Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters CZ 550 CRF questions

As far as I knew these rifles are CRF. I just recently bought one in 6.5x55 and it feeds ok but if I operate the bolt slowly the cartridge that is being fed will pop out of the magazine and not get grabbed by the extractor. This happens when the cartridge gets to about the halfway point in the magazine where the magazine box widens. I checked a couple of other model '96's and I can work the bolt very slowly and not have a problem.

Is there a "timing" problem with my CZ?
Will the extractor break if the extractor"claw" is forced over the rim of a cartridge that doesn't get held by the extractor when clambering?

No I'm not worried about being charged by a deer , just wondering if there is something wrong with my rifle.

Thanks for any help or info
Dan

Contact CZ USA.I had issues with mine,they emailed me a shipping lable,sent it FED EX on their dime,the rifle came back feeding perfectly.

Dano,

Controlled-feed rifles often need tweaking to feed correctly, far more often than most CRF fans like to admit. Unless you know how to tweak 'em, I'd send it to CZ.

Mine in 9.3X62 controls the round throughout the entire cycle. I would contact CZ as well.

An over polished extractor could do that. Mine on a 7x64 barely held the case at all. A new Mauser extractor from Brownell or whoever works fine and has far more material at the bolt face end than did the shiny CZ original.

No gun writer, but I can tell you this is very common. The idea that somehow just having a full length extractor automatically makes your rifle CRF is bupkis. As Mule Deer says, many if not most contemporary "CRF" production rifles are in practice not CRF at all. That is not to say they can't readily be made to operate in a controlled feed manner, but don't expect it out of the box. In reality CRF probably tends to be something of a spectrum - from some extractors engaging the rim immediately (I think this normally requires a bit of fine tuning) to some extractors not engaging until the cartridge is nearly chambered (I think most modern CRF actions fall in this group), to true push feed with a full length extractor.

I dare say most folks who swear by the necessity of CRF in a hunting rifle are using rifles that are in practice actually working as a push feed much of the time. It is just that they have never actually checked how it works - which probably suggests it really doesn't matter nearly as much as some folks like to think.