I picked up a new CZ 527 American in 6.5 Grendel about a week and a half ago. Was going to hold off until spring but prices are so low now ($620 shipped from Grabagun) that I just had to jump on it.
I've been excited about this rifle for a long while now -- I'm a big CZ fan and own two of their rifles (455 Trainer in 22lr and 455 American in 17hmr) and two of their handguns (75 PCR and 85 Combat). I've been slowly putting together parts for a 6.5G AR build for long range target shooting for about two years but haven't finished it yet, so this 527 is my first Grendel. Now that I've done some work on the girl and run about 80 break-in rounds through her, I thought I'd share my impressions for others who might be interested in it.
Looks and build quality:
Scoped 527 Grendel with case copy.jpg
Action and barrel look pretty darn nice, although the stampings are generally rough and there are so many of them that it looks kinda cluttered. Blueing is gorgeous though, and the bore is bright as can be. The rifle is very light and incredibly handy -- it's hard to believe there is a 24" barrel on this thing. Three cheers for micro-length actions! Speaking of the action, it's pretty good but definitely needs to smooth out from some cycling. A spot on the bolt handle blueing is already wearing from contacting the receiver upon opening and pulling back, I'll see how that develops. Also, here's a picture of the magazine follower, stamped "7,62x39/6,5GRE". Appears that the 7.62x39 and Grendel mags are exactly the same, even though the 7.62 ones are cheaper by ~$10 on the interwebs.
Grendel barrel stamp copy.jpg
527 Grendel Magazine copy.JPG
The wood on this stock is frankly a mess though. The checkering is fine but as nice as on my 455 American, about on par with my 455 Trainer in beech. The finish feels very light to almost non-existent: it's like they stained the outside a bit and then called it a day (the barrel channel is bare walnut with seemingly no finish at all). Butt pad isn't a perfect fit (it's slightly oversized on the left side and at the bottom), and the wood grain is pretty awful. It's the ugliest walnut stock I own outside of old C&R military guns, and I have a BIG sample size. The butt end of the stock near where your cheek rests has such a bad change in the grain that I decided I absolutely HAD to put a cartridge sleeve over it to cover it up. Usually if a put a sleeve on a rifle I'm bummed that I'm covering up a pretty stock -- this is the first time I've felt the opposite. All in all the woodwork simply feels rushed without much of an eye to QC, which is very disappointing.
Scoped action copy.JPG
Setup:
The included rings look fine, I'm going to use them for time time being. I've got a Leupold VX-2 4-12x40AO with the LR reticle that I want to put on this eventually, but for now the rifle's inheriting a Vortex Crossfire II 4-12x40AO with dead hold BDC reticle I've had for a couple years that isn't the nicest glass but way outperforms the $150 I paid for it a couple years ago.
Rings look a little taller off the barrel than I generally like, but the bolt handle clearance is too close to drop it any further. The ocular bells on these Vortex scopes are so darn big, I think they're better suited to the new group of 60-70 degree bolt throw rifles like the RAR or XPR or A-Bolt.
Scope bell bolt clearance copy.jpg
Setup took a couple hours to get where I wanted it. There were three things I wanted to address: the trigger setup, ensure the barrel free floats, and see see how the action fit was to determine if I need to eventually bed the thing or not.
Trigger adjustment was done with a YouTube tutorial on in the background. https://youtu.be/BqcwFciaVbc Took a good hour to work all the kinks out but I now I have a trigger with no virtually no take-up/creep or overtravel that breaks at 2.75lbs. The set trigger also has no creep but by design has a ton of overtravel unfortunately. It can be dialed down to almost a quarter pound (!!!) but I couldn't get it to pass the bump test under about 0.75lbs so thats where she's set. It is TOTALLY worth your time to put a little work into the trigger adjustment, it didn't take long or any tools beyond a wrench and a screwdriver and it's miles better than stock. I honestly don't know what I could do to improve it now, it's perfect for me.
Barrel channel took two rounds of sanding to get it to free float but unfortunately the receiver fit isn't great in the stock. I had it close to floating then sanded a little more then it was completely touching the right side of the stock channel -- turns out there is a lot of movement in the action/stock fit so once I centered it I finally had it floating. This answered my question about whether the rifle would need a bedding job: the answer is a resounding YES. Winter project I guess.
After all this I put an Allen sling on it and the aforementioned cartridge sleeve, cleaned out the barrel from any factory dust and residue, and was ready to hit the range.
First shots:
I started with 20 rounds of Hornady to break her chamber in on the nice stuff, followed by 60 rounds of Wolf steel case. I don't reload and probably never will. The rifle was a HOOT to shoot. Just enough recoil to remind your you're shooting centerfire but otherwise a total pussycat. I blew through all the ammo I had, which I wasn't expecting to do. It was just so much fun. Was on paper immediately, had a rough zero with my second mag. the Wolf definitely shot a little differently at distance, but I was only able to take her out to 225yds. I'm going to put another 50+ rounds through it then go for some serious 100yd accuracy testing with Hornady at the bench and see what kind of MOA this rifle delivers. I think I'm gonna be happy with it though. This is one FLAT shooting round at deer distances, I'm very impressed. I've now got a great lightweight and handy great plinker and 400yd deer rifle.
Final Thoughts:
I'm disappointed in the wood quality and workmanship, no two ways about it. That part is definitely not worth the $600 when my $400 455s are SO much nicer. But I'm pretty darn happy with the rest of it. I know they're hard to find (and definitely hard to find under $650) in person but I'd highly recommend it so you can see the rifle you're getting first. I think they're rushing these frankly. If you want beautiful walnut on a classic bolt rifle it might be cheaper to get the Howa and just immediately have a nice stock made for it. Everything else I love about the 527 though. Can't wait to get it bedded and see how accurate it is after a break in and with good ammo, which I'll probably do before the end of the month and report back.
Grendel Left Side copy.JPG
I've been excited about this rifle for a long while now -- I'm a big CZ fan and own two of their rifles (455 Trainer in 22lr and 455 American in 17hmr) and two of their handguns (75 PCR and 85 Combat). I've been slowly putting together parts for a 6.5G AR build for long range target shooting for about two years but haven't finished it yet, so this 527 is my first Grendel. Now that I've done some work on the girl and run about 80 break-in rounds through her, I thought I'd share my impressions for others who might be interested in it.
Looks and build quality:
Scoped 527 Grendel with case copy.jpg
Action and barrel look pretty darn nice, although the stampings are generally rough and there are so many of them that it looks kinda cluttered. Blueing is gorgeous though, and the bore is bright as can be. The rifle is very light and incredibly handy -- it's hard to believe there is a 24" barrel on this thing. Three cheers for micro-length actions! Speaking of the action, it's pretty good but definitely needs to smooth out from some cycling. A spot on the bolt handle blueing is already wearing from contacting the receiver upon opening and pulling back, I'll see how that develops. Also, here's a picture of the magazine follower, stamped "7,62x39/6,5GRE". Appears that the 7.62x39 and Grendel mags are exactly the same, even though the 7.62 ones are cheaper by ~$10 on the interwebs.
Grendel barrel stamp copy.jpg
527 Grendel Magazine copy.JPG
The wood on this stock is frankly a mess though. The checkering is fine but as nice as on my 455 American, about on par with my 455 Trainer in beech. The finish feels very light to almost non-existent: it's like they stained the outside a bit and then called it a day (the barrel channel is bare walnut with seemingly no finish at all). Butt pad isn't a perfect fit (it's slightly oversized on the left side and at the bottom), and the wood grain is pretty awful. It's the ugliest walnut stock I own outside of old C&R military guns, and I have a BIG sample size. The butt end of the stock near where your cheek rests has such a bad change in the grain that I decided I absolutely HAD to put a cartridge sleeve over it to cover it up. Usually if a put a sleeve on a rifle I'm bummed that I'm covering up a pretty stock -- this is the first time I've felt the opposite. All in all the woodwork simply feels rushed without much of an eye to QC, which is very disappointing.
Scoped action copy.JPG
Setup:
The included rings look fine, I'm going to use them for time time being. I've got a Leupold VX-2 4-12x40AO with the LR reticle that I want to put on this eventually, but for now the rifle's inheriting a Vortex Crossfire II 4-12x40AO with dead hold BDC reticle I've had for a couple years that isn't the nicest glass but way outperforms the $150 I paid for it a couple years ago.
Rings look a little taller off the barrel than I generally like, but the bolt handle clearance is too close to drop it any further. The ocular bells on these Vortex scopes are so darn big, I think they're better suited to the new group of 60-70 degree bolt throw rifles like the RAR or XPR or A-Bolt.
Scope bell bolt clearance copy.jpg
Setup took a couple hours to get where I wanted it. There were three things I wanted to address: the trigger setup, ensure the barrel free floats, and see see how the action fit was to determine if I need to eventually bed the thing or not.
Trigger adjustment was done with a YouTube tutorial on in the background. https://youtu.be/BqcwFciaVbc Took a good hour to work all the kinks out but I now I have a trigger with no virtually no take-up/creep or overtravel that breaks at 2.75lbs. The set trigger also has no creep but by design has a ton of overtravel unfortunately. It can be dialed down to almost a quarter pound (!!!) but I couldn't get it to pass the bump test under about 0.75lbs so thats where she's set. It is TOTALLY worth your time to put a little work into the trigger adjustment, it didn't take long or any tools beyond a wrench and a screwdriver and it's miles better than stock. I honestly don't know what I could do to improve it now, it's perfect for me.
Barrel channel took two rounds of sanding to get it to free float but unfortunately the receiver fit isn't great in the stock. I had it close to floating then sanded a little more then it was completely touching the right side of the stock channel -- turns out there is a lot of movement in the action/stock fit so once I centered it I finally had it floating. This answered my question about whether the rifle would need a bedding job: the answer is a resounding YES. Winter project I guess.
After all this I put an Allen sling on it and the aforementioned cartridge sleeve, cleaned out the barrel from any factory dust and residue, and was ready to hit the range.
First shots:
I started with 20 rounds of Hornady to break her chamber in on the nice stuff, followed by 60 rounds of Wolf steel case. I don't reload and probably never will. The rifle was a HOOT to shoot. Just enough recoil to remind your you're shooting centerfire but otherwise a total pussycat. I blew through all the ammo I had, which I wasn't expecting to do. It was just so much fun. Was on paper immediately, had a rough zero with my second mag. the Wolf definitely shot a little differently at distance, but I was only able to take her out to 225yds. I'm going to put another 50+ rounds through it then go for some serious 100yd accuracy testing with Hornady at the bench and see what kind of MOA this rifle delivers. I think I'm gonna be happy with it though. This is one FLAT shooting round at deer distances, I'm very impressed. I've now got a great lightweight and handy great plinker and 400yd deer rifle.
Final Thoughts:
I'm disappointed in the wood quality and workmanship, no two ways about it. That part is definitely not worth the $600 when my $400 455s are SO much nicer. But I'm pretty darn happy with the rest of it. I know they're hard to find (and definitely hard to find under $650) in person but I'd highly recommend it so you can see the rifle you're getting first. I think they're rushing these frankly. If you want beautiful walnut on a classic bolt rifle it might be cheaper to get the Howa and just immediately have a nice stock made for it. Everything else I love about the 527 though. Can't wait to get it bedded and see how accurate it is after a break in and with good ammo, which I'll probably do before the end of the month and report back.
Grendel Left Side copy.JPG
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