My position is, and always has been, that the older Zastava 85s that Interarms imported as their Mini-Mauser in 223 were well made, well finished, rifles.
The current Zastava 85s that I've personally seen and held have not been nearly as nicely finished as either the Interarms Mini-Mausers or the later Remington 799s. Those that I've personally seen and held have had the worst checkering that I've seen on a new factory production rifle.
If the checkering has been stamped, as has been claimed earlier in this thread, Zastava needs to find someone who can build a plate that will press a decent pattern or buy the equipment to laser-cut checkering like Boyds does. The Zastava 85s that I have seen and held look as though a metal template was laid on the wood and a sharp tool had been used to scribe a shallow checkering pattern into the wood. It looks to me like a pattern that was started, but never finished, or a poor example of a novice/amateur attempt at cutting checkering, not the sort of quality that one expects to see shipped out of a commercial production facility with any QC standards.
I'd love to find a couple of mannlicher stocked Zastava 85s in 223 and 7.62x39 to play with, but they've got to be both functional and reasonably good looking before I'll lay down my $$.
