Everything you need to know about transforming your dovetail base on CZ 455 rimfire to picatinny base. Why would you do it, how you do it, where to get the parts.
Why picatinny
Picatinny is often called MIL STD standard or STANAG 2324 rail. As wikipedia says, Picatinny was developed for military purposes in 1994 to replace the previous Weaver standard.
The main selling point of picatinny interface is its standardization. You can mount any part to your rifle as long as it has picatinny mounting, or weaver mounting. That is because weaver mounting works also on picatinny.
For the purposes of CZ 455 the picatinny base is most often used for installation of scope. Or more exactly, installation of scope mount or scope rings. Other than that, on different rifles, picatinny is also often used as the handguard quad rail that allows further accessories to be easily mounted.
Because of the standardization of mounting there is also very wide range of scope mounts with picatinny base.
And not only that there is wider offerings of mounts, the picatinny interface also allows easier mounting solutions, so that you can demount the scope with one handle and dont need to be dealing with screwdriver. Thus you can switch easily between different rifles with the same scope.
Which picatinny rail for CZ 455
All CZ 455 models share the same spare parts, and also have the same position of ejection window.
That means that you can mount the same picatinny rail to all the CZ 455 models.
CZ makes three types of picatinny rails for CZ 455 models:
- standard 0 MOA rail,
- standard 0 MOA rail in silver color, and
- picatinny rail with 25 MOA angle.
Once your rifle is equipped with rail, you changed the standard CZ 455 11mm scope base into picatinny scope base. That allows you usage of many aftermarket scope mounts.
Alternatively you can find also aftermarket CZ 455 rails with 15 MOA and 30 MOA angles.
0 MOA or 25 MOA picatinny rail?
When deciding whether to go for standard 0 MOA rail or 25 MOA rail, you should take into consideration the distance at which you will be shooting.
MOA translates to minute of angle. It is a standard measurement unit for scopes and tells us how much is the scope angled downward from the even position. The fact that the rail is angled down with 25 MOA gives us more usage of scope elevation for further distances.
Therefore if you intend to shoot on longer targets, you may consider 25 MOA rail as the one to go for. Otherwise you will not need this and you can go with standard 0 MOA rail.
How to install CZ 455 picatinny rail
Mounting of a picatinny rail is not difficult and you can do it easily in home.
The rail comes with screws in so we recommend removing the screws out complete to avoid situation where they would interfere with the dovetail.
Once screws are removed, simply slide the rail from back of the rifle to the top so that the rail goes over the edge of the 11mm dovetail cut.
Once positioned properly, you can screw the screws back in to secure fixation of the rail to the rifle.
Full guide on how to install picatinny rail to CZ 455, including recommended torque for screws, is available here.