Originally Posted By: Winny FanThe Yugoslav Zvastava action is what has been imported into the US on and off since the ~1960's-1970's era. Originally they came in as imported rifles and as actions and barreled actions sold by Interarms in Alexandria, VA.
At one point in time, Charles Daly imported the same action in an almost identical looking rifle. During the Yugoslav war of the 1990's, the Zvastava factory was shelled by Serbian forces and it was destroyed. Following the conclusion of the war, the US State Department slapped an arms embargo on the Serbian government of Yugoslavia which barred importation of the actions and the actions dried up for a time in the US. Remington came on board a few years ago and when the embargo was finally lifted, they began importing rifles labeled as Remington Model 798 rifles and the earlier smaller Mark X Mini action was imported as the Model 799. This arrangement has since lapsed and I'm not sure if they are still being imported by anyone today.
Overall, fit and finish varied greatly over the years. The Interarms rifles were generally a well polished and finished action. Later, under Charles Daly, the metal finishing was not as good with tooling marks visible on some of the action surfaces. The Remington logo rifles had decent surface polishing but are not of the level of the Interamrsm era in terms of overall quality and finish.
Mauser fans do use them to build rifles, but for the most part you end up with a decent rifle at a modest price. A few years ago, CDNN, a wholesale firm in Abilene, Texas sold off the Remington remnants in 375 H&H and 458 Win Mag at about $500 per complete rifle, a testament to their real worth and the small demand for them.
Although some are used for custom rifles today, a real Mauser fan planning to build a fairly expensive custom rifle on a 98 Mauser action today will seek out a Brevex or a commercial FN action or even a good military action like the FN military, CZ-24, or the '09 Argentine action before using a Mark X to build on due to quality differences. In the classic Mauser custom rifle world, a good commercial FN action or similar is a Cadillac, and the Mark X is a Chevy Nova in comparison.
The Remmy imports were the model's 798/799 and like everything else Remington does these were done on a corner-cutting, bean-counting basis, very poor stocks and yes cheap finish work. I do take exception to your last paragraph, there are a lot of top end customs done on this action. Go price an Interarms Mark x Whitworth in original condition, they run around $1,000 and are more Cadillac than Nova.
