Combloc
Stop Negassing me!!!!!
Yesterday, I picked up one of new CZ 805 carbines and took it out to the range today so I thought I'd share a little information as there isn't alot out there yet.
Rifle (magazine is HK):
A few things first. It came with two black anodized aluminum magazines, both of which were marked on the floor plate D&H Tactical Oconomowoc WI, USA and neither of which could I have being that we live in MD. That got me thinking,what exactly are the US made parts on the rifle? So, I sent an email off to CZ and had an answer exactly 1 hour ad 9 minutes later. That, my friends is Customer service!
My Email to CZ:
Hello. I have two questions I would like to ask. The first is regarding the magazines that are shipping with the BREN 805 rifle. The base plate is marked D&H Tactical. Is the entire magazine US made or is the body Czech made with US internal parts? Second, which parts on the 805 rifle are US made? Thank you for your time.
The reply:
The magazines are entirely made by D&H Tactical, so all of the parts are US made. The US parts in the Bren rifle are the disconnector, piston assembly, and muzzle device.
Thanks,
Dereck
CZ-USA
End of reply. By the way, the parent company of D&H tactical is D&H industries. They seem to be a rather LARGE company. Their website is here:
http://www.dhmetalstamping.com/
The manual included is woefully inadequate. It's roughly 4"x6" with fold outs on both the front and rear covers illustrating operations (such as pulling back on the charging handle and folding the stock) that are obvious without ever looking at an illustration. At first, it seems that it should be packed with information given its thickness (77 pages) but you quickly realize that it's in 5 languages which equates to 15 pages in English. And while it does include a few useful things such as an exploded view of the rifle and sight adjustment, it really should be much more in-depth given the price point of this product. It doesn't even mention the existence of a funky looking multi tool included in the cleaning kit much less how to use it. Maybe I'll just wake up one morning and know.....or not.
The rifle itself is, as illustrated in another post I did on this forum about the pistol version, SIG (as in Neuhausen ) Quality. The trigger is one of the best out of the box I've experienced and is bested only by my SIG's. The sights are fine for combat, which is what they were designed for after all, but definitely challenging for target shooting. The target I was using is 12.5" wide. At 100 yards, the front sight post extended past the target by about 2" on each side. The rear sight has two apertures, a large and a small. That's a nice touch and allows you you pick whichever is best for ambient lighting conditions and your own personal focal distance. I found that the small aperture worked best for me. There don't seem to be any good closeups of them online so let's take a look.
Here's a front 3/4 view of the front sight:
It's adjustable for elevation and the included sight tool works just fine. As already stated, the front post is FAT.
Rear 3/4 view showing the push button used to fold the sight down:
The entire sight is steel and built like a tank. The button on both the front and rear sight takes quite a bit of force for it to work. Or maybe I'm just a wimp.......probably.
Right side of rear sight showing the small aperture deployed:
You can also see the gear shaped windage adjustment knob. While I guess you could turn it by hand if you pushed on it like a madman, it's supposed to be adjusted using a flat instrument such as the included adjustment tool. You could also use a screwdriver or possibly even a cartridge in a pinch.
Left side showing the push button. The sight folds to the rear:
Here, we are looking at the rear of the rear sight:
I have carefully taken this picture so that the sight's protective ears are lined up with the top rail on the receiver to show just how far the aperture is moved to the left. If you look through the large aperture, you'll see a line cutting through the right side of it. That's the center line of the sight base. As you'll see later, the rifle is still shooting a bit to the right so the aperture still has to be moved further to the left in order to properly zero the rifle. Now, I know these are back up sights and that, once set, you'll never touch the windage again. I also know that there is enough adjustment left to zero the rifle. Still, the perfectionist in me finds this just a bit disappointing. I know that CZ can do better.
Recoil......it's a 5.56, how much is there to begin with? It's more than my Tavor and about the same as my HK93. The amazing thing is that muzzle rise is nil. Almost all movement is directly to the rear. Also, you can feel just how smooth the action is during recoil. There are no weird twanging noises or ratcheting feelings; just smooth gliding. Schweet!!
It's also a clean rifle. Today I shot 100 rounds of Lake City 55 gr. surplus. Let's look at how much carbon that equates to. I'll reuse the pictures previously taken of bits from the pistol version for comparison.
Dirty gas system prior to disassembly. You can see some brownish gas residue:
Clean gas block:
100 rounds:
Clean bolt:
Dirty:
Gas cylinder before:
After 100 rounds:
Lastly, piston clean and dirty:
The last picture is of the target:
The colored dots are covering 21 rounds fired at 50 yards. Some dots are covering more than 1 hole. As you can see, I had the sights pretty much centered but firing just a bit to the left. Like an idiot, I moved the sight back right some before moving the target to 100 yards and I moved it too much. the remaining 79 shots were taken at 100 yards. All but 1 is on the paper. At first glance, this looks mediocre. BUT, there are a few factors to consider.
1. As I always say without shame, I'm a poor shot and irons get harder and harder as I get older.
2. I was using surplus XM193 ammunition.
3. As stated earlier, the front sight post is so fat that is extends about 2" beyond each side of the 12.5"x18.5" target at 100 yards. At that distance, the 2.25" center circle is little more than a dot to my eyes. So, there is a fair amount of guess work involved as to exactly where I am aiming. Couple that with the fact that I'm an idiot, and you get what you see above.
So, given the above, I think the rifle did quite well. It certainly did well enough for its intended purpose. CZ says that the military version is capable of 4 MOA accuracy. Almost all of my shots fell within a 7x6 rectangle. I think that, with a 4x optic or a red dot, 4 MOA or better is easily attainable, especially with the stellar trigger. Even with just the included back up sights, a different person behind the trigger would probably do much better than I did. Now I need to save up for an ACOG to see if I can improve.....
So, my final thoughts about the rifle so far? It's CZ......I LOVE it!
Rifle (magazine is HK):
A few things first. It came with two black anodized aluminum magazines, both of which were marked on the floor plate D&H Tactical Oconomowoc WI, USA and neither of which could I have being that we live in MD. That got me thinking,what exactly are the US made parts on the rifle? So, I sent an email off to CZ and had an answer exactly 1 hour ad 9 minutes later. That, my friends is Customer service!
My Email to CZ:
Hello. I have two questions I would like to ask. The first is regarding the magazines that are shipping with the BREN 805 rifle. The base plate is marked D&H Tactical. Is the entire magazine US made or is the body Czech made with US internal parts? Second, which parts on the 805 rifle are US made? Thank you for your time.
The reply:
The magazines are entirely made by D&H Tactical, so all of the parts are US made. The US parts in the Bren rifle are the disconnector, piston assembly, and muzzle device.
Thanks,
Dereck
CZ-USA
End of reply. By the way, the parent company of D&H tactical is D&H industries. They seem to be a rather LARGE company. Their website is here:
http://www.dhmetalstamping.com/
The manual included is woefully inadequate. It's roughly 4"x6" with fold outs on both the front and rear covers illustrating operations (such as pulling back on the charging handle and folding the stock) that are obvious without ever looking at an illustration. At first, it seems that it should be packed with information given its thickness (77 pages) but you quickly realize that it's in 5 languages which equates to 15 pages in English. And while it does include a few useful things such as an exploded view of the rifle and sight adjustment, it really should be much more in-depth given the price point of this product. It doesn't even mention the existence of a funky looking multi tool included in the cleaning kit much less how to use it. Maybe I'll just wake up one morning and know.....or not.
The rifle itself is, as illustrated in another post I did on this forum about the pistol version, SIG (as in Neuhausen ) Quality. The trigger is one of the best out of the box I've experienced and is bested only by my SIG's. The sights are fine for combat, which is what they were designed for after all, but definitely challenging for target shooting. The target I was using is 12.5" wide. At 100 yards, the front sight post extended past the target by about 2" on each side. The rear sight has two apertures, a large and a small. That's a nice touch and allows you you pick whichever is best for ambient lighting conditions and your own personal focal distance. I found that the small aperture worked best for me. There don't seem to be any good closeups of them online so let's take a look.
Here's a front 3/4 view of the front sight:
It's adjustable for elevation and the included sight tool works just fine. As already stated, the front post is FAT.
Rear 3/4 view showing the push button used to fold the sight down:
The entire sight is steel and built like a tank. The button on both the front and rear sight takes quite a bit of force for it to work. Or maybe I'm just a wimp.......probably.
Right side of rear sight showing the small aperture deployed:
You can also see the gear shaped windage adjustment knob. While I guess you could turn it by hand if you pushed on it like a madman, it's supposed to be adjusted using a flat instrument such as the included adjustment tool. You could also use a screwdriver or possibly even a cartridge in a pinch.
Left side showing the push button. The sight folds to the rear:
Here, we are looking at the rear of the rear sight:
I have carefully taken this picture so that the sight's protective ears are lined up with the top rail on the receiver to show just how far the aperture is moved to the left. If you look through the large aperture, you'll see a line cutting through the right side of it. That's the center line of the sight base. As you'll see later, the rifle is still shooting a bit to the right so the aperture still has to be moved further to the left in order to properly zero the rifle. Now, I know these are back up sights and that, once set, you'll never touch the windage again. I also know that there is enough adjustment left to zero the rifle. Still, the perfectionist in me finds this just a bit disappointing. I know that CZ can do better.
Recoil......it's a 5.56, how much is there to begin with? It's more than my Tavor and about the same as my HK93. The amazing thing is that muzzle rise is nil. Almost all movement is directly to the rear. Also, you can feel just how smooth the action is during recoil. There are no weird twanging noises or ratcheting feelings; just smooth gliding. Schweet!!
It's also a clean rifle. Today I shot 100 rounds of Lake City 55 gr. surplus. Let's look at how much carbon that equates to. I'll reuse the pictures previously taken of bits from the pistol version for comparison.
Dirty gas system prior to disassembly. You can see some brownish gas residue:
Clean gas block:
100 rounds:
Clean bolt:
Dirty:
Gas cylinder before:
After 100 rounds:
Lastly, piston clean and dirty:
The last picture is of the target:
The colored dots are covering 21 rounds fired at 50 yards. Some dots are covering more than 1 hole. As you can see, I had the sights pretty much centered but firing just a bit to the left. Like an idiot, I moved the sight back right some before moving the target to 100 yards and I moved it too much. the remaining 79 shots were taken at 100 yards. All but 1 is on the paper. At first glance, this looks mediocre. BUT, there are a few factors to consider.
1. As I always say without shame, I'm a poor shot and irons get harder and harder as I get older.
2. I was using surplus XM193 ammunition.
3. As stated earlier, the front sight post is so fat that is extends about 2" beyond each side of the 12.5"x18.5" target at 100 yards. At that distance, the 2.25" center circle is little more than a dot to my eyes. So, there is a fair amount of guess work involved as to exactly where I am aiming. Couple that with the fact that I'm an idiot, and you get what you see above.
So, given the above, I think the rifle did quite well. It certainly did well enough for its intended purpose. CZ says that the military version is capable of 4 MOA accuracy. Almost all of my shots fell within a 7x6 rectangle. I think that, with a 4x optic or a red dot, 4 MOA or better is easily attainable, especially with the stellar trigger. Even with just the included back up sights, a different person behind the trigger would probably do much better than I did. Now I need to save up for an ACOG to see if I can improve.....
So, my final thoughts about the rifle so far? It's CZ......I LOVE it!
