Re: Zastava M76 Sniper Rifle
There were around 80 preban (commercial variant) M76's imported by Mitchell Arms. There were a few post-ban models imported and etched with M90. I was lucky enough to find a NIB preban rifle with a ton of factory accessories from a collector. It had every accessory you could imagine, except no suppressor (which screws on over the flashhider like the modern AAC suppressors do.) I paid a pretty penny for the package, but at the time I was collecting preban rifles of every flavor and really wanted it. About 10-years ago, PWA imported, and sold through Southern Ohio Gun (SOG) some surplus military M76's. The one I received was in rack condition, but looked as if it was never fielded. Basicly it was identical to my Mitchells Arms rifle with the only noticable differences being the Mitchell rifle had a high-gloss deep bluing, where as the Surplus M76 was parkerized. Of course there was hardly no markings on the Surplus rifle other then the factory name, proof marks, serial number, and PWA import stamp. The glass in the fixed 6x42 scopes were fairly good for eastern-block military equipment, and the reticle was typical Soviet PSO type. The tritium in both scopes had since expired when they got in my hands, but the combat sigts still glowed dimly. Apperantly, even though ATF approved the importation of these surplus M76's, after the fact they determined they had some full auto fire control parts even though the rifle was semi-auto. So, ATF forced PWA/SOG to recall the rifles. I received a letter from SOG a couple years later asking to turn in the rifle for full refund. I heard some people didn't comply with SOG's request, but I didn't want to deal with black helecopter flying around my house in the middle of the night, so I sent my rifle back. But before I did, I shot around 200-rounds through it. With FN 70's surplus ammo, as I said earlier, accuracy was around 1-moa at best. With surplus 50's vintage yugoslavian ball, it was around 2-3 moa. I also researched and found that the rifle was produced with two different rifling twists, the faster twist was optimized for the heavier M75 sniper round. I later sold the preban M76 since I needed the money for snow removal equipment. Boy, it might not have been the most accurate rifle out there, but with the deep blue finish, and teak wood stock, it was a sexy rifle.
