Thread: Zastava M85 223 - Bubba issue

Below is a photo of the butt end of the stock of my recently acquired Zastava M85 223, where a rear sling anchor point has been somewhat Bubba'ed

It came to me with this hole roughly plugged, turns out with not very hard builders bog or similar. I marked a centre and drilled a pilot hole - and hit metal. You can see the shiny bit in the bottom.

The hole was deep enough to accept a shorter fore-end screw so I drilled the final and screwed it in. Predictably when it grounded, the next slight tightening lifted the shitty builders-bog plug out and I was left with this.

It appears there is earlier bog fill front and back of the hole for quite a way. So, some questions of wood stocked Zastava owners...

Did they originally come with Sling Mount points?

Is the metal in the bottom if the hole likely to be a retaining bolt/screw for the rubber butt plate, or, the remains of a broken sling anchor? There are no visible cracks in the butt so I'm not thinking it is a pin holding the stock together unless its a factory original - part of their assembly.

If it's a butt plate screw then then I guess I'll need to move the anchor point forward. Or figure how to access the screw and replace it with a shorter one. If it's a broken anchor point or a factory pin it can stay there and I'll move the hole forward anyway.

I'm thinking I need to dig the rest of the bog out if that's what it is, and look at splicing some timber in lengthwise.

Anyone got a spare bit of walnut say from a broken stock?

And I'm not even trying to figure how the damage originally occurred.

The forend hole was perfectly reusable. Just a few bruises consistent with a bipod being cramped down on it.

Here's the photo. Thoughts welcome.

UPDATE: So got my courage up and did a a but of fore and aft drilling and pretty sure its a bloody butt retaining bolt or screw. What a pox!