The alpha prefixes on the Yugo Mausers are written in cyrillic block letters. One of them looks alot like a square, but is not fully closed on the bottom. I surmise this is what you have.
I've spoken the Mr. B. Bogdanovic on many occasions about Yugo Mausers. He used to be the historian at Zastava and he knows his stuff. If you like Yugo guns, buy his book - well worth the price of admission.
One thing he points out is that most of the unissued M48As we see in Canada are the result of a massive rebuild program. Here's some pointers:
- If you pull the metal and look along the front right base of the action ring there will be at least one peen mark from a center punch. One peen mark means it's wearing its first barrel. Two means it's on it's second barrel, etc.
- Under the bolt handle there will be a 3 or 4 digit number. If the bolt is truely original to the gun, this assembly number will match an identical stamping on the receiver below the woodline for all M48 series rifles.
- Aparently for whatever reason, many many M48's and 48A's were separated into parts, then all re-assembled to as-new M48As. There is some speculation as to whether this was a state inititative, or if it was done in the 1990's to help with the foreign surplus market value. The jury remains out on this.
- Some of the wood used on M48A rebuilds has been tested in the USA and confirmed to originate in China. It's likely these new stocks were outsourced. They look alot like euro-teak but are aparently some other breed of teak. I'm not a wood expert, so I can;t say much more about this.
-It seems M48 and M48BO rifles are less likely to be rebuilds. That being said, many M48A's are not rebuilds either - but many are. It seems the rebuilt rifles are usually teak stocked or walnut stocked with restamped butt serial numbers. A good many have mismatched floorplates. Many of the beech stocked guns seem to be original, but this is a highly unscientific observation on my part.
-whatever the case, these are great guns at a fair price and I like them
