Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and yesterday we took a look at this gun on the desk,
and today we've got it out here at the range.
This is a Yugoslav M76 Designated Marksman's Rifle with a 4x power ZRAK ON-M76B scope.
And ... a couple of questions here. So this is a Century manufactured gun with an American-made receiver,
so will it be reliable? How accurate will it be? And how comfortable is it to shoot?
This is a big ol' cartridge, this is 8mm Mauser.
I am using PPU 198 grain FMJ.
I've got the gas setting set to number 2, which is standard operation.
Let's give it a whirl and find out. ...
Alright, so the M76 is not equipped with a bipod, so I'm using just a bag.
I've got a paper target out there with some bullseyes on it, but we're going to start with a steel target,
this is 100 yards, and just make sure we're somewhere close to on zero.
I'm definitely on target. But every time I pull the trigger a giant dust cloud appears in front of me.
So let's see if we can tamp that down a little bit before we do some groups on paper.
A little bit of water should help tamp that down
I don't know exactly how well this is going to work, but it's worth a try.
Get this area soaked kind of pretty much under where the muzzle brake is.
Alright, let's see if that helps.
So a slight malfunction, the bolt didn't quite cycle back far enough. I'm gonna just make that work,
if it keeps happening I will bump the gas up to position 3.
Also my water trick actually did work.
It's still kicking up dust, but it's not kicking up dust right in front of me.
And I actually get a sight picture as soon as the recoil clears.
Not too shabby. Alright, so I was aiming here.
My zero is close. I'm a little bit high, and just a tiny bit off to the right.
This is probably, if I remember correctly, this is probably like
probably 2 centimetres at 100 metres per thing, so,
let's see, I want to go left,
let me go one notch left on the scope and see what that does for me.
And I'm going to bring it from the 100 yard cam down to the zero.
And see how that changes it. That's not bad at all.
Let's go ahead and do a bigger group and see if it holds when the barrel starts to get a little bit warm.
Alright, let's keep going.
OK, that's an interesting issue with the magazine, that doesn't appear to be ...
Alright, now that was my last round in the magazine.
The M76 does have a follower that's got a flat face at the back to lock open when the magazine is empty.
However, it's not a very well designed one, and it results in this.
So the bolt is not all the way back,
because what happens is the bolt's going fast enough that it hits the back of the follower,
and jams the thing right down into the bottom of the magazine.
So you're kind of best off keeping track of how many rounds you fired
and switching magazines before you are actually out.
Now it shouldn't be that hard to remedy.
Yep, there we go, I can just poke it back up with the tip of a cartridge. But,
just, I don't know why they didn't fix that, but for whatever reason they didn't fix that.
Overall I am reticent to move the gas system, because this is a really comfortable gun to shoot.
It actually is not punishing at all as I kind of anticipated 8mm Mauser might be in a system like this.
It's downright pleasant to shoot, so if I don't have to bump the gas system up, I don't want to.
Let's go and take a look at how the second group was.
Alright, that is not nearly as good.
My basically 2.5 inch group has become a 4.5 inch group.
This time I was aiming at this bull.
So clearly my change to the windage either was not a good idea, or the barrel is starting to walk.
Not sure which, but we'll tape this up and do one more string of five shots and see what that does.
Alright, for the last one I think we'll do 10 rounds.
And so I'm going to load 6 into each of my two magazines here,
and change them before they do that stupid follower nose dive trick.
There are a couple interesting details on this I haven't mentioned before.
One of them is that the scope base actually has a pair of holes cut in it
so that you can in fact see the iron sights under the telescope.
It's awkward, it's a very tight field of view to do it. I don't know why you'd really want to,
but ... you can, so that's kind of nice.
I really wish this had a bipod mount on it, but.
Aah.
Another not quite far enough back on the bolt malfunction,
but now I'm too dedicated to this to change the gas system now. It's a pain in the butt to do.
And another one. This time the bolt's actually locked open
right when I wanted to change magazines, so maybe ...
And another, so you can see there the bolt's just closing a little too fast,
which means it's not going back quite far enough,
because the empty case doesn't quite have enough time to get out before the bolt comes back forward.
This really isn't the gun's fault. It's my fault for being too stubborn to change the gas system.
Alright, and that is our 10 rounds.
General conclusions before we go take a look at the target.
The trigger is not bad, but not great. I believe, yep, this is a Tapco G2 American-made trigger.
That's part of what was involved in having enough American made parts to build these and sell them commercially.
It's not a very heavy trigger, but it is a long trigger. And it doesn't have a clean break
like a good two stage, it's kind of like a long single stage trigger. So that could be better.
Overall, my biggest impression really just is that this is a very comfortable, pleasant gun to shoot.
So I will now adjust the gas system up, in fact, I'll do that and see how much worse it gets.
But we'll give the rifle a chance to cool down a little bit, because adjusting the gas system
requires completely field stripping the gun, so.
Go take a look at the target first, and we'll come back, change that out, and just see how much that impacts the felt recoil.
Ooh, that's not bad.
Alright, so that's all 10 shots in
less than 1.5 inches of vertical spread,
with a lot of horizontal spread.
Maybe me.
Probably me, I guess, I think.
But that's not ... bad at all. I moved my windage back to the initial position, the initial zero. ...
That was our first windage, which was almost perfect. This one was clearly way off by about 2 inches.
If this is set up, and I apologise, I should have looked up the exact scope settings before, but if this is
5 centimetres at 100 metres, which is entirely possible, and a 1 notch change would exactly account for
2 inches at 100 yards.
So windage is back on.
I Like that. I was kind of expecting it to be a bigger group.
We are now on gas setting 3, let's see if it changes how the rifle feels.
And by the way, really happy that this water on the ground trick has worked pretty well.
It doesn't completely remove the dust, but it lets me keep a sight picture.
So I'm going to switch over to shooting back at the steel target now.
Alright, so moving the gas system up to 3 definitely does give it more kick.
That's because the bolt carrier is moving faster, it's hitting the back of the receiver and decelerating
at a greater rate, and more of that energy is being kicked into my shoulder.
So it's definitely more pleasant on 2, and it doesn't appear to have actually fixed the problem.
So that was once again the bolt coming up, not picking up the base of the cartridge.
That's ... yeah, and then it gouged the bullet. And I suspect I am out. There we go.
Alright, so the bolt came up
dragged, there we go, yeah, dragged up the cartridge and then
took a chunk out of the bullet, which then jammed when I tried to put it into the chamber.
Alright, well, there are many, many reports of issues that people have had with the various American-made builds of the M76.
So you've got that small initial group of guns brought in, I believe, by Mitchell
in the '80s that were actual 100% Serbian built guns.
Because that was before the Assault Weapons Import Ban, and they could just bring in a Serbian-made gun.
With the advent of the assault weapons importation laws you now have 922(r), which introduces
a requirement for a number of American parts in a rifle.
And so that's why you get an American-made receiver, American-made fire control parts,
and that's where a lot of the issues in ... these rifles came from, unfortunately.
So, sadly, I think what we may have here is ... I'm going to put this thing back on gas system 2,
because if 3 doesn't solve the problem I don't want to deal with the extra recoil.
In fact, I may put it down to 1 and just see for kicks if that works.
But we have a gun that unfortunately is better in its original Zastava guise than it is in its American-built version.
So there we go, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
I think we're going to come back out and do a little more, in fact we're probably going to bring out the M91
and do a comparison to it. And see how the two stack up against each other. ...
Thanks for watching.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]