Thread: Zastava M85 223 - Bubba issue

Below is a photo of the butt end of the stock of my recently acquired Zastava M85 223, where a rear sling anchor point has been somewhat Bubba'ed

It came to me with this hole roughly plugged, turns out with not very hard builders bog or similar. I marked a centre and drilled a pilot hole - and hit metal. You can see the shiny bit in the bottom.

The hole was deep enough to accept a shorter fore-end screw so I drilled the final and screwed it in. Predictably when it grounded, the next slight tightening lifted the shitty builders-bog plug out and I was left with this.

It appears there is earlier bog fill front and back of the hole for quite a way. So, some questions of wood stocked Zastava owners...

Did they originally come with Sling Mount points?

Is the metal in the bottom if the hole likely to be a retaining bolt/screw for the rubber butt plate, or, the remains of a broken sling anchor? There are no visible cracks in the butt so I'm not thinking it is a pin holding the stock together unless its a factory original - part of their assembly.

If it's a butt plate screw then then I guess I'll need to move the anchor point forward. Or figure how to access the screw and replace it with a shorter one. If it's a broken anchor point or a factory pin it can stay there and I'll move the hole forward anyway.

I'm thinking I need to dig the rest of the bog out if that's what it is, and look at splicing some timber in lengthwise.

Anyone got a spare bit of walnut say from a broken stock?

And I'm not even trying to figure how the damage originally occurred.

The forend hole was perfectly reusable. Just a few bruises consistent with a bipod being cramped down on it.

Here's the photo. Thoughts welcome.

UPDATE: So got my courage up and did a a but of fore and aft drilling and pretty sure its a bloody butt retaining bolt or screw. What a pox!

Come forward inch and drill wee pilot hole.should be well past it.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Come forward inch and drill wee pilot hole.should be well past it.

Yup what I did. Will get something decent to fill the old one properly. Guess its a complication of the short stock - itty bitty thing that it is...

If you get carried away and end up re-finishing the stock, you could save the dust from sanding it down and mix that with Araldite. Fill the hole with this mixture and sand to shape.

I bought some plug drills for such things
Find a piece of wood like an old stock or whatever and make one.
Mix some 2 part epoxy and put it in
Hole is always there but it fixes it pretty well

That doesnt look like walnut.

I’ve got plenty of walnut offcuts, but that most definitely isn’t walnut. Most likely beech.

Originally Posted by Hunter_Nick

I’ve got plenty of walnut offcuts, but that most definitely isn’t walnut. Most likely beech.

Yeah I suspect your correct. Beech anyone?

I've seen one in 22 hornet in a walnut stock but all the other timber ones I've seen are beech, except for Micky ducks palownia one.
Me? Mines in the black slightly flexible plastic stocks they came in. It caused all kinds of accuracy issues till I free floated, bedded and stiffened it up.

Has the stock been shortened? Reason I ask is that in all the pics on the net, show the sling swivel a lot further away from the recoil pad than yours but they look to be in a similar position in relation to the cheek piece on your rifle.

https://zastavaarmsusa.com/product/s...-rifle-lk-m85/

Originally Posted by NZShoota

Has the stock been shortened? Reason I ask is that in all the pics on the net, show the sling swivel a lot further away from the recoil pad than yours but they look to be in a similar position in relation to the cheek piece on your rifle.

https://zastavaarmsusa.com/product/s...-rifle-lk-m85/

Maybe it has. I'll be keeping an eye out for a replacement. At the moment its a bit short for me, like 2.5-3", but I have grandkids growing into this space

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

I've seen one in 22 hornet in a walnut stock but all the other timber ones I've seen are beech, except for Micky ducks palownia one.
Me? Mines in the black slightly flexible plastic stocks they came in. It caused all kinds of accuracy issues till I free floated, bedded and stiffened it up.

I recently had to fit a decent butt pad to a synthetic stocked M85. Shot pretty good beforehand, but the butt pad was literally falling to pieces, some rubbery wobbly bloody thing that was molded to the stock at manufacture. Took the action out of the rifle and bugger me, there a recoil lug, but no recoil block molded in to the stock, it just sits on a big flat piece of plastic. So I fitted the butt pad, put the rifle back together and tried 4 different loads before giving it back to the young lady that owns it. For some reason it just shot! all 4 loads went in to moa or less at 100, all same point of impact. Lovely rifle to shoot, super slick and nice trigger, but Im buggered if I know how it does it with nothing for the recoil lug to recoil against.

@Husky1600 That's because they are pressure bedded, there are two small lumps in the fore end channel that push slightly upwards on the barrel.
When I free floated mine because the stock only seemed to touch one side of the barrel I discovered the lack of a block. After a frustrating re sighting session where it double grouped because id removed the pressure points I bedded it properly and the accuracy ended up better than it had been before. My recoil pad also went sticky and got cut off and replaced.