Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Stainless Zastava Mauser

I have been trying to figure out the answer to this question the last few days and have had no luck so far. Is there anyone that is going to import the stainless steel Zastava mausers to the US?

If so, would they be worth having? I know Zastava is a bit hit or miss, but a stainless steel Mauser action is just too intriguing to me to not want.

If you want a Mauser in SS then yes, they're worth having. The issue is that no one seems to have had any luck importing the Zastava Mausers on a regular long term basis. Vol717 from the AR forums is the last guy I know that was importing them. http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2711043/m/5031038632 You may want to reach out to him to see what is possible.

They are serviceable rifles needing a bit of judicious polishing to make them a smooth operating rifle. Far better then the Dumoulin Mauser actions that are being sold by SARCO.

I think they could be imported if anyone could stomach dealing with Zastava. At least, that's the impression I got the last time someone did a special import. Seems the Zastavians care much more about the quality of their checkering than they do about dealing with Americans.

We really, really, really need a sarcasm imogee.

I think a stainless Mauser would be about as rugged a rifle as you could build on. Plenty of stock options out there, so that wouldn't be a huge issue. Thanks for the pointer to the guy on AR. Every dealer I've messaged no longer has any Zastavas, much less the stainless version.

Were those Remington Mausers from a while back Zastavas? Those stocks were rough for sure. Dull screwdriver inletting and so on.

Yes, they were, and yes, they were.

We sure do!

I have a Zastava "M70" (M98), and when it arrived it looked as though it had been finished with a single Lipton tea bag after having brewed a cup or two of tea. Add the etched-in "checkering" and it was something to behold. Ironically, the finish on the rifle itself is some of the deepest and even bluing I've seen. But as you said, they're not much on stock work. I should mention, though, the wood underneath the Lipton finish has a decent grain that a few coats of Timberluxe brought to the surface.

RM

I've been told but can't confirm that Boyds supplied those Laminate stocks for the 798's.

When you get tired of wishing and hoping, consider putting a stainless barrel on a blued one or one of the bazillion FNs out there. My late brother had one built by Brown with a Shilen stainless barrel and electroless nickle finish stuffed into a kevlar stock. Pretty nice rig, but pretty dang heavy by today's standards. Back when I was a one-rifle guy, I used it to kill my first WV buck while my son used my rifle.

Yeah, Rev, I've looked at several of those and they were all like that. I think Jim overhauled one and it came out nice.

Just so this doesn't become too much of an inside joke.









Lest I seem to sneer at the Zastava too much, there is a pretty nice rifle contained in that desecration of wood. With a little polishing of the action they can be made into very nice rifles.

And despite the finish, they occasionally do put some nice wood on them.




I wish all success in someone making a stainless Mauser available at an affordable cost.

They do clean up nicely. We used a French Red stain on this and in retrospect I wish we'd left the wood natural or used a walnut stain, but with some slenderizing, refinishing and recheckering they are fine rifles.

I never got a piece of wood on a Zastava worth working with, so I went with a more radical approach.



A lefty stainless Mauser would be almost more than my constitution could bear.

Well, I don't know about a lefty version, but this is a model they have on their website. http://www.zastava-arms.rs/en/civilianproduct/sporting-rifle-m70pss

I figure that in a decent stock would be some kinda interesting. I mean I have various Mausers. But a stainless one..... That just screams rugged to me.

Hmm. That checkering looks like a great rifle loony winter project. Recutting isn't hard but takes a lot of time and patience. And that would run the price up quite a bit if Zastava did it.

That turned out really nice. How much wood did you remove?

By the way, for those interested, the one I have is 7x57 and the twist is the standard European twist: 1:220mm/1:866". It dearly loves 175-grain bullets.

Hard to really quantify how much was removed, but the LOP was reduced from 14 1/2" (must be lanky fellows, those Zastavians. ) to 13 3/4", the rollover cheekpiece was ground off, the wrist and grip were reduced enough to get through the original checkering and the action area and especially the forend had about half the thickness removed. These pictures also show the nice exterior finish they put on the rifle.

The closest before and after pics I have of the action area ,hopefully they show the difference in amount of wood around the action.




More "before" of the thickness of the forend.




"After" pics of the buttstock and checkering. The checkering was done by my local gunsmith. I didn't want anything really fancy (i.e. $$$) in keeping with the more budget aspect of the whole rifle but he did a nice functional job of it.

My all stainless zastava in 9.3x62 came out ok. bottom metal by duane wiebe and shroud safety by stuart satterlee

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Two U.S. importers are listed on that website.