M77 Zastava 7.62x51

[Mrs Griz]

Saw one of these offered for trade on another site but have zero experience with that brand/model. Does any one here have any experience with such a rifle? Good or bad, I'd appreciate the input.

 

Moving rural in the near future and thought a semi would be good to have. DH has a couple of ARs but uses bolt guns mostly and know he has a couple in that calibre.

 

Thanks

[Darrell]

I own a Zastava M93. It's bolt-action, so perhaps not very comparable to the M77 you're asking about, but I can tell you that it's very well-made and has been reliable over the 20 or so years I've owned it (though I haven't put many rounds through it.) Zastava has a good reputation and the company has existed for 140 years or so.  The M77 has positive reviews, and if I were in the market I would consider one.

[GS455]

Did you end up getting it?

 

This is a post/write up I did on my M77 over a year ago on a different forum (AKFiles). Course mine is probably 8 or 10 years old and came into the States originally in an ugly thumb hole stock.   Anyway, FWIW............

 

My Yugo collection is almost the same as Hansellhds. Love em. Best Comblocs (I think). One day I need to line em up for a family portrait as well.

I had the good fortune of picking up an M77 a few years ago already dressed in M76 furniture for $850. Put an Arsenal “two stage” in it, combo hider/brake, RSRegulate side mount and one of those Primary Arms FFP 6x BDC scopes, squared the back of the receiver and invested in Csspecs 20rd mags. I even managed to get a cleaning rod mounted under the barrel to have it present as an actual DMR (even though they never were). Probably the most I ever invested in dressing up a Barbie doll before seeing what she was like in bed ! Based on the great experience with my M48 (sniper repro wi ZRAK) and M76 I had high hopes for the 77 but I could never do better than 3+” groups making it nearly useless for the plinking fun out to 400 yds. It was horrible past 200 yds. I don’t reload and shoot mainly stockpiled new M80 and an assortment of stockpiled NATO milsurp. These various ammos have always done much better in my M1A (best), FALs, Galil, LAR8EO and others, at least satisfactory for plinking out to 400. The M77 was such a disappointment I was considering off’ing it or just shelfing it at the back of the safe BUT THEN…….

The other day I happened to load up some untried Lithuanian into four empty M77 mags. The other four had Austrian STG58 NATO in em. Grabbed a random mag and went to proof the rifle on paper. I was astonished to see I was getting better than 2” groups. It was the Lithuanian. I grabbed a mag of the Austrian and sure enough it opened up to almost 4”. Back to a mag of Lith and I was hitting six outta ten on 12” steel at 400 yds. WTF !!! Maybe it was a dream? Looking forward to a next day at the range to reconfirm.

Soooo, how is it all my other 762NATO rifles can do typically so much better with average milsurp ammo? That same day my M1A proofed 1.5” on PPU M80. The M77 shoots for crap for two years and outta nowhere this Lithuanian turns out to be 2” tighter than anything else I feed it. Again – WTF !!!

I know some rifles “like” some ammo better than others but statistically speaking this situation is a bizarre outlier. Almost like there’s some Communist cosmic connection here between Lithuania and Serbia/Yugoslavia each once part of the USSR (and they like each other)?

BTW and PS: I was coveting those M91s coming out one day and “settled” for the M77. Now, I may have dumped another $800 dollars into this thing and if she shoots 2 MOA I’ll be ecstatic but I just can’t stomach the thought of spending $2,400, $2,500 or $3,100 on what’s basically a better dressed 54r version M77 or PSL.