Strange things turn up in the strangest places
In the 1970s the springboks of the South African Army were facing a tough uphill fight against Cuban/Soviet/Warsaw pact backed rebels coming out of Angola that were well supplied and well funded. They also had a shit government in the apartheid regime that made it an international pariah.
With their standard medium machine gun being the FN MAG58 (which was cut off from import)…
That’s M240 to us…
…as well as earlier WWII era Mk1 and Mk2 BREN guns that had been modded with R1 flashiders, rebarreled to 7.62×51 and set up for FAL mags wearing out, the SADF needed an in-house gun.
Dem combat shorts and tactical basketball shoes, doe
This led to the Denel (Vektor) produced SS-77 machine gun designed by Richard Joseph Smith and Lazlo Soregi, named for the two inventor’s last initial and the prototype acceptance year.
Reverse engineered from the Soviet PK with a few twists and “Nato’d up” in 7.62x51mm, the gun is hearty and, at 21 pounds sans belt due to the use of composites over the more traditional Warsaw Pact wood furniture, isn’t that chunky when compared to the competition.
The PK is/was well used and loved throughout Africa :
Mmmmm, just look at all that 7.62x54R…A PK-equipped Ugandan soldier tracking down Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fugitive leaders takes position behind a machine gun at a forest bordering Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo, near river Chinko, (File photo).
So the SS77 just made sense and has proven just as popular as the FN MAG and the PK in certain circles.
However, they just aren’t seen in the U.S. much– which meant when the BATFE found one in the storage locker of a dead Albuquerque meth dealer and suspected murderer (Walter White, is that you?) last year it was just odd.
Oh yeah, and to further twist the tale, the gun was stolen from an gun dealer in 2009 by the FFL holder’s sister who happened to be the grandkid of a former Truman cabinet member and long-time senator.
Funny how the world works.