There are lots of developments currently at Denel, but the majority of these are foreign contracts. Many, or let’s call it most of the people working at these facilities were replaced as a result of affirmative action during the latter part of the 1990’s and as a result of that, most of the information was also lost. One problem with conducting research of this kind is that much of the records were lost during the early 1990’s. The benefit of having this electronic version is that it can be quickly updated with any new discovery. Although every effort is being made to make this as complete as possible, there are still variations that are not documented and every now and again, something pops up. This work will try for the first time to bring together all the sources and present it to collectors in a high quality version. Researchers for the most part had to rely on faxed copies and copies of copies as well as hand-drawn headstamps and pictures of cartridges. Because of limitations in technology during those early years, much detail has been lost or was not reproduced at an acceptable quality. Much more research has been done by various collectors in South Africa over the years concerning the history and development of the 7.62 x 51 NATO rifle in South Africa as opposed to the history and development of the cartridge itself.

Until such time, we have to use whatever other available resources in order to provide the collecting community with as much information as possible. (There used to be a link to the SAAACA website regarding research into the RSA history and development of the rifles, but that link seems to have disappeared from their website). Not everything is known yet because the South African government has as yet not been prepared to give any access to the Armscor Archives. The history of the 7.62 NATO RIFLE have been documented in South Africa in relative detail up to now.

Fn 9mm head stamp