One of my favorite upgrades this year was the addition of Tech Sights for the CZ 457. I have a CZ 457 Scout which has a 16″ barrel, and the rear sight mounted on the barrel. That gives it a sight radius of about 10 inches. Removing the rear sight completely, and installing a Tech Sight rear sight on the receiver nearly doubled that. Pairing it with their front sight completed the setup. Looks great, works fantastic. Here’s how it all went down.
The TSM200CZ Aperture Sights
This $69 front and rear sight set is designed for the CZ 455 Scout, Training Rifle, and Ultra Lux. It works with the CZ 457 too, but with some limitations. Either mount it in front of the ejection port, or make a little notch in the bolt handle to clear the adjustment nut. Naturally, I chose the latter because I wasn’t willing to give up that extra inch or so of sight radius.
The rear sight is all steel, mounts to the dovetail, and is adjustable for windage. At the other end, the front sight is aluminum. It uses an AR-style 0.047″ front post and mounts with the factory screw. If you’ve read all that as “easy to install”, you’re not wrong.
Installation of the Tech Sights on a CZ 457
I’m going to start with the front sight, as that was easier. Remove the screw holding the front sight in place. Remove sight. Replace with Tech Sight front sight. Install screw. Done. Yeah, it really was just about that simple. I did need to move the sight hood on my Scout barrel to expose the front sight’s mounting screw, but this was no difficult task.
If you’re installing this on a CZ 455, it can go at the rear of the receiver. On a CZ 457, it will need to go in front of the ejection port, unless you want to do the bolt handle modification. The reason for this is that the bolt handle hits the knob for adjusting windage. While you could chuck that knob in a drill and remove some material, I notched the bolt handle instead.
This took about 20-30 minutes with a semi-round file. I work slowly and check my work often. This way, I removed the minimum amount of material. You can see in the photo below that there is still plenty of thickness to the handle. One of these days I’ll touch up the finish on it. A single screw holds it to the dovetail, but it’s on there snugly.
Adjustments and zero
I started out by making sure that the windage was correct. This was done at around 25 yards. A small twist of the windage knob and I was hitting dead center to my point of aim. Moving the rear aperture right shifts the POI (point of impact) left, and vice-versa. From there, I had to sort out elevation. Since this rifle will probably always have a suppressor on it, I zeroed at 35 yards with CCI SV ammo. That was a matter of twisting the front sight. Up to lower the POI, down to raise it. Honestly, I can’t recall which way it was off, but the adjustment was small as well.
I find that a 35 yard zero with subsonic ammo keeps me within about a half-inch from 15 to 50 yards. That covers most of the targets that I’m shooting.
One last step before trying out my new sights
Before heading to the range, I also dropped the whole barreled action into an adult-sized Boyds stock. The premise of this project was that the Scout is great for kids learning the basics, but they will eventually outgrow it physically, and (hopefully) skills-wise. So new stock, and much greater sight radius, for better accuracy potential.
Range time with the Tech Sights for the CZ 457
Using the Tech Sights aperture sight is much faster than the factory irons. Your eye automatically places the post in the center of the aperture. And that longer sight radius makes a huge difference. While I struggle to use traditional iron sights without my glasses, the Tech Sights can be used with non-Rx safety glasses. It’s faster too. Peep through that hole at the front sight, and set your target right on top of the front blade. Pew.
Where we shoot, there’s no shortage of unbroken clays, empty shotgun shells, empty cans, and even golf balls. Anything from 25 to a bit past 50 yards was pretty fair game with this setup. While I certainly wasn’t expecting too much precision, shotgun shells at 25 yards, and clay pigeons out to 50 were easy hits. Handing the rifle off to a relatively new shooter, I watched them pick off small targets with ease. After shooting 11-15 pound rifles with 25x scopes, this is a different kind of fun. Simple. Quiet.
Overall thoughts on the Tech Sights for the CZ 457
First, I was surprised by the quality, given the modest price. The rear sight, as mentioned, is all steel. It’s got wings to protect the aperture, and it looks like it’s made to last. Up front is the aluminum sight, and it feels equally robust. For $69, this is an excellent upgrade for any CZ rimfire equipped with iron sights. Now I just need to figure out how to install a front sight on the 24″ tapered CZ 457 barrel I have in my spares pile.
If you’re looking to upgrade your CZ 455 or CZ 457 with a rear aperture sight, these Tech Sights are worthy of your consideration. They also have a huge fan base with America’s favorite rimfire, the 10/22. If you check the Tech Sights website, you’ll also find other Ruger options as well as sights for the AK platform, some Mossberg, Savage, Marlin, Remington, and KelTec firearms too.
As always, I’d like to thank the folks at Tech Sights for providing their CZ 457 aperture sight set for my testing and evaluation. They offer quality products, backed by excellent customer service.