Then we would have the answer...

There are a few constants / clues which I thought would have helped lead to the answer.

1 - I had two CZ 527 .22 Hornets that I bought off of GB in the last 2 months and both had the exact same issue, to the letter. If you look at the pics on RFC of both guns you can easily see that they are the identical problem.

2 - The pitting/corrosion was always in the 1st half the barrel, 2nd half was clean & shiny ??
3 - the exteriors on both guns were perfect
4 - I realize that this is a long shot but, both were CZ 527 .22 Hornets. (probably means nothing but it is a data point)
(ie.... bad batch of barrels or metallurgy) It's a long shot but you have to include it.

Reading fourbores post..... I too was thinking corrosive primers or powder but I would assume the whole barrel would have been affected and todays powders for the most part are not corrosive like blackpowder. One of the earlier posts a gent stated he didn't think it looked like your typical rust..... it's crusty black and you can see in some pics "spider webbing" whatever that means.

I had a thought..... since we (RFC) have not yet determined what caused this problem I was thinking possibly posting to another gun website and we might get lucky and someone knows what the issue is ? If so, what other gun/shooting/benchrest gun blogs are out there ? I really would like to get to the bottom of this.

 

[TEDDY BEAR RAT]

Don't know about a blog, but you might send one of your pics to Hawkeye and see what one of their gurus thinks...although I wouldn't mention your Teslong bore scope.

 

[Rimfireraptor]

Don't know about a blog, but you might send one of your pics to Hawkeye and see what one of their gurus thinks...although I wouldn't mention your Teslong bore scope.

whose Hawkeye and why wouldn't I mention bore scope ??

 

[fourbore]

The plot thickens, two guns with the same barrel pictures. I completely missed that. I been follow this, but that detail slipped past.

 

[TEDDY BEAR RAT]

Hawkeye was one of the originators of bore scopes, so they’ve probably seen it all, but Teslong is a low cost competitor.