Zastava's post Remington story

Baribal

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There was a lot of speculations going on about the latest Zastava imports.

Here's a little story of the Remington era facts;

In October 2005, Remington and Zastava signed a five years business agreement regarding the supply of Mauser 98 sporting rifles covering the American, Canadian and Mexican markets.
The agreement involved Zastava supplying barreled actions and new and/or improved products to Remington. Remington as their part of the contract, were to supply engineering, machineries and manufacturing processes to Zastava, so they can switch from an almsot hand-made jigs and fixtures machining process to a fully automatized, modern CNC machining plant improved steel processing.

Due early January, it's only in early February 2006 that the first batch of 3 000 of the yearly 24 000 rifles contract arrived by plane to Remington. This was the first of the 8 yearly shipments planned for 2006. To do so, they had to comply to Remington's "standard" of non blocking bolts when the safety in "on".
In 2006, the new Stainless Steel rifles prototypes produced under Remington's own technology, were accepted and early 2007 an order for 6000 SS rifles was sent in and the delivery of the rifles was due end of 2007.
Between 2006 and 2007, 42 000 rifles were shipped to Remington. These were marked Remington-Zastava Oruzje.
In June of 2007, CD&R, owners of Remington, sold the company to Cerberus Capital Management and by December 2007, the deal with Zastava was not revised nor acknowledged, so deliveries were suspended for 2008.
End of 2008, after nada business between both companies, the contract was dropped and Remington proposed that Zastava instead deal with their business Partner EAA Corp (European-American Armory Corporation) - Which provides the Baïkal line of shotguns (the Spartan) to Remington.
Zastava did not take it and it took them about 5 years to come back to the US / Canada / Mexico markets. After a 5 year mediation Under supervision of SDPR, they ended up with a deal with EAA Corp, via their subsidiary USSG (US Sporting Goods Inc) and the rifles were marked as such.
It was about time as the Zastava warehouses were packed and workers were pretty pee'd.

Then, IZH Impex imported the first batch through USSG (their Partner). The newer batch(es) seems to have been imported directly or jointly, as Impex is now said to be the Canadian distributor...

As 95% of their ongoing business is for export, it was a great relief for Zastava to be back in the US, and their new commercial agreement involves military stuff too.

It's a sad and happy story; Sad as Zastava were not able to modernize their sporting rifle plant; they are still 22 millions Euro below. I'm happy as the rifles are still handcrafted - but for how long again?
 
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So what are they doing now? LKM 70 MANNLICHER for instance, is it any good? Can you compare them to say CZ 550?
 
It's a sad and happy story; Sad as Zastava were not able to modernize their sporting rifle plant; they are still 22 millions Euro below. I'm happy as the rifles are still handcrafeted - but for how long again?

"Hand crafted" is only as good as the craftsman and not all that came from Zastava was wonderful! I had a mini-mauser for a very short time that had a bolt so roughly made it could have been made by the proverbial high school shop class.
 
The trigger groups especially in the Zastava rifles are crude and rough.

I have one of the Mini Mausers, brought in by Marstar 10 years ago. I was disappointed by the workmanship but it was cheap and the parts were sound. The rifle needed a lot of work and tinkering to be acceptable in the field.

The Remington contract rifles I had the opportunity to look at, were very nice. I didn't get the chance to look at them below the stock line.

Because of my experience with the Mini Mauser, I declined purchasing any of the Remington 798s.

Likely, I won't in the future, unless I can have a look at what goes on beneath the stock line.


As for the CZ offerings, I recently divested myself of a half dozen CZ rifles. Every single one of them, had extremely rough feeding. They didn't fail to feed but instead of being a nice smooth move into battery, the sharp edges of the mag lips made loading feel and sound like the cartridge was being pushed over sand paper.

I have not had similar problems with the rimfire models.
 
Well, one reason why they are cheap is because they don't put as much finishing effort as it was done in the days FN were making them. They don't seem to lap the bolts for softness, leaving it to the user's "care". But once it's worked a bit, it's as good as any other Mauser. And on the Mauser 98, even in the Yugo era, they always got a pretty good outside metal finish (fit, polishing and blueing), better than cheap American parkerizing or flat blueing..
By, I meant that for me it has some spirit, unlike a lot of today's soulless CNC-made rifles. But to each his taste.
The other downpoint used to be the stocks quality. But once you put the barreled action in a new stock, it's a heck of a pretty Mauser. But this issue seems to be better and better. Those I saw and handled, anyways, have much better wood than they used to be. The varnish quality may be increased, but we also must remember that Zastava is a ex-commie state owned arsenal and that the country went through numerous troubles including civil war from '80 (Tito's succession) to 2001...

Owlowl,
First, the Cz 550 is a 1000.00 $ + modified Mauser and I don't know if you mean to compare it with side-by-side a 700.00 $ ?
But usually (and it's not always the case) the Cz are better finished than the Zastava, especially for the stocks (they have CNC woodworking machines while Zastava is still the "old way") . But functionally, they are both going to do their job as good as they could.
 
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Bearhunter,

The adjustbale triggers on the Mauser 98 are comparable to any Timney I own. And I speak about the Yugo era ones too. The best Mauser trigger for me is the Sako one (on the FN Supreme below).

As for the finshing below the wood, here's a Yugo era one;

P1010015_zps220cb437.jpg


and a SS over a Genuine FN Supreme...

P1010066_zps06be469b.jpg
 
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Good post on the recent history of Zastava Baribal.

When I compared the fit and finish of the Zastava M98's I own to other rifles in their price range like the Ruger M77 or Winchester M70 (and these are actually priced a bit above the Zastava) I found some of them to be a bit crude in appearance and others like my Charles Daly to be every bit as nicely made. My stainless Zastava isn't very nicely made in some areas, particularly the bolt handle and body, but functions 100%. The recent blued models seem to be far nicer in appearance. The Charles Daly is a matte finish but the machining and finish is very nicely done. Bolt travel on all of them was rough at first but they have all become quite nice to work with a bit of use.

At any rate the finish quality isn't that important on a hunting rifle to me when compared to reliability and function. Every Zastava I've owned has always fed and ejected properly with accuracy being more than acceptable for most hunting situations.

Are they as nice as the FN commercial M98's? Not in my opinion but they are decent rifles for the money and with a bit of polishing and trigger adjustment they can be pretty darn close. Plus if one wants a stainless steel M98 for an affordable amount, they are really the only choice. I'm really glad they are making the ss versions and think they don't get the attention they deserve. Combining the reliability of the M98 with stainless makes for a great all weather work rifle.
 
Actuallly, I will try ty to get some free time to take a better picture of the blued action. This one was in my databank and was not taken for the purpose of showing the finish.

Having machining marks is something giving a clue that the product was not made by a robot but by a real human. Prior to the CNC machines and casting of all parts, there always been evidences of minor machining / finishing "defects" and I feel the "modern" aseptical all identical twins production misses something important; the human factor.
 
Markings

I don't have a Remington 798 to compare.

Yugo-era marking;

P1010019_zps868e5475.jpg


Post Remington, USSG marking
Note the "Read Owner's manual" lawyer's stamp (produced 2010);

P1010003_zps8d0bcd6d.jpg


2013 production marking;

bf76fcc6-7810-4fb9-ba42-6132a281e107_zps64a5bb27.jpg
 
Zavasta's seem to have a reputation for being a bit "gritty" as they come, however I bought a 9.3x62 M70 Mannlicher which I liked so much I ended up buying the same rifle in 3006. The surprising difference was how smooth the action of the 3006 was compared to the 9.3x62, also the serial #'s where with in sixty of each other. The 3006 action is as smooth as CZ550FS in 3006 which I had a few years ago and exchanged for one in 308 which was an older rifle and had a smoother action. I like the Zavasta's since they come with iron sights which the majority of rifles do offer as an option these days. I like the Mannlichers because of the shorter overall length. The specs of these three rifles are as follows:

zavasta 3006 - - 9.182lbs - 3.5x10x leupold vx3 scope
zavasta 9.3x62 - 8.562lbs - 1.5-5x leupold VX3 scope -
cz 550fs 308 - 8.847lbs - 3-9x zeiss scope -
 
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Here's another marking pic. Charles Daly by Zastava. This is a very nicely made action. The stock isn't the greatest but after I bedded the action and floated the barrel it really made it a sub moa gun. Originally a .243 but since I can't stand a short action chambering in a standard length action, I had it rechambered to 243-06 AI. Probably one of the most ridiculously over bore cartridges you can find but it feeds perfectly and shoots very well.

DSCF4099.jpg
 
Thanks for posting this, jbmauser, even if it's a pre-Remington, it nicely fills the holes in the Zastava story. I hope it will also fill the "what's Zastava looks like" or "do they worth it" threads.
 
My Mini Mauser, is a decent rifle. It is accurate and light. Perfect rifle for the 7.62x39 cartridge.

All of the trigger mechanism parts, looked to be made or at least partially finished by hand. Even the slots in the trigger adjustment screws were off center and very tight. I had to be extremely careful, not to break off one side of the screws, when adjusting them.

The bolt and bolt ways never had a hint of polish on them and the bolt lugs, required a lot of work and careful stoning to get even contact on each side. I was actually starting to worry about keeping headspace in spec. All turned out well though. By the way, it has a .310 bore. It won't shoot .308 diameter bullets at all well.

This rifle was built shortly after things settled down enough in Yugoslavia to start production again. There was a reason they were so cheap and in all honesty, I was impressed by how well the finish above the stock line was done. I was also impressed with the fit of the inletting in the stock. I was less than impressed by the poor quality of the checkering and finish of the wood.

All of this was fixable and the rifle is a knockabout rifle that does what I bought it to do. That is the bottom line.

Those rifles you picture Baribal, look fine. The trigger groups look to be well made and finished. Mine isn't nearly so nice.
 
I own two and like both. My first was an Interarms Mark X in 308, my second is a Remington 798 in 7mm RM.
They are both reliable and accurate but the mark X is smoother. The Remington has a pretty laminate stock.
Otherwise there is no real difference in performance.
Good to know what happened to the deal with Remington though, its the best rifle they ever sold.
 
Why to go with a Zastava when I have (many) HVA to fill in? Simply because I mostly collect the rarer models / chamberings or whatever and don't like taking these under the rain while hunting. And I don't have only HVA rifles, I have a whole bunch of others (many in 9.3X62) valuable or uncommon ones. Then, the Yugo era one is a gift from a friend to my daughter.
And as I collect / research / document almost everything that says Mauser, they are the offsprings of the FN Supreme production.
And I always wanted a SS Mauser and here it comes, in my favourite chambering. Next may well be one rebarreled to .358 Norma Magnum. Are these enough reasons? :p
 
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