Thread: Zastava 7.62x39 Restoration

There seems to be a few fans of these M85 Zastavas so I thought Id share this little rebuild.



Technically this one is a Interarms MarkX but its just a Zastava in a prettier stock and apparently nicer machining.



Unfortunately this one had a crack in the walnut from the rear action screw right down the wrist top and bottom.





The crack was easy enough to repair by spreading it slightly with a wooden wedge just in front of the action screw and running some very thin epoxy resin into it before clamping it up and lightly sanding it while the epoxy was still wet. Its a good trick to hide the crack with walnut dust of the same colour. This works best if you scrape all the old stock finish back around the crack and remove as much of the action oil blackend wood that tends to leach in if it has been cracked for some time.







The heal had had a repair at some stage too so I tidied that one up while I was in a wood working mood.. (thats about never)





I bedded the action and epoxied in some steel pillars in to give some added strength to the repairs.



It came up pretty good. The entire stock was then scrubbed down with thinners to remove most of the factory oiled finish. A few good coats of Tru-oil and it was all sorted.









The barrel was well corroded in the grooves but it still had pronounced rifling so I was hopeful it might still shoot well enough to use as a bush basher. I picked up some lapua brass and some Hornady 123gr SSTs to give it a crack. I tried some loaded to full mag length and some crimped into the canlure.











After failing to hit the target board at 100m which was 3A4 pages high I moved closer to 50m.
I landed 5 shots on paper scattered about 30cm apart!
Plan B.. Re-barrel with a new MAB .308 bore barrel.