Zastava Mauser

[35 shooter]

Bought my first mauser on a clearance sale from academy sports several months ago for $294.00 out the door.
It's a Zastava mod . 70 in .308. Pretty sure it's the same commercial type action as the old Mark X Interarms.

The stock looked like it had been dipped in a brown oil type stain and just hung up to dry. I decided to strip the finish and re-do it myself. Got the outside finish off and then found a length wise crack inside the stock in the bridge in front of the trigger guard and mag well.
Lol so much for trying to send it back after stipping the finish.

I ordered a new synthetic temporary stock for it for now and finally got loading and sizing dies....the stock should be here sat.
Tonight i decided to find a seating depth and start loading for it and ran into another problem.
It won't pick up a cartridge from the right side and after fooling with it for an hour i finally got it picking up from the left side.

Guess i'm snakebit with my first mauser lol. I kept fiddling with the cartridge plate till i got it to feed from the left, but the right side just wants to push feed and miss the chamber.
Would this have something to do with the spring under the plate (too much upper tension, or not enough?). Side rail may need polishing a bit...dunno at this point.

I did find that i can hand chamber a round, close the bolt and the extractor will grab and extract the round. I had heard the cz would do that, but had heard the Zastava wouldn't.
Guess i'll be loading single shot till i get it checked out.

HHHMMM maybe it will feed when i put it in the new stock. Now that i think about it, the inletting on the factory stock looked like Mickey Mouse had done it. That may be putting some kind of pressure on it?

I know it was proof tested as it had copper in the bore and just a hint on the bolt face...don't see how this one made it out of the factory. I guess quality control in Serbia is just get it close and let the customer finish it up.

 

[fiver]

sounds like it got run over at some point.

check the bottom of the rails and see if it's all rough under there, or if it has been pinched in or is bent at some point the narrowed rails will mis-align the round.

the round should shove forward similar to a push feed then the rim slips in place [slides] up the bolt face and locks in under the extractor right as the round cambers over into the chamber.
similar to how a model 92 works.
the bullet should be aiming at the chamber for a bit, then hit the feed ramp and glide into place as the shoulder follows it hitting about where the head of the case would sit when the round is chambered.


if the front of the extractor has been ground into a hollow convex shape it will allow single feeding of the round off the top of the cartridge lifter.

 

[35 shooter]

Fiver i checked the bottom of the rails and there is a bit of roughness there. I don't know if i'll smooth that a bit or just get it to someone around here that knows mausers better than i do. It's definitely not letting the round slip out from under that side at all.

I did get it into the new stock with a bit of minor fitting...dang, i like that little cheap ramline stock, looks and feels better than i thought it would.
It's still feeding from the left side as long as there's a cartridge in the bottom on the right.

At least i've got it to a point i can shoot it for now....bout time. Probably will be an easy fix on the feed issue for someone who's been there done that.

 

[fiver]

yours definitely isn't the first.
it's usually in the rails somewhere.
I don't know who done the heat treating on the springs but I haven't seen too many of them be the issue.
I do have an Arisaka that gives me grief from the magazine but it really needs a block in there.
I'm trying to feed a 300 savage from the 7.7's looong magazine.
it'll feed two rounds [period] anymore and they slide all over the place in the box.

 

[35 shooter]

Btw , the front of the extractor has been ground on some for sure as you suggested. I'm betting they just dropped rounds into the chamber to proof test it and never tried loading the mag.
No way someone wouldn't have caught that failure to feed if they had loaded it normaly at the factory.

Other than the feed problem, this Zastava seems to be a solid built rifle. Very curious to get it to the range.

 

[yodogsandman]

Have you tried to feed cartridges without having the action in the stock. It sounds like the stock might be preventing the magazine box from sitting at the proper angle for the bolt to pick up the cartridge. Easy to check by installing the magazine onto the action, without the stock. Be sure to push cartridges to the back of the magazine.

 

[Ben]

For MANY years Buddy, the 98 Mauser has been a problem child with the 308 class of cartridges coming from the feed rails and sliding under the extractor claw of the bolt AND finally aligning themselves with the center of the chamber to facilitate smooth chambering.

The 98' design wasn't made for the 308 family of cartridges. The action was made for the 57 mm class of cartridges ( 7 X 57 and 8 X 57 mm ) . I know many gunsmiths that don't like to rebarrel 98 Mausers in 308 Win. because they know there will be a high probability of feed issues from the mag. box. The feed rails can be altered so that the rifle will feed well , but it is no job for a hobbyist.

As I remember things, if you look down on the mag. box from above with the barrel headed down range, mine would feed with one round from the right side just fine. If you put 2 rounds in the mag. box , the round on the left didn't want to feed. The geometry of things on the left rail on my rifles seemed to be the problem.

I don't mean to " throw water on your party ", but these are the facts. I've owned several 98 Mauser rifles in .308 Win. that were basically bolt action single shots. They were very accurate rifles, but the feed issues never went away. I finally sold them.

Ben

 

[35 shooter]

Yodog i had thought of trying that as both stocks are a very tight fit in the mag area. I'll try that in just a little while.

Ben, that sounds about like my luck.

 

[35 shooter]

OK, it's picking up from the right side too except for the bottom cartridge.
Right now at least it's a 4 shot when 5 are in the mag.

Now to load some rounds and hope it doesn't rain me out tommorrow.

 

[Missionary]

Greetings
Reading all this got me up to check and see what my model 98 caliber 308 is down here... Mine was made by BRUNO Model ZKK serial #54xxx. Never gave me any trouble. Military or Winchester all feed and fire like a champ. This rifle is still the most accurate 308 I have owned. But then it is the only civilian 308 I have owned. Has a single set trigger that is great.
Mike in Peru

 

[fiver]

when you get this thing up and running.
and decide you want a good trigger for it, the HUBER ball triggers are a good price [112 delivered airc] and provide a real nice trigger pull, using your stock spring and sear.
I had to fiddle with mine a bit and it took two trips to the range to get it set.
but it beats the daylights out of whatever [sorta adjustable] trigger was in there before.

 

[yodogsandman]

Good to hear it's starting to work right.

Is your magazine follower binding? It should not be a tight fit. Should have some slop, at least some movement back and forth/side to side. Could the tight stock have slightly bent the magazine box sides inward? I'd suspect the left side.

 

[35 shooter]

Yodog it seems to all be free in there when in the stock despite the tight fit of the stock.

 

[35 shooter]

Okay, just tried a 35 whelen rd. in the bottom right of the mag well and it popped right out and fed as far as it could into the 308 chamber. However any more than 1 rd. of whelens in the mag and the mag block keeps them from feeding right as it has them tilted up in the front with more than one in the mag.

I'm beggining to get a good understanding of how the mauser works and can see the angle of the feed ramp and the rails work together.
The bottom right .308 in the mag definitly runs into the wall just at the bottom right of the ramp as it just does not come out from under the rail quickly enough.

On top of everything i felt a bit under the weather today and it rained anyway, so no shooting today. May get to try it out later this week.
Thanks for all the tips guys...i'll get it sorted out soon i think.

 

[35 shooter]

A bit of an update...i finally managed to get the mauser hitting on all cylinders as far as the feed issues i had.
For now between bending the mag spring to get more upward pressure and by putting a bit of downward pressure on the bolt handle when cyling the action, it feeds all rounds.

I found there was a bit too much slop in the bolt when cycled to the rear. It was enough to let the bolt drop down enough and let the raceway lug at the rear underside of the bolt drag across the top of the stock.
Fileing that part of the stock down helped out too.

Got a little over 30 rounds loaded and ready for a range trip.

 

[fiver]

this should go well now.
I had the same issue with a higher combed stock and feeding 8mm rounds.
the back of the bolt would come back and ride the stock up just a bit and then try to bind just a little when I changed direction.
a bit of sanding and some refinishing alleviated the issue, but it still left a scratch in the stock right there.
a little piece of protective film for cell phone screens applied right there alleviated the problem.

 

[35 shooter]

Fiver,

Hope your right about the "should go well part" now lol.
I'm headed to the range with this puppy in the morning. Hope i have the seating depth on the noe 315 clone bullet figured out close.

It's time to get my feet wet with shooting cast in 30 cal. I've got loads from 19 to 24 gr. with 4759 no filler and a couple of loads with aa4350 that may be too fast ...we'll see.
Should finally have a shooting report on this rifle by tommorrow night.
Out of 5 different loads with the 4759, i'm hoping at least 1 or 2 of them will shoot well.

 

[Rick]

Will be interesting to see how the 4759 loads do. My 308 loves 4759 with 160 to 180 gr bullets but for me groups opened up after about 20 gr max.

 

[yodogsandman]

35 shooter, You the one hoarding all the SR4759? That's unobtanium around here. I got a #7 jug of surplus, described as SR4759, from Jeff Bartletts but, it doesn't seem to be the same. It seems to burn faster. Have not tested it much, though.

Got to the range, yet?

 

[35 shooter]

35 shooter, You the one hoarding all the SR4759? That's unobtanium around here. I got a #7 jug of surplus, described as SR4759, from Jeff Bartletts but, it doesn't seem to be the same. It seems to burn faster. Have not tested it much, though.

Got to the range, yet?

I FINALLY got to shoot it today....it was worth the wait!! It was kicking every 4th shot to the right like clockwork so i have a l have a little more fileing to do on the inside of the stock on the left side. I was only shooting 4 shot groups.
I never did let the bbl. get hot, but it was still contacting a little as it slowly heated up each string of shots.

I've got about 5 cans of 4759 left. Right now this rifle is a 3 shot wonder.
.6ish to 1.2ish with half the loads i shot including up to 42 gr. of aa4350.
Can't wait to get this stock worked on a bit more and get serious with .30 cal. shooting.
This thing is acting like it wants to show out lol.