As a South African I would like to thank you for your cataloguing and presentation of our small arms history, without your efforts these would be mostly forgotten weapons (ba dum tiss)
They've got this alternative history vibe to them, they're similar but different. Might be because they are so disconnected from Europe but still are influenced by it.
Before corruption completely destroyed our (South Africa's) government and weapon's developer, Denel (the old Armscor), we South Africans loved to play around with out of the box, weird and sometimes "sci-fi punk" ideas towards weaponry. You should see the Denel NTW-20, it looks like something from Halo! It was the rifle used in the movie District 9 to take out the mech. So yea, you guys in the States needs an anti kaiju or mech gun give us a call. (Heaven knows we need it)
They were very innovative. Outside of the major American, European _(FN, Beretta, HK, SiG),_ and Soviet arms industries, you don’t see many domestic designs.
I carried the FN MAG a lot in the Swedish Army. This looks like a superb upgrade to both the FN MAG and PKM systems by mixing the best of two legendary systems.
As an engineering student with a LEW bursary in the late 80’s and early 90’s I spent one of my university holidays measuring up 100’s of breech blocks for this GPMG. If I remember correctly, the somewhat intricate CNC work resulted in out-of-tolerance dimensions on a large proportion. Witnessed test firing in the 100m indoor range. Scary enough standing behind the setup, must be terrifying downrange! Good memories, LEW/LIW was a world class facility with some extremely capable people back then.
@@andriesjacksonas a cappuccino South African, I didn’t get a bursary under the milky regime. And when my children were of bursary age, they’re not going to get a bursary from swart coffee either. So we’ve decided to sell drie hoekie cookies to survive But everywhere we go there is a sign “Geen Smouse”. No hard feelings, just having some fun.
@@TheKaiser12345I’m sure I’ve got the landline number for M-net somewhere here ….. you know … cause M-Net C….. Just having some fun😉. ( now imagine if All 3 of us send a collectively ass ripping message to the Ant Nuptial Cuntry running idiots dividing our 3 generations And multiple races in OUR once beautiful and prosperous and continent economically leading land ) sounds like a revolutionary concept hey!!
Sanctions and war are the mother of invention and innovation. Such a pity our weapons industry and development weren't more globally appreciated. Thank you for highlighting our great weapons.
They were globally recognized, but the US stop most our sales,Suid Arabia wanted the Rooi fak helicopter but the Americans didn't like that,China bought some of those helicopters & make a copy the late Joe Modise former minister of Defense roport the to UN.
This gun was added to Arma 3 not too long ago with the Western Sahara DLC. The notable differences between the SS77 and the Arma 3 SA-77 is that the SA-77 has a welded picatinny rail in front of the rear sight assembly, it has fire modes of 600 rpm and 800 rpm that you can switch between, it has a 100 round canvass sack with a stamped sheet metal attachment point with a nifty diagram of which way the bullets should be pointing it does not have the zipper on the bottom. There was also added a compact version of it which was fitted with more rails on the fore end so you could attach all kinds of doodads, a more compact stock, an entirely different gas port assembly with the front sight attached to that, and a shorter barrel. I do appreciate that Arma's fictional weapons are different in ways that imply a domestic production version as opposed to the original versions modeled poorly.
R4 was not good on Battlefield, the bullets were Smaller, this helped as you could press around 50 bullets in the magasin (clip)... then precise, But it lacked firepower. Bullets were of small caliber.
The design features of that gun are impressive. It appears to have had a lot of thought concerning reliability and maintainability put in during design.
Right on, the SADF fought against SWAPO and the communist Angolan Army in South West Africa/ now Namibia and Angola. An area very similar to the deserts of the US South West.
Definitely the most interesting Forgotten Weapon in quite some time. I have a feeling that Ian was trying so hard not to fangirl over all of the cool engineering that he forgot to show the markings, say how long it was in service, or add the link to the mini-77.
mini-77 here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GoDqrzUKPBQ.html :0 also a playlist of south african videos ru-vid.com/group/PLyvMT0kbJnvtZ-L6MWUfRh9QK87Em6Gdx
Never thought as I got older how much I'd be satified by cam tracks, captive pìns, sand cuts, and minimal part machines. But the amount of forethought in this engineering is amazing.
@@BeingFireRetardant thats really cool, i love every single one of his designs. he has such a different way of thinking when it comes to firearms and i wish his guns were more available in the states
@@Enigmaticmuffin27 100% yes. I firmly believe every squad should have a PAW in it, and that it is as revolutionary to ground combat as the GPMG was. Specifically in urban warfare. And a Denel NTW20, as well, as an organic platoon asset, particularly in checkpoint overwatch.
You do NOT want to take that buffer spring out, trust me 😁 I never had that many issues with these (apart from a broken gas piston) and I quite liked it. I found it handy to use as it pointed well and had a soft recoil, accurate, wonderfully engineered (not so important practically but it really was beautifully engineered), and easy to clean/maintain. Ours were mostly mounted and we had some of the spade grips as well which I believe were not exactly common in regular SAA service. It rates up there with the MG3 as one of my favorite to use GPMGs.
I remember reading about the SS-77 GPMG in UK gun magazines back the late 90's early I think, and always found it fascinating. Great to see it getting the Forgotten Weapons treatment.
A lot of elements surrounding the weapon makes sense when you put them in contest of the border war which took place, largely, in Angola. 🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦
As a former magist (FN MAG gunner) I was always curious about this design, so nice to see it up close. It seems to address most of the MAG and PK problems. I can't see why it didn't get wider adoption. One thing that immediately stands out is that the ammo sack would kick you in the balls and there seems to be no way to hook it to the handle with a paracord like with the Israeli MAGs. I haven't seen a Negev 7 yet, but other than that it looks like the best GPMG design in the last 60 years. More impressive than I thought. Because of a short receiver and a hand grip you can use it in an assault as a shoulder fired gun. I'd redesign the buttstock and shorten the barrel, modify the muzzle device and the ammo sack (to match the Israeli pattern) and you'd get all you may want from a 7.62 machine gun. And 7.62 NATO machine guns really do have a purpose. Full size cartridges make a lot of difference. Too bad it looks like they stopped making them.
The world in the 1980s: We are not going to sell South Africa arms anymore. South Africa: Oh, so we dont have to pay royalties on any of your designs we're making, right? The rest of the world: Umm. . .umm. . .umm. . .
4:28 The "colorful" name, I'm assuming, is based in the infantry vernacular. "nutsack". Thank you for your fun videos Ian, these are always wonderful to watch! Hopefully you can get your hands on the 338 MG SIG is making, not a ton of in depth videos on it!
12:44 I expected the MG to be lighter than 22 lbs/10 Kg considering how svelte it is. Then I saw the bolt and damn it's a complicated piece to machine compared to a PKM bolt. Cherry on the top is the FAL style sand cuts. With a reciever locking system that this thing uses the receiver has to be machined as well The spade grip mechanism is cool though.
Thank you Ian. It always makes me proud to see the ingenuity of our arms industry - considering the global sanctions at the time, our guys consistently pulled rabbits out of hats.
Thank you for a very informative and interesting video. I recognize 3 guns used in the SA Defense force during 1980 -1986 during my military training. This gun was never used during that time. The LMG used / BREN/ at that time was too heavy for the gorilla warfare on the Angola border.
I was in infantry, late 70s early 80s. We only had brens and heavybarrel R1s. Bren was reliable. A beautiful weapon quite suitable for bush warfare. The only issue was the small magazines
Thank you for this excelent video. Im and old SA defeceforce veteran and i was n masjeengunner with the FN 7, 62 back in 1972. I was in 6 SAI Bravo comp.
Before corruption completely destroyed our (South Africa's) government and weapon's developer, Denel (the old Armscor), we South Africans loved to play around with out of the box, weird and sometimes "sci-fi punk" ideas towards weaponry. You should see the Denel NTW-20, it looks like something from Halo! It was the rifle used in the movie District 9 to take out the mech. So yea, you guys in the States needs an anti kaiju or mech gun give us a call. (Heaven knows we need it)
I watch all of Ian's videos( many multiple times), and That era of South African designs is so fascinating. That PAW Grenade laucher.The Neostad(?) double tube shotgun. That thing should be everywhere.
@@ВадимКараваев-й7ш The PAW-20 is just Tony Neophytou (South Africa's craziest weapons engineer) flexing, and guess what, the weapon was officially adopted into service!
Thank you for making this video, we tested this in my time in the defence force, my job was LMG1, main operator of this weapon, what a beast when it worked, duel recoil spring was an issue on mine. Cut dow trees with ease. I found it much more user friendly than the FNMag, especially on the weight side and stability on full rapid fire bursts. Thanks again for vid👏🏻👍🏻🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦🇿🇦
this is such a cool gun. so many clever elements and a actually quite like the locking system. man i hate the NFA, so many cool machineguns are virtually unobtanium and i hate it.
Thanks. A quite well-designed mechanism. The only real problem that I can imagine is the non-captive retaining pins. They would be prone to being lost during field-servicing at night in tactical conditions in the bush.
The case ejection dust cover looks like it flips up automatically when the gun is fired. I think I saw this on another weapon recently. Please cover this in detail when it comes up again. It’s a great feature but most guns don’t have it.
I was a operational corporal infantry and we had a brand new SS7 in a box in our hostel in Oudtshoorn. Never shot a single shot . What we were told at the time , why not. The springs would melt under heavy fire runs. So my training was done with the Fn mag. Still remember the sequence of fire you had to maintain not to melt the barrel. You could see the rounds through the barrel and it still fired. Amazing weapon. A bitch to carry with it's tripod. 😂
What an interesting design, and a very practical approach, especially after the gas piston problem was addressed and the second production run cut back on extraneous bits that did not have significant functional impact.
"They really thought of everything" is a bit of an understatement. I have never seen such thoughtful design. They really took field stripping and cleaning into consideration.
South Africans are like the dwarves of modern times, overcoming any situation with ingenuity. Of course the world interfered and basically caused the greatest minds of the country to all flee, leaving only a husk run by primitives who dont have a brain cell between the lot of them.
I was one of the very first 1993, reaction force paratroopers members in the SADF, and we were tasked to test the SS77. We used this on the 'Jakkals' Para jeep.
I caried both the FN LMG(MAG) and the SS77 in the field. FN was an awesome weapon. Never had problems with the SS77 either. It was definitely lighter and easier to carry and run with, and it did make airborne ops easier on the MAG gunner. We did have a couple of Mini-SS guns, but I'm more of a 7.62 guy, especially in bush warfare conditions.
For interest I was issued brand new FN Mag in 1984. Wow that was a great day, was so cool, out of its crate, still covered in the factory grease and not cleaned form shooting in the factory. It was a great LMG, would have like the SS77
In 83-84 was a no2 on the fn mag in a south african infantry platoon 8 SAI UPINGTON me and the MAG gunner albert greco were selected to be part of the testing of this gun at the RIEMVAASMAAK training ground of 8SAI.
We build our own stuff from ideas from other countries that work.....and we improved on much of those......we even created weapons, that even America has borrowed from....
