Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only CZ in .425 Westley Richards

Saw today that CZ will be offering a new Safari Express Rifle on the standard, non-magnum action for '09 and one of the calibers will be the .425 W.R. I want one B-A-D but the cost of these "custom" CZs is getting way up there. Plus, I still haven't picked up the .404 CZ I've been paying on for awhile... Other cartridges offered were .416 Taylor and the .375 & .416 Rugers, along with several other common ones.

Interesting...who is making brass and bullets? At least Norma and Hornady is making .404 Jeffery brass, and Swift, Hornady and Woodleigh make bullets.

I'm sure Woodleigh makes some .435 bullets, but so far no one else.

On the other hand...I'd like to have one too... .

Dennis

HAWK makes bullets in .435 dia.

Checked in the last year or so, you can get loaded ammo from a few places online as well.

Need to make them left handed also!

Ed

+1 on that!

425 WR makes zero sense, but I want one. I see they are also doing the 416 Taylor.

+2..............No point for me to even look at a CZ until or even IF that ever happens. Until then, I'll deal with my M70s & Zastava mausers. Making customs.

Of all the African cartridges the .425 WR is the last one that I would want..They had a terrible rep for jamming due to cartridge design and it had nothing to offer balistically..If I wanted a .425 which I don't then I would neck up a .375 Ruger case....

In fairness though they developed that reputation of jamming because the vast majority of them were clapped together standard action Mausers and some Springfields that were never setup to feed a fat azz case like that to begin with, much less one with a .473 base.

As THOMASMAGNUM said, the problem was the rifles they chambered the .425 in, not the round itself. They had a cobbled up magazine/feed mechanism that was very susceptible to dirt/grit and handling damage. They were trying to get a magnum sized round to work in a standard sized action. I don't have the issue in front of me, but in one of the fairly recent Wolfe Publishing mags, there was an article about the .425 WR that explained it well. It works just fine in a magnum sized action.

...I doubt that CZ would send out rifles that would not feed properly. Much of thier success has been founded on big bore African rifles for dangerous game. They've been at it a long time now, in a market that has been critical of push feed actions even when they feed well.To produce rifles with poor feeding characteristics would be especially difficult to live down for them.
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Dude, gimme back my brain cell, will ya?

...One things sure, if ya got any brain cells the 425 ought to rattle them up a bit...
....Not so long ago Savage offered a "425 Express". I believe it was based on a 300 Win Mag case necked up.It must have been a bust for them haven't seen anything on it since.

If anyone actually gets one and needs dies, I know where a set are.

CDD

I thought everyone dreamed of riding on the cow catcher of an old train traveling through Africa with a 425WR in hand?

It was a cheap way of using old 8mm Mauser 98's into Colonial home guns,hence the weird shape.The bullets are a little limited and brass is a hunt for,but none of that stops a real rifle loony.I had one,but used it in trade for my .404 Jeff,which I am very happy with and it did ride on the front of a train a time or two.See my photo in the post 'Big Bores'.CZ is putting some good stuff out and I'm sure It will feed fine....rifle

Probably the last big bore I would own would be the .425 WR, I see no redeeming features in it..It is impossible to make feed and that is why they had that funny magazine rifle..It won't do anything that a 416 Rem, 416 Ruger, 404 Jefferys, or one of the Chatfield Taylors won't do..Brass and bullets are a pain to obtain and very expensive..It simply has NOTHING to offer, it has never been popular except to those few who feel the urge to own something that no one else has, and for them is a fine choice IMO.....I'll pass.:)

I don't know I have handled/shot a couple of rifles chambered in 425 Westley Richards. One was a original Griffen & Howe Springfield, and the other was a modern made conversion on a Belgian Mauser. They both shot well enough, and feed with no issues. The Griffen & Howe was particularly nice, very quick handling, and the bolt was smooth like hot butter. Ballistically it offers nothing revolutionary, but that doesn't mean its not capable.
I guess thats what makes rifle goons great, eveyone like something different.