.17HMR/.22WMR/.22LR Combo Gun from CZ-USA – Model 455 American Combo Review

Authors Gun Reviews Paul Helinski Rifles Rimfire
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The Model 455 from CZ-USA is an old world style Mauser action in a rimfire, with a combination option to shoot more than one caliber in the same gun. Our test gun came with a .17HMR and a .22LR barrel.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Swapping the barrels is easy and can be done in the field or at the range with the two included Allen wrenches. The .22LR also has a smaller magazine, and comes with a spacer and mounting pin.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The receiver of the 455 is milled with an 11mm rimfire rail. This is a special smaller mounting platform for smaller guns, and this Tasco scope from Walmart came with the correct mounting rings.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Click to make this picture bigger and you will see the two 45 degree angle mounting bolts.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The barrels are cut with a 45 degree bearing surface, so when they are inserted, the two bolts lock them up into the action.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The only other part you have to change is the .22LR mag, which is smaller. It comes with this spacer and a small metal pin that holds it in place.
This is a video on Youtube from CZ showing the barrel swap. It has over 160,000 plays, just to give you an idea how popular this gun has become.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The 455 is otherwise a standout in the rimfire market, even without the combo option. It is a classic Mauser action with a clean and neat fit and finish, great looking wood and flawless bluing. There is also an adjustable trigger on the gun, and the barrel is free floated in the stock.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The 455 is one of the most precisely accurate guns we have ever tested. At 50 yards it repeatedly shot groups only slightly larger than it’s .172 caliber. This is a .229 group of 5 shots that is representative of the majority.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
In the .22LR, the groups were around .5 inches at 50 yards over 5 shots. The contrast to the .17HMR is most likely due to the ammo. We did try 4 or 5 brands, but it was all high volume range and plinking ammo. The .17HMR ammo was high quality Hornady.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Some of the early 455s, including our original test gun, came with a rear action screw that if overtightened could impede the bolt. CZ has corrected this in the new guns, along with some other manufacturing tolerance related issues with the swap barrels. They work fabulous now.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Our test gun came with the adjustable trigger set about about 3lbs.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The pictures here are very good in matching the in person color of the wood. The fit and finish of the 455 is every bit as good as a high end Browning/Miroku, with better accuracy at a better price.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
If you click out to CZ’s website, there are several models of this gun, but it is unclear which if any are coming with the combo option. Your local gun dealer can contact his distributor to see what they have, or contact CZ-USA directly.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Click this for a very large image of our test gun tip to toe. In the age of plastic and aluminum, a traditional steel and wood bolt gun is a refreshing plaything for a lazy afternoon at the range. The 455 is the kind of gun that you can pass down for generations.

CZ-USA
https://www.cz-usa.com/rimfire

Convertible guns have never been that popular in the US. Putting the top up and down is such a pain, and… just kidding. This type of convertible gun allows you to change calibers, shooting two or more types of ammo through the same gun. Europeans, and especially European hunters have always loved convertible guns, but they never really caught on here for some reason. It could be our obsession with rifle accuracy. Even though the average hunter can’t shoot within two minutes of basketball (according to famed hunter writer Ross Seyfried), Americans really love the idea of an accurate firearm, one that can, if shot by the right person with the right rest, shoot into the width of a quarter or less at 100 yards, or 1 MOA, for “Minute of Angle.” That was the challenge when CZ-USA decided to introduce a rimfire combo gun to the US market. It is called the Model 455 American Combo, and the retail prices start just north of $400. In the box, the gun comes with both .22LR and .17HMR barrels, and changing them out takes only two Allen wrenches, included with the gun. We shot our pictures of the test gun in the field, so you can see how easy it swaps, and the accuracy on both barrels is closer to 1/2MOA than 1MOA. The CZ 455 comes in a polymer stock configuration, a competition stock, even a Mannlicher style stock with hi-lux wood, in addition to the basic Walnut you see here. If you have longed for an old world style bolt rimfire, this CZ 455 offers you both the classic look and feel of the 50s and 60s, with the ability to convert from a .22LR plinker to a .17HMR hunting rifle, and you can get a .22WMR barrel as well.

The 455 does now come in single calibers as well, but all of the guns retain the ability to shoot .22LR, .17HMR and .22WMR with the purchase of extra barrels. CZ engineered the swap’ability with a novel bolt locking system that works without levers or collars or any of the other things you generally see in convertible firearms. The barrels are machined with a two 45 degree cuts in them. the receiver then holds two 45 bolts cut in 45 degree holes. That makes the bearing surface of the bolts 90 degrees to the cuts, so they are firmly locked down straight, not wedged in something that could wear. The barrel itself is held up into its hole by a 45 degree angle, so there doesn’t need to be any counterforce, or threads, or any other locking mechanism. Your optic is mounted to the receiver, so this means that when you remove, swap, then swap back the barrels, they return very closely to the original point of impact. To change the barrels you remove two action screws and the two 45 degree bolts. The system is elegant in its simplicity. This is not a new gun in the marketplace, but the versions being sold today have ironed out some of the bugs that were present in some of the early guns.

Our test gun is the most common, two barrel wooden configuration of the Model 455. The two barrels are .22LR and .17HMR, the latter of which was installed as the gun came out of the box. Our scope is a Wal-Mart Tasco 4-8x Rimfire model, with an interesting oval reticle. Note that the 455 uses an 11mm rimfire rail, not a standard Weaver or Picatinny sized rail. It requires a special set of rimfire mounts which may or may not come with the scope. As you can see from our accuracy testing below, this quality of scope is just fine for a plinking and varmint rifle like this. A $25 Chinese scope will most likely last as many generations as the rifle, which is at least several if you take care of it. The rifle never failed, and always stripped a round and fired it, but this was our second of these guns. The first gun we got was one of the first in the country, and it had some issues. One was that if you tightened the action screw too tightly, it intruded up into the path of the bolt. That was no fun. And the first gun also was sticky swapping the barrels back and forth, until we couldn’t remove the barrel. These issues are now completely corrected, but the experience reinforces what we have said about CZ-USA in prior articles. They never send a cherry picked gun. They always just pull one off the top of the pile and send exactly what the consumer would get. So if you read about either of those issues with an early 455, we had them too, and they were corrected completely. We shot over 300 rounds through this test gun in an afternoon over both barrels, and there was not one problem.

Swapping the barrels takes about 5 minutes. You first remove the two action screws, then the action and free floated barrel come right off the stock. The 45 degree bolts on our test gun came hand tight, and were easy to remove, with no thread locking compound applied. If you buy one of these 455s in a single caliber and don’t plan to swap the barrels anytime soon, you may want to put one of the removable versions of Lock-TIte on the threads at some point. It is almost impossible that the bolts won’t eventually work themselves loose from the recoil, and Lock-Tite will keep that from happening at the least opportune time. It isn’t hard to just take off the action screws and check the bolts before you go out shooting, but who wants to do that every time? You also may affect point of impact by tightening the bolts. We bought this gun and are keeping it, so we will be experimenting with the Lock-TIte/Gun-Tite products as well. The nice thing about the 45 degree bolts is that they are set with a deep pocket Allen head, and there is no play at all. Stripping the wrench won’t happen as long as you use a regular Allen key with hand pressure. I would not use an Allen socket and wrench for this gun. You will just make an imprint in the steel of the barrel. If you are worried about the bolts coming loose, use Lock-Tite blue and hand tighten. Don’t overtighten with too much leverage. There are two types of 5 round mag. One is for .17HMR and .22WMR and the other is for .22LR. You just install a spacer, as you can see from the pictures.

The accuracy of the two barrels was noticeably better with the .17HMR than it was with the .22LR, but that discrepancy is more likely a product of the quality of the ammo, not the barrels themselves. We shot this gun at 50 yards, and it repeatedly shot five rounds into .25 inches and under at this distance with Hornady .17HMR ammo. For the .22LR, we used a variety of paper box range ammo, and it still averaged in the .5 inch range at 50 yards. The crosshairs of the scope were too course to significantly test the gun at 100 yards or more using a 1 inch bullseye, but the effective range of the .17HMR is out to 200 yards and more when the air is still. At 200 yards and little or no wind and a steady rest this gun should be able to hit a baseball with every shot. The point of impact did vary about 2 inches between the two barrels, but taking a barrel off, putting the other on, then going back to the first barrel never changed the point of impact by more than an inch. Re-zeroing would be required, but it would be asking to much of the gun to think it wouldn’t. Barrel to barrel, there is always going to be a slight difference because you couldn’t lock two into a lathe in exactly the same way. The fact that over two barrels, off, on, off on, we didn’t need to do any significant re-zeroing speaks volumes for the consistency of these CZ guns.

As you can see from the pictures, for fit and finish, you couldn’t ask for a nicer gun in a utility rimfire rifle. The CZ452 has the same design and materials, sans the barrel swap, and it has been considered one of the nicer rimfire rifles in the market for many years. This 455 is now three years old, and the line has outgrown the 452 because of the beauty that has been coupled with utility. Where else are you going to find a 1/2 MOA rimfire at a base price of under $500, to begin with? Then add in the fit and finish of these elegant guns and it equals a platinum selling rifle. Even the lux Mannlicher version of this gun carries an MSRP of only $549. World class accuracy, old world, Mauser style design, a clean neat and elegant fit and finish, and a reasonable price add up to a gun that is hard to beat in its category, and you can actually find the guns for sale. Ask your local dealer to order the Czech Republic made CZ455, in either the single barrel or convertible models. Most of the major distributors have or can get them. Most online big box retailers now have .17HMR ammo, and sometimes .22LR as well.

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  • Jimbo McDoil September 18, 2018, 7:56 pm

    I agree with Mr. Evans. I much rather have a gun for each round than own some commie made gun that can do it all. Think of all the good boys who lost there life in war so we can have another imported communist gun to shoot. The price for this crap just got a lot higher!

  • Matt June 1, 2018, 10:33 pm

    I’m a little misinformed or not understanding completely. Does this rifle come with all 3 barrels or is it 17 hmr & 22lr or 22lr & 22wmr or is it possible to use all three barrels on the same platform.

  • tweedmus September 13, 2016, 2:39 am

    The CZ/Brno rifles are one of the best deals out there, beautifully made and VERY accurate. At present I own 3 – a long action 30’06, a .22 hornet miniature Mauser with a 5 round box mag and a drop barrel single-shot in .222 (I’m still looking for the scope mount for this – it has a single block base that I’ve never seen before or since). Highly recommended.

  • Skeeter March 24, 2016, 11:18 am

    Have two CZ’s 452 .17hmr varmit and 455 Ameican combo .22lr and .22 WRM barrel, both with Simmons 4×12’s. Love the quality craftmanshipe and the superb accurcy.

  • Kimbershooter March 6, 2015, 12:54 am

    A great alternative to the paper targets is to get some 36″X 1/8″ steel or brass wire and place them in the ground. Impale a raw white potato (or red, white is larger, and cheap) on the end of the wire. Place these at various lengths down the range. When shot, these act like a hand grenade. Sometimes, they will sway in the breeze, making it more of a challenge. Deer love to eat the potatoes, so no clean up (if at a rural range). Kids love the action, especially in .17HMR which has no recoil.

  • Atif Shuja April 19, 2014, 2:59 pm

    Dear Sir,

    if we tightened the action screw too tightly, due to that it intruded up into the path of the bolt, does it affect the accuracy of rifle??? means not a good group at target???

    I have CZ 455 Warmint .22 WMR, before tightining the stock screws it worked marvelous, but when i tighten the stock screws the floated barrel seems to be fitted with stock than i release the screws again but the bolt is intruded with stock screw, what should i do now??? .

  • Terry January 16, 2014, 3:07 pm

    Was wondering as a young shooter, how easy or difficult is it to remove and adjust scope after changing barrels? This would make for a nice folowup I think.

  • Gene January 14, 2014, 5:19 pm

    I now own a couple of CZ. One is in the .22 mag with high end beautiful stock and fitted with nikon scope
    (3-9×40) Its called the american model. The second one is a .22 also has a nikon scope. The stock is not as pretty as the 455. Just an oil finish but very nice to shoot. Both riflles are tight and shoot tight groups s well. For the price you pay for these imports, you are getting quality along with performance. Well done, keep it up CZ.
    Gene

  • Gene January 14, 2014, 5:13 pm

    kinda reminds me of an earlier owned rifle….Remington 541-s. What a beauty and tack driver. Cover all three holes with a thumbtack at 50.

    • Spike Squibby September 18, 2018, 8:06 pm

      It\’s not American at all-its a damn communist gun, end of that one! I got Me a good ole Marlin XT, looks cheep, feels cheep shoots cheep. Thats the way we like em here in the old U.S. of A. Got one for every day of the week and two for Sunday.
      Them Slaviks are just a couple doors down from China.

  • John G December 24, 2013, 12:47 pm

    Sorry but as we speak my 455 Cz American 17HMR
    Is going back to the factory for the second time. Totally disapointed in my purchase as soon as I get it back I’m trading it in, this was not a good experience, the bolt or firing pin or something was defective and would only fire every other round at best. Got it back the first time and had the same issues even tried different brands of ammo.
    John G

  • doug63 December 23, 2013, 7:47 am

    I have a set of 22 rings that take a 1″ scope. I’m sure you can find them online.

  • Hendrik October 30, 2013, 10:06 pm

    Thanks for an excellent and detailed review of the CZ455.
    It answered all the questions I had.

  • S.Evans July 18, 2013, 3:54 am

    Yet another manufacturer cutting us cross dominant and left handed shooters our of the market . . . Fortunately Savage still makes fine left handed rimfire rifles in a variety of calibers. Frankly it’s easier to have two rifles, as there is no need for .22WMR if you have a rifle that fires .17HMR. The only reason to keep .22LR on the list is because the ammunition is so much cheaper. Given that .22mag and .17HMR share a similar cost per round, I’d say that the slower .22mag just doesn’t cut it anymore.

    • Administrator July 18, 2013, 6:49 am

      CZ makes a lefty version of the non-combo gun, and they may be able to make one for you on order. Call them.

    • Johny Q September 18, 2018, 7:38 pm

      Is ballistic criteria less important than cost? I believe it is all about what you want to accomplish. While the .17 HMR is faster/straighter/further, the .22 WMR at almost twice the mass has better stopping power in most cases. The limited hunting potential of the .17 HMR makes it seemingly inhumane for anything but target shooting and the higher than 22LR price diminishes it as an everyday \’plinker\’.

  • quinn parker July 16, 2013, 9:37 am

    it would suite me better if it was 17 mk2 and 17 hmr../ or 17 mk2 and 22 mag../ or all 4 brls..

  • Steve Van Valkenburg July 15, 2013, 6:30 pm

    Looks like a great rifle and a tremendous buy. I recently purchased my first CZ rifle, a 455 22lr. A military rifle I guess it has iron sights and came from Gander Mountain for $400. Anyway I was looking for a lefty 452 (453) Lux or american in 22 or 17 and the lgs just looked at me crosseyed and laughed their asses off. Therein lies the problem with CZ rimfire rifles left handed models at least, they are almost impossible to get unless you want to get hosed on the auction sites.

  • RODANDGUN July 15, 2013, 3:58 pm

    I have to agree w/Kevin on the Mach2 barrel. The adjustable trigger is a great idea, or maybe CZ could fit one of thier set-triggers on it. A little better scope may help, something like Simmons 8-Point model. Pretty good group with the .22 Wildcats. I can taste the ‘ tree rat ‘ stew already.

  • mp517prct July 15, 2013, 3:36 pm

    Thank you for reviewing a CZ product! I own a number of CZ guns and am tired of print gun mags either reviewing the same old, same old from Remington, Springfield, and Smith&Wesson or reviewing some
    ludicrously priced Wilson Combat M1911 that the average working-class stiff could never afford! I think CZ guns offer an amazing “bang for your buck!” Keep up the good work!

    • Administrator July 15, 2013, 6:44 pm

      Agreed.

  • 22lr Guy July 15, 2013, 1:47 pm

    I own many CZ’s in 22lr and had to stop reading when I saw it was tested with a tasco scope from walmart. Sorry, I’m sure many other did the same…BB guns scopes do not do these rifles justice.

    • Administrator July 15, 2013, 3:10 pm

      That’s why it shot 1/2 MOA? This is a rimfire scope on rimfire mounts, which are required for the gun. 90% of the people who buy this gun will put a walmart scope on it. But feel to share your self-righteous foolishness with us.

      • Randy jones July 18, 2015, 4:25 pm

        Just because most people do something doesn’t mean it’s the best course of action. I’ve had enough problems with cheap optics to swear them off and never use them again. If good or at least decent optics aren’the in the budget, save up until they are.

  • Gordon Schrader July 15, 2013, 12:58 pm

    I have a marlin 25MN 22WMR bolt action, and I can do the same thing at 100 yds. 1in. dia.

  • keven July 15, 2013, 11:29 am

    I think this looks like a wonderful gun, and CZ always makes choice weapons…. but a 17Mach2 barrel would make me a buyer. until then I am just a looker… The 17mach2 is almost as good as the HMR but a quarter of the cost to shoot…

  • gcallagherry July 15, 2013, 11:23 am

    I am reading this Detail i hope i will order one Model of 455 American Combo, you said that it cost 400$ with the Two barrels, what about the freight to Mauritius? To hear of you Next

    Best regards GCallagherry

  • Barack Obama July 15, 2013, 9:35 am

    You are measuring your groups incorrectly. You take the outside width and subtract the bullet diameter. The way you are measuring it, 5 shots of .22/.45/.50 caliber through the exact same hole would still measure ~.22″, .45″ and .5″

    • Administrator July 15, 2013, 9:50 am

      You only need to do that if the holes are less than bullet diameter apart. Center to center gives you the same dispersion measurement when the centers are more than bullet diameter apart. That is why we show the calipers to people understand exactly what we are measuring, because we don’t want to be like the print mags where a Kahr P380 has been “tested” to shoot 1/2″ at 25 yards. We actually shoot our tests guns and report upon what we actually find.

    • Michael July 15, 2013, 11:44 am

      They measured the group correctly. Go back to being the lead from behind POTUS.

  • Allen July 15, 2013, 5:53 am

    mag capacities?

    • Administrator July 15, 2013, 8:41 am

      5 round magazine

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