Please help me choose a scope and mounts for my CZ452 fullstock.

Pine Marten

Well-Known Member
Good morning everyone.

After many months of fruitless search and a disappointment at the last Holt's sale, I've just bought a mint condition CZ 452 FS/stutzen from a chap on Gunstar. It comes with a Hawke nite-eye 3.5-10 x 50 scope (by the looks of it possibly the IR version) already mounted, which is also as new, but I think you'll agree it looks awful.
I'm planning to try and find a decent used German/Austrian fixed power 4x32 to put on it instead, assuming I can find one for a reasonable price (I'll flog the Hawke if anyone wants it). The one problem I can foresee is that the mounts on this example are very high, probably so that the scope can fit over the rear sight. I don't want to remove the rear sight, but then I'd need to have a 4x32 with me physically to check whether this is a problem or not. What do you think, and any suggestions on what mounts I need, and where to find them? I don't have a huge amount of cash to throw at this as I've blown it all at the rifle, and a pram...

View attachment 30204
 
Firstly 2 important considerations:

1. Are you keeping front and REAR sights in place?
2. Be aware bolt lift is *higher than ideal so if you do combine rear sight removal with a 40mm or less sleek new scope you will NOT be able to mount it as low as I'm sure you would like (*Note: Bolt knob may hit scope oculer tube.)

Cheers

K
 
I'd like to leave the rear sight in place, so excessive lowness may not be a problem.

From past experience this will leave you either having to grow a massive jaw or fashion some sort of comb raiser as the scope will be way too high to get proper cheek weld...
 
Right, I'm going to try and score myself a scope, and then come back to ask you about mounts. You'd think that used CZ452 mounts would be ten a penny. But then that never turns out to be true.
 
From past experience this will leave you either having to grow a massive jaw or fashion some sort of comb raiser as the scope will be way too high to get proper cheek weld...

What do you think of the current set up? The scope looks very high to me. Those mounts looks like pillars.
 
NAFF!

A little cross milling of the bolt handle would help a lot but that will probaly cost as much as the rifle unless some kind SD member can help!

K
 
Have a look and see what you think:-



Brno Model 2 fitted with Leupold m8 Compact



Fitted with vintage Nikko Stirling 4x32 Special Sporting scope

And because I am feeling wicked:-



Meopta Prepov 3x scope in dedicated mount for the Brno.


The two top photos are using P-H rings as the model 2 has 17mm dovetails. I do not know what dovetail size yours has so cannot help there.......................................... sorry. There is no problem with bolt handle clearance on my Model No2 BTW.

The Leupold M8 compact is currently doing nothing sitting in a drawer and I believe is a rim fire scope. it has the usual Leupold duplex reticle. The Nikko Stirling 4x32's from the 1970's and earlier are quite surprising in their optical clarity and ActionOptics can fit a duplex reticle to them. I have one here that Richard did for me. He replace a broken fine cross reticle with this duplex. The scopes quite often come up on "the bay". As P-H wre the agents for many years I have several of them in my small collection. I understand they were quite popular for the Scottish hills although the use of such small optics seems unbelievable today for such use.
 
Pine Marten - congratulations on your new rifle.

I can recommend a very good stock maker, if you want to get rid of all that surplus wood towards the front end.

​Seriously that looks very tasty indeed - good luck with finding a suitable scope.
 
From past experience this will leave you either having to grow a massive jaw or fashion some sort of comb raiser as the scope will be way too high to get proper cheek weld...

Agreed about the stock/base induced parallax. Awful stock design for scope use. (or any other use,for that matter.) The rear sight will get in the way of most short scopes. My BRNO #5 sports an ancient Weaver 2-7X hunting scope because it was long enough to put the front objective ahead of the rear sight. The option is to remove the rear sight....a fairly easy operation.~Muir
 
What do you think of the current set up? The scope looks very high to me. Those mounts looks like pillars.

The current setup looks like the jaw ache inducing setup I am familiar with... the resolution i'm afraid to say was removal of the rear sight and lower mounts.

I now have a (new) sight-free 452 and perfect height scope (on Leupold mounts, medium)
 
Pine Marten - congratulations on your new rifle.

​Seriously that looks very tasty indeed - good luck with finding a suitable scope.

Thank you! I think that this scope mounting thing may yet turn out to be a bit of an adventure. I don't really fancy buying half a dozen scopes to find one that fits. But then I don't want to remove the rear sight either. I could just use the open sights for a bit, obviously, but that's not what I want to do in the long run. Now that said, the CZ452 has been around in some form or other for decades, I'm sure there are ways around this!
 
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When I look on eBay, there seem to be a load of military surplus Zeiss Diatal 4x32 scopes from the Israeli Defence Force, all of them with a rail-type mount or some sort of claw mount. Are these any different from the civilian version? I assume someone here has probably tried one at some point. They seem decent value if they're the same scope.
 
Right, the rifle's in the post, so I should pick it up on Wednesday. The scope and mounts have been removed for packing, so I doubt that they'll ever be remounted. Anyone want a Hawke Nite-Eye 3-12x50 scope, possibly illuminated? (in exchange for money of course, or a 4x32 decent scope).
 
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pm, get a zeiss 4x32, they're about, trust me, they are awesome wee scopes. my 30-06 wears one and there's nothing it can't do.

get yourself onto the New England Custom Guns website/phone and get a set of decent EAW or similar mounts for that rifle ;)

the good thing is that with a decent wee scope and quality mounts, you can take them on/off as you see fit without losing zero, and enjoy the good old iron sights for a bit of fun.

nice rifle BTW, it's lovely ;)
 
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