CZ 527 17 Hornet Feeding Problem

[washxc]

Hi Everyone,

I purchased my first CZ, a 527 chambered in 17 hornet. I've wanted a 17 hornet in CZ for a long, long time and finally found one brand new! However, I'm having a slight issue with feeding rounds. When the 5 round magazine is full the bolt chambers no problem, nice and smooth. However when there is only 1 round in the magazine it is very difficult to chamber. It stops hard when 3/4 of the bullet is into the chamber. It happens every time there is only 1 round in the mag, and sometimes the 2nd to last can also be a bit harder to chamber. I purchased another mag to see if maybe that was the issue, and still have the same problem. I called CZ and they said I would need to send it back for a warranty repair. After waiting months to get this gun I really don't want to send it away for another 4-6 weeks! I have taken it to the range and it's a tack driver. I love the set trigger and the accuracy was very good with factory rounds.

Has anyone experienced this issue? Any common fixes so that I don't have to send it back?

[skin]

 I took a hard Arkansas stone to the bottom  (where it contacts the brass) and deburred it. Smooth with all 5 rounds.
 Hope this helps.

[david s]

A few possible ideas. First CZ changed the current 17 Hornet magazines slightly from the older dual purpose 17/22 Hornet magazine. Being yours is a new 17 Hornet rifle I'm guessing you have two of the newer style magazines but it's something to look for. Secondly if the last round or two isn't feeding correctly see if the bullet nose is hanging up on the edge of the chamber when trying to chamber it. If this is the case then you can modify the feed angle by slightly bending the magazines followers legs. The follower looks like an upside down letter "U" and the legs keep the follower from tipping to much or not enough. Thirdly with my 17 Hornet if I run the action to slowly when chambering a round the cartridge will wander off to the right and miss the chamber. Simply by running the action slightly quicker eliminates this. And as "skin" mentioned some of the magazine feed lips can be pretty rough (almost serrated) from being stamped out during production, stoning or using a piece of 400/600 sand paper to smooth things out may very well eliminate your problem and would be where I began with trying to solve this issue.

[washxc]

Thanks Skin and David. I started with a bit of sanding. It didn't fix the problem completely, but I do think it helped cut down on the brass scratching. I also played a bit with the front follower angle on the magazine and that had a quick impact. I lifted the nose of the bullet a touch and that was a mistake, as it made things worse. So I went the other way and it was better, though I still have some fine tuning to do. It seems like that last bullet is hanging up on the edge of the chamber, you can almost see it in the brass where there's an indentation. It's like the bolt doesn't fully grab the bullet. Cycling speed does seem to help as well. I think I need to spend some more time with the follower legs and see what I can do.

[david s]

The rimmed Hornet case is a tough feed as compared to the more or less parallel 222/223 family. It feeds more in an arc than straight up and down in the magazine. Your statement "It's like the bolt doesn't fully grab the bullet." is what happens when I run my bolt to slow. In my situation the cartridge rim hasn't slipped up underneath the bolts extractor enough before it leaves the magazines feed lips and gets ahead of the bolt that's moving forward and the cartridge wanders off to the right. All my magazines are the older marked 22 Hornet or 17/22 Hornet magazines though. Hopefully it's a simple solution like the magazine feed angle and saves a return trip to CZ-USA. Good Luck

[david s]

Just had a second thought. See if there's a small burr on the bolt face or it's extractor that's maybe causing the case rim to hang up slightly on the bolt face when going thru the feeding cycle.