Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Zastava M85 mini Mauser

Does anyone here have any history or knowledge with the Zastava M85 mini Mauser rifles? Likes or dislikes ? How’s the overall finish and tooling?

I've got the older Interarms Mini Mark X version. I slicked up the action w/some red JB bore paste and several hundred bolt cycles. It's a nice little rifle that shoots well in a handy size.

My old one that has gone through several stages.





As mentioned above, I lapped the bolt to the action. It started as a 7.62X39 barreled action, then chambered in 270X39AI, and lastly 220 Russian.
It is very accurate and is an old Interarms also.

The current production rifles have about the worst "checkering", if you can even justify calling the scratches on the stock checkering. I was looking forward to buying a couple of the mannlicher stock M85s, but have yet to see one that was worth owning because of the crappy checkering.

The pictures on their web site look great, but seeing them in person is a whole different deal. A mannlicher stocked M85 in 7.62x39 seems like it would be a fun to own woods loafing rifle.

The first ones I saw were back in the early 90's imported by Charles Daly. They also started selling in the white actions in both right and left handed. I have purchased four of the left handed mini Mausers over the years. Charles Daly discontinued importing them and Remington offered them in their 799 rifles, a short lived effort. Now they are imported as Zastavas, who has always been the manufacture of those rifles and actions.

Mine are not as nice as Butch's. His is a work of art. My first one I had barreled in 6mm-222, the second in 17 Remington. Due to some family health issues and other priorities, the 17 set as a barreled action in the back of the safe for 4 years. It's away at MPI getting a stock right now. The other two left for PacNor last week to be barreled as a 222 and a 25-222 with the same length and contour barrel as the 6mm-222.

I've been well pleased with the Charles Daly Zastavas actions. The 6mm-222 is an accurate little rifle and came in weighing under six pounds. It's a joy to carry as a walking varminter.

The current ones, as 260 noted, are pretty crude as far as the wood is concerned. The older, Charles Daly rifles had a much nicer, though extremely glossy, stock. I had one of the current M70's, left handed in 7x57. I found the metal work to be pretty nice but the stock was horrible. It was a very accurate rifle though.

I have been contemplating one of their left handed minis in 7.62x39. Either to keep in original chambering with a new stock or rebored to 35 caliber and a new stock as a close cover still hunting rifle.

I like the mini Mausers. They're a good little rifle. To sum it up, the metal work is good and stocks are awful on the current ones.

I never owned one but they were not too expencive when new..I always wanted one..the guys why bought them must like them as you never really see them for sale anymore..

Parts can be hard to get. Took me about 7 years to run down a magazine spring.

Mine needed a mag spring too. Pretty sure I used a Sako spring.

Here are 12,000 words worth. This is a left hand Model 85 bought in a group buy from around 2012. Looking at recent Zastava Model 70's - the full size model - it seems the relative quality is still pretty much the same.

IMHO these are a diamond in the rough, literally. The basic action, external finish and wood is sound, my Model 70 was nicely accurate although someone was sloppy with the extractor fit which kind of screwed up the famed Mauser reliability. I've seen some gorgeous examples of what these can be turned into if you have the time, talent and/or money. Zastava can build rifles to a price point. Obviously the ones they made for Charles Daly and I think the Remingtons were finished to a higher standard but their basic Model 85, again while a sound platform has a lot of corners cut in the machine work.

I'll highlight some things and you can see the other pics in the Image Gallery.

Link to full gallery

Wood finish and checkering. I dignify those scratchings with the word "checkering". However, the wood quality is a lottery, you could get something as plain as a 2x4 or you could get a very nice piece of wood. There is some decent grain here and a good finish would bring it out. The full size Model 70 I bought at the same time had a really nice piece of walnut although it needed stripping and refinishing to bring it out. The other nice thing about their stocks is that they put enough wood in them for about 1.5 stocks. The ergonomics on the factory stock are very good, they have proper cast and cant and are quite "shootable". But there is also plenty of wood to carve out a slender little stock more befitting the size of the action and overall rifle.



External polishing and bluing is very good.



Now we start to get into the interior. Magazine length is shown by this loaded .223 round. Also note the condition of the bottom (left) edge of the action, it really was just as rough as it looks. You can sort of see it in this pic but the right feed rail was minutely sawtoothed to the touch.




More metal finish (or lack thereof) on the bolt.





Check out the back of that locking lug.

One of my brothers has an Interarms in 223, for approx 20 years now. It's been serviceable, shoots under an inch, probably below 3/4. He kept his loaded for 10 or 12 years & it too, ate a mag spring. He made one out of banding material. A bit stiff, but serves the purpose.

I bought a Zastava M85 in 7.62x39 today because it was priced too low to pass up, $260 plus sales tax.

The "checkering" is little more than shallow scratches in the stock.

I'm going to work on the trigger and plan to install the barreled action in a B&C stock.

EDIT: If you buy, or already have, a Zastava M85 and are dissatisfied with the quality of the stock finish, SARCO currently has, as of 08/15/19, some NOS Interarms Mini-Mauser stocks for sale. Their part number STK352 priced at $80.

www.e-sarcoinc.com