New pistol project.

[velocette]

Bought a Zastava M 70 auto pistol in .32 acp. Very much govt surplus.
Pistol arrived heavily coated inside & out with cosmoline. My very patient FFL used rubber gloves to find the serial #.
Got it home & (using rubber gloves too) commenced cleaning the cosmoline. About 2 hours with mineral spirits paint thinner, a toothbrush, Q tips and many paper towels it was free of the sticky smelly protectant.
What emerged was what appears to be a new, unfired pistol. Not a mark on it, inside & out.
The trigger was horrid, VERY heavy. So I began deburring, breaking sharp edges like on the slide serrations for cocking - - very sharp. The trigger return spring, a flat blade appears to be quite difficult to remove, so I cut slots in it on its vertical axis with a Dremel cut off wheel. Took about 4 lbs out of the trigger pull. The hammer, hammer spring, safety mechanism appears to be a single unit (which falls out of the pistol as a unit) that does not appear to be easy to disassemble. so that stays the way it is for now.
Cleaned blended & polished the feed ramp.
Went to my club today & with Hornady JHP ammo it had feeding problems with the quite short ammo. Horn JHP was 0.908" OAL, FMJ spec is 0.978. More than a 16th of an inch shorter can and will cause nosediving.
FTF about 20%. Probably will work properly with FMJ if I can ever find some.
BUT it was far more accurate than I had anticipated. I hit my club's 50 yard 8X20 popper about 9 out of 15 rounds fired at it.The sights were right on,
$225.00 all steel compact pistol, trigger is now about 6 lbs until I can figure out how to disassemble the hammer bloc unit. Recoil is quite moderate, very easy to shoot.

 

[wiscoaster]

I have several similar pistols (early CZ's) that also have problems feeding hollow points, also those weird flat-nosed red synthetic(?) bullets Federal makes; I just think that's a characteristic you'll have to get used to. Don't lighten the hammer though; you might start getting light primer strikes. And finding an original hammer spring can be chancy.

 

[12Bravo20]

I agree with wiscoaster, don't lighten the hammer spring or you will get light primer strikes/misfires. These small pistols along with Makarov and clones and Walther and clones all have horribly heavy two stage trigger pulls. Some are better than others as far as single stage pull.

 

[velocette]

Figured out how to disassemble the hammer bloc. Has a very strong spring inside of it along with the sear, disconnecter and the hammer. Found even MORE Cosmoline that wasn't flushed out. Polished the sear nose and hammer engagement surfaces lightly, Smoothed the channel that the hammer spring rides in & lightly greased the works. Hammer spring tension has not been touched, nor do I intend to mess with it. Trigger pull is improved a bit. A match 1911 it sure ain't. Overall, this is a very simple pistol. Found some FMJ .32acp ammo and some bullets for reloading (78 gr, .313" coated RNL.) so I'll be trying that out in the near future.

 

[wiscoaster]

Getting ALL the Cosmoline out can make a big difference. Not just what's visible to the naked eye. Bought an M96 Swede Mauser once that looked clean as a whistle, so took it to the range to test fire it, and it wouldn't fire. RSO advised me to take it home, disassemble the bolt, and clean out the Cosmoline. Did that and yup, it was full of the stuff. Cleaned it out thoroughly and now it shoots fine. Since then the first thing I always do with a new milsurp is completely disassemble it and clean it.

 

[TTv2]

Yours looks a lot better than the one I got from AIM surplus late last year, last time I ever do business with them.

The trigger sure does have a heavy pull. I've not yet taken mine apart to work whatever amount of cosmo was still in the hammer block and trigger parts, but I guess I should. These don't seem to like hollow points at all, so if you want it for anything more than a range toy the only bullet option that would work is the Lehigh solid copper one.