I finally got a chance to try out the new Zastava after handing in my honours thesis.
I was quite impressed pulling it out of the box. After reading that Zastavas were regarded as being quite "agricultural' i was pleasantly surprised to see a very deep blueing covering all the metal surfaces. On a purely aesthetic note i think they look quite good. The action is a bit rough but to date have not experienced any binding. I've now cycled the bolt hundreds of times and it has got noticeably smoother. After 50 rounds there has been no problems feeding or extracting. The stock is injected moulded plastic but it seems rigid enough (This is my first plastic stocked rifle). The rifle was covered in a liberal amount of preservative which took some elbow grease to remove. I originally was gonna buy a zeiss qonquest to mount on the rifle but in decided in the end to mount the sightron that came off my .223.
I've heard so many conflicting stories about barrel break in and because this was intended to be a knockabout rifle just gave it a good clean and then shot away. I'd decided to try some Nosler 100 grain ballistic tips and loaded up a number of charges over 2209. 47 grains showed the smallest group. I loaded up six more over 47 to make sure that it wasn't a fluke. Each group came in at under an inch which is definitely good enough for goats and the odd fox. The results were definitely better than i was expecting, not bad for a $500 rifle!
Nice quick write up dad and my old mauser love around 46 to 47 grains behind the 100 nosler I have run a quick test on the 95 vmax which looks promising too . The other is the 140 sst hornady proved accurate in the old girl
I'm happy with my 6.5x55, here's a 3 shot group I shot at a 100m with a Carl Gustaf M38 mauser.
Load is 120gr Speer HCSP, 48gr AR2209, Rem 9 1/2 primer, Lapua case, OAL 3.020.
Congrats on getting your thesis in Richta, how do you think you went?
Cheers Dr. G! Yep it was an epic struggle getting it done. Got to the point where i just wanted to hand something in so i wouldn't fail, so wasn't too confident. Ended up getting second class so was pretty happy with that!
I'm gonna take a bit of a break from study, i figured i can always come back and do a phd if i wanted too later on. I'm really keen to start looking for work ... i have to fund shooting somehow!
