A look at the classic 8mm M48 Yugo Mauser (VIDEO)

One of the last military-production Mauser-style bolt action rifles, Yugoslavia’s Zastava factory cranked out more than a million M48s after World War II.

Featuring a cupped stainless steel butt plate, the M48 went into production in 1948 and was based on the German Kar.98K. A bolt-action rifle in a world where autoloading AG-42s, FN-49s and M1s were increasingly standard, these guns were typically put into arsenal storage almost as soon as they were built as the Yugoslav military by the 1960s was moving to adopt their own domestically-produced SKS (M59) and Kalashnikov (M64) variants. They did, however, get brushed off and see action in the horror of the series of civil wars that erupted as the Cold War defrosted and Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s.

Taking a fresh look at the now-classic Balkan rifle, OreGear goes in-depth with one in a 20+ minute video above.

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