Adjusting the trigger on a Zastava M70 or M85 (video)

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grelmar

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Hey... Actually recorded this a couple weeks ago, just took me a bit to get around to editing it.

Mostly made this because none of the vendors seem to mention just how adjustable the trigger is on these rifles, and the only info I could find online was a post here pointing to an old manual, and some info on a New Zealand gunny board:

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php/939754-Old-Zastava-manual?highlight=zastava

http://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co.nz/f10/zastava-m70-trigger-adjustment-9750/

Thought maybe some people might find even a poorly made video a bit of help. These are great little rifles, and I really like how tweakable the trigger is - getting a nice, light and crisp trigger goes a long way toward practical accuracy.

Picked up the M85 off Corwin-Arms on their Black Friday sale. Martin, as usual, was awesome to deal with. (His website seems to be having technical difficulty today, but I'm sure will be back up soon).


Constructive criticism about the video accepted. I'm no YouTube star, never will be, so the main goal is to get a bit of info out there for people who might find it useful.
 
I found when I adjusted the trigger too light safety would not function. I have an m70 left hand 300 win mag and I like the weight and trigger and had to free float the barrel to increase accurancy. Nice rifles for the money and if I did not already have a 6.5x55 would buy a left hand zastava.
 
pbonura said:
I found when I adjusted the trigger too light safety would not function. I have an m70 left hand 300 win mag and I like the weight and trigger and had to free float the barrel to increase accurancy. Nice rifles for the money and if I did not already have a 6.5x55 would buy a left hand zastava.
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The safety itself needs to be adjusted if you lighten the trigger, and it took a lot more fiddling than that video would indicate to get it just right. It's a very narrow band to get it just right - too much to one side, and it doesn't do anything, too much the other way, and it either blocks the trigger entirely, or you can't flip it on. The difference is within 1/4 turn on the safety adjustment.

I need to spend some range time with it to find out exactly what ammo it likes, but it should be able to beat my SKS's... I basically bought it because I've become fond of x39 as an "all around" cartridge - cheap enough to plink with and shoot gophers, powerful enough to drop a deer. The Zastave is almost 3lbs lighter than my SKS, which makes it a lot handier, and I'm confident I can get a lot better accuracy out of it. With decent ammo, I'm hoping to get better than 1.5" groups off the bench, and if I can do that, it's a solid winner.
 
grelmar said:
The safety itself needs to be adjusted if you lighten the trigger, and it took a lot more fiddling than that video would indicate to get it just right. It's a very narrow band to get it just right - too much to one side, and it doesn't do anything, too much the other way, and it either blocks the trigger entirely, or you can't flip it on. The difference is within 1/4 turn on the safety adjustment.

I need to spend some range time with it to find out exactly what ammo it likes, but it should be able to beat my SKS's... I basically bought it because I've become fond of x39 as an "all around" cartridge - cheap enough to plink with and shoot gophers, powerful enough to drop a deer. The Zastave is almost 3lbs lighter than my SKS, which makes it a lot handier, and I'm confident I can get a lot better accuracy out of it. With decent ammo, I'm hoping to get better than 1.5" groups off the bench, and if I can do that, it's a solid winner.
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Im pretty sure that it will shoot better. I have a few zastavas and owned a few by now, and almost all of them were and are MOA shooters, on average they shot .75inch groups. I would like to hear a range report as I was thinking of having a 7.62x39mm zastava my self.
 
dgradinaru said:
Im pretty sure that it will shoot better. I have a few zastavas and owned a few by now, and almost all of them were and are MOA shooters, on average they shot .75inch groups. I would like to hear a range report as I was thinking of having a 7.62x39mm zastava my self.
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I'm not going to be able to get bench time in until after the Holidays, with all the in-laws and out-laws rolling in and out of town, and myself and the wife and kid returning the favor by spending days at a time rolling around the countryside "out-a-visiting"...

But I'm really, really looking forward to getting my scope mounted and sighted in, and spending some quality time on the bench figuring out what this little carbine can do. x39 has its limitations, as a cartridge, based on its ballistic profile, so I'm trying to keep my expectations reasonable. But if I can get under 1.5 MOA at 100 meters, then it's effectively a 200 meter Deer/Coyote dropper, and gopher accurate past 100 meters, in real world shooting.

I'm trying to keep my expectations reasonable, but I have my hopes.
 
grelmar said:
I'm not going to be able to get bench time in until after the Holidays, with all the in-laws and out-laws rolling in and out of town, and myself and the wife and kid returning the favor by spending days at a time rolling around the countryside "out-a-visiting"...

But I'm really, really looking forward to getting my scope mounted and sighted in, and spending some quality time on the bench figuring out what this little carbine can do. x39 has its limitations, as a cartridge, based on its ballistic profile, so I'm trying to keep my expectations reasonable. But if I can get under 1.5 MOA at 100 meters, then it's effectively a 200 meter Deer/Coyote dropper, and gopher accurate past 100 meters, in real world shooting.

I'm trying to keep my expectations reasonable, but I have my hopes.
Click to expand...
Had to adjust the trigger and free float the barrel. Take a dollar bill and see if your stock is touching the barrel.
 
I made it half way through the video and had to stop. Watching that video is like water torture.
 
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