Thread: 6x45 Rem barrel

Originally Posted by GWH

I'm loving these threads of yours showing your projects, I'm envious of your skills and ability to machine up and fit barrels etc. Bloody cool and handy.

I've been interested in the 6x45 for a number of years now. Seems a very capable little cartridge.

I'm starting to like playing with these little cartridges, they are just no fuss at all and fun to shoot all day.

My 223 with 75 gr eldms and my 6.5 Grendel are lots of fun and surprisingly capable.

Thanks mate, machining my own stuff certainly adds some enjoyment and sense of achievement to my hobby for sure. It has me experimenting with all sorts of wildcats which keeps things interesting.

I have done my time with the big magnums and they just really don't interest me anymore. Its not like we have an abundance of moose to hunt in NZ and in the scheme of things our game animals are actually quite small. Personally I Im a big fan of medium to small high efficiency cartridges shooting softer more frangable bullets. At the longer ranges and lower velocities they behave more like a harder bullet at magnum cartridge velocities.
The 6x45 is exactly that and like you say you could shoot it all day and it would be very pleasant.

My .223 barrel is a 1-9" twist so I stick with 69gr TMKs which are great on varmints and goats but this new 6mm shooting the 75gr-85gr hollow points is just that step above.
While I have picked off the odd goat way out there, most my shooting is inside 500m Im confident in saying anything inside 500m is well and truly not safe with my .308win with 175gr TMKs, 6.5 Creedmore with 147gr ELDMs or 6.5x47 Lapua with 130gr TMKs.

My 6.5 Grendel is still my favorite little rifle and capable cartridge, super fun and if I could only pick one I think that would be it.

Sharing is caring right?
A couple more used 6mm barrels from guncity's website arrived today to fit up on some 6x45 converted mates rifles.





All have been labeled 6mm TCU, none of them were.
Three of the four barrels were clearly all badly chambered by the same guy, all have been very roughly cut with a .223 reamer with bad deep radial scratches in the chamber then plunged with a 6mm neck and throat reamer to no particular depth!? One of the barrels neck and throat was so long that a bullet seated to mag length would have a 7-8mm jump to the lands.. Im pretty sure most bullets would be out of the neck before engaging the rifling! Heres a pic of the chamber castings from the first fluted barrel I got and the two that arrived today. The one in the third pic has the longest neck and throat. I have put a 6x45 case trimmed to the correct length above it and a 6mm TCU (6x45 Ack Imp) below it for reference.







Plenty of meet to cut off and correctly rechamber though.
One will be fitted to a Sako vixon and two on some Czech made Zastava mini Mausers.

Oh wow, that jump is like a hydroslide for bullets

Originally Posted by Tommy

Oh wow, that jump is like a hydroslide for bullets

My guess would be that is why these barrels were removed. I can't imagine they would have shot well and the amount of deep scratching in the chamber walls right around where you'd normally see case head separation would have been detrimental to the brass too.
Its hard to photograph but Id say the reamer was dull, crap lube, pushed to fast or failed to clear the swarf.



Regardless to what they were they are cheap tubes that with a bit of machining I will make fine shooters out of.

Awesome Wingman, you saved me buying one for one of my Vixen/AI projects lol !

I'm always too slow .

Originally Posted by Scout

Awesome Wingman, you saved me buying one for one of my Vixen/AI projects lol !

I'm always too slow .

Ha you could always just offload that vixon to me

rebarreling a mini mauser Zastava....you heathen you.......mine took care of a red spiker on the 27th....very nicely indeed. 50ish yards was no stretch for the .223 and 50 grn barnes ttsx......... I guess someone may have loved them so much the origonal barrel was shot out...lovely wee rifles.
make sure to post up photos of finished jobs please.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

rebarreling a mini mauser Zastava....you heathen you.......mine took care of a red spiker on the 27th....very nicely indeed. 50ish yards was no stretch for the .223 and 50 grn barnes ttsx......... I guess someone may have loved them so much the origonal barrel was shot out...lovely wee rifles.
make sure to post up photos of finished jobs please.

It seems these Zastavas have some what of a fan club.. personally Ive always considered them a cheap entry level rifle and for $699-$799 new they were nothing flash. The newer Serbian made Zastava minis are nothing short of horrible. Some of the ugliest machining and action tolerances Ive seen. The earlier Czechoslovakian Brno made Zastavas were actually not that bad. (the one have)



They can be tickeled up to be quite smooth actions and once trued up shoot quite well. I can document that process if it is of interest?
The one I picked up for this project has pitting on the bore from corrosive ammo and lack of cleaning so it needs a new tube for sure. I also have a brand new CZ 527.223 1-9" twist barrel I could put on it too so maybe it could end up a switch barrel too.

Regardless I will post plenty of pics of the builds on this thread.

I would be very interested in a Zastava truing up process documentation.

Yes Please - I'd be keen to see what you do. I recently acquired a "Zastava Serbia" marked 223 "mini Mauser" and with a little work it is a very sweet little rifle. I saw an identical one (i.e. the same importation batch, the serial number was within a 100 of mine) in the Dunedin Gun City, just after I got mine, and it was a better, smoother example. On mine the sear dragged heavily against the bolt and it ran much better after I adjusted the sear down a bit with a shim - simple and easy to do.

Just to clarify and add a bit of context about the "mini mausers" that I've garnered from various sources . . . we have two completely different manufacturers and designs. Ceska Zbrojovka in Uhersky Brod, Moravia in the Czech Republic currently make the CZ Model 527, which is a mini mauser design, its predecessors being the Brno ZKW-465, Fox etc.

The Zastava Model 85 is made by Crvena Zastava at Kragujevac in Serbia. It too has been through quite a few variations over several decades at least, and a whole bunch of markings as they have been imported and sold by every man and his dog - Remington 798, Charles Daly Mini Mauser are a couple that spring to mind, as well as their own name. They have been available in a range of quality grades depending on what the middleman has ordered, ranging from pretty horrible to not too bad (for the limitations imposed by the actions design). Even the same batch has variations as I've explained above, there is obviously a bit of human intervention still going on at Crvena Zastava !! Everyone gets them confused with the Czech "CZ" but they are and always have been completely separate companies and designs.

Now I've owned one, tweeked it and shot it a bit I'm a believer, they are bloody good little rifles, nothing like the finish of a Sako L461, but with some features that are better, others not so. I no longer own any Sako "mini's" and have no wish to get another one, the Zastava will do all I want in a mini action.

Tentman I have the same marked Zastava Serbia CAL 223 REM 1KM85 it has a single set trigger and is a lefthand action

Thanks for that Tentman,
Heres all I know about the Zastavas, like you I have got from various sources over the years which some of them may not be accurate and some of which is my interpretation of the information.

The Yugoslavian Zastava designed M70 is a Rem 798, Charles Daly 98 and Interarms Mk X varying to some degree in fit & finish. They were all the same long action "commercial Mausers", all made by the same manufacturer in the former Yugoslavia and later Serbia.

The Zastava and Brno factories both built Mausers before and after the war. Im lead to believe the Yugoslian Zastava factory got a licence from the Czechoslovakian Zbrojovka Brno to produce M85 mini mauser actions pre the 91-95 conflict. While a different design to the Brno 465/Fox/CZ527 action they were both of the Brno factory's design.
From the few I have seen the earlier Yugoslavian marked ones are far better made than the later Serbian marked actions. There was a gap in the sporting mausers production during the early 90s war and the more modern M85s came after the factory was bombed by Nato and later rebuilt. They recieved nearly 10 million euro from the Serbian government to modernise the factory and my guess is new automated machinery. Its hard to beat those old world quality hand engineered actions.

yip mine has the cz in circle like modern brunos.... looks the same as one you have pictured...the only other diference mine has to others Ive seen is it has a bridge mount fitted which MAY help to strengthen action??? buered if I know.it wears a loopy 3x9x50mm and it fits like a glove with those highish mounts,bolt clearace is just right. many hours of working the bolt smoothed out the action but its still best if not babied. I usually only put 5 in mag as it feeds better than with 6. it has shot really well from day dot..broke barrel in with 100 rounds of that awesome norinco yellow box fmj .man that stuff kills mid sized animals well.
I hot glue gun bedded mine 20 years ago,pulled action apart recently and bedding still looks fine so wont touch it yet.
the safety never gets used.
clean them well as will rust easily.
strip the stock,stain n oil,the wood is plain but good.
awesome wee rifle.

On a lot of those old one, the safety is pretty much useless and borderline dangerous and not easy to adjust.
The good news is that an aftermarket Mauser 98 three position wing safety "à la Winchester 70" can be fitted to that bolt. It needs some carefull work but will turn that rifle into the ultimate mini rifleman' rifle :-)

Originally Posted by Friwi

On a lot of those old one, the safety is pretty much useless and borderline dangerous and not easy to adjust.
The good news is that an aftermarket Mauser 98 three position wing safety "à la Winchester 70" can be fitted to that bolt. It needs some carefull work but will turn that rifle into the ultimate mini rifleman' rifle :-)

A "Mauser 98" trigger with a safety (Timney etc) will also fit without modification (well maybe it'll need a wee touch to the inlet in the trigger area) which opens up the field a lot as there are many really good Mauser 98 aftermarket triggers out there.

Its a shame the design (with such a short rear bridge which forms the bolt guide) and manufacture (highly variable even within a particular lot) sometimes produces a bolt that needs babied as @micky-Duck points out. Mine is fine, the Dunedin one I saw was better, another one owned by a forum member that I've handled is fine too, others not so . . . . there is not much evidence on the interweb of successful fixes either apart from a few full custom jobs by the likes of James Anderson (megabucks)