Zastava M93 Black Arrow 50 BMG - any interest?

Cana Company in Ottawa brought a handful of these in 2 years ago and I got to play with one. It's weird, because much of the gun is new-made, but some parts like the bolt-stop were clearly recycled M48 Mauser parts. It's like they took a Mauser, scaled up the action, stuck black plastic furniture on, and then added a few normal-sized Mauser parts for financial expediency. The bolt stop really looked out of place to me and made me wonder about it's durability when hard-cycling that huge mauser-style bolt.

Overall they were well made, though the surface finish was poor. Fit was also marginal on non-critical surfaces, but done adequately where it counts.

My overall impression at the time was that I would buy one for $2000-2500, but that they were nowhere near well enough made to justify a $5000-6000 price tag.

Of course, just my opinion.

They must be available with several buttstock options though because the ones I handled had a very different buttstock arrangement.
 
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Technical Opinion

Claven2 said:
Cana Company in Ottawa brought a handful of these in 2 years ago and I got to play with one. It's weird, because much of the gun is new-made, but some parts like the bolt-stop were clearly recycled M48 Mauser parts. It's like they took a Mauser, scaled up the action, stuck black plastic furniture on, and then added a few normal-sized Mauser parts for financial expediency. The bolt stop really looked out of place to me and made me wonder about it's durability when hard-cycling that huge mauser-style bolt.

Overall they were well made, though the surface finish was poor. Fit was also marginal on non-critical surfaces, but done adequately where it counts.

My overall impression at the time was that I would buy one for $2000-2500, but that they were nowhere near well enough made to justify a $5000-6000 price tag.

Of course, just my opinion.

They must be available with several buttstock options though because the ones I handled had a very different buttstock arrangement.
Click to expand...

The Zastava M-93 Black Arrows are a little rough where it doesn’t count but not where it does. All parts in the rifle are new production, - there is nothing used of the large size in the Mauser action class to transfer over from a regular Mauser action. Everything is "overgrown". It is arguably the one of the most technically competent dedicated .50cal /12.7 rifles in its class with a very developed magazine system more technically refined than any US product I have seen in my experience as is the developed butt stock recoil system. There is only one butt stock length as far as I know.

As for the cost, the vast array of simple, single shot .50cal rifle produced in the U.S.(primarily civilian production) dominate the market price wise, if you can get them but they cannot be realistically compared to dedicated purpose built rifle that has passed practical military qualification for military issue. The U.S. retail for comparison on these rifles with scope is about $7,500.00 USD or as low as $6,000.00 without scope by what I have seen. Really, you get what you pay for. Hope this helps

My 2 cents
 
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a bit pricy (for me anyways) but understandable considering the fact that this is a military issue magazine fed 50.
 
I would consider buying one of these in a couple of years hopefully he'll still have them available then.
 
Not to thread hijack, but I know there's been one on sale on the EE for as long as I can remember but its in the russian 12.7 not the nato 12.7 doesnt seem like there's too much demand for these bad boys. Although if CanAm is bringing them in then their might be more interest than i thought.
 
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