Dat Viet, a Vietnamese language news website has reported that the production of Vietnamese made bolt-action, five round magazine-fed12.7x108mm KSVK anti-material rifles has commenced at the Israeli IWI built, Vietnamese MoD owned factory Z111 in Vietnam. The factory has churned out Galil ACEs for some time now, to also include Galil Snipers, Negevs, Uzis, and even Negev light machine guns for the Vietnamese Peoples Army. This would make Vietnam the first and only country to be fully equipped with the 7.62x39mm version of the Galil ACE.

Numerous videos have been posted to the Vietnamese Peoples Army’s Youtube channel of officials visiting the Z111 factory, showing various small arms in different stages of production and assembly, but none have shown the 12.7mm KSVK anti-material rifle. According to the Google Translated article, Vietnamese designers worked to re-engineer the rifle along with its ten power scope, which appears to be under the nomenclature of N12. Not mentioned was the source of ammunition. Although the KSVK is chambered for all types of 12.7x108mm ammunition, there was a specially designed 12.7SN/7N34 round to go along with the rifle. From the article-

12.7mm sniper rifle based on Russian KSVK sniper rifle and some improvements suitable for use in Vietnam. The guns are designed in a bullpup style, which is the bullet box behind the trigger.

This design has the advantage of increasing the barrel length without affecting the overall length. The gun uses a 5-round carton of 12.7x108mm size. The gun has a total length of 1.35m, long barrel 1m, weight 12.5 kg.

The gun is equipped with built-in optical viewfinder N12 made in Vietnam with a magnification of 10 times, a viewing range of 1800m. The N12 viewfinder is capable of withstanding humid weather, vibration, impact, rapid shooting angle, convenient. Effective range of 1,200m, head speed 840 m / sec.

During the design of the N12, the team worked closely with the authors on the research, design and manufacture of 12.7mm sniper rifles. Therefore, the two sniper rifles and viewfinders are completely compatible with each other, able to be put in sync, use immediately after production.

The N12 viewfinder has been manufactured in factory 23, Z199 (General Department of Defense Industry), tested in practice and accepted by the Scientific Council of the General Department of Defense Industry.

Experiment results show that the glass works well, taking a quick and easy shooting angle on the glass, proper shooting posture, ease of disassembly, Median and center distance) of the gun when viewed by the glass are within the allowed range.

Along with the N12 viewfinder, the manufacture of the 12.7mm heavy sniper rifle is an important turning point for Vietnam’s defense industry to access the modern sniper rifle technology of the world, step by step. The owner of the sniper rifle makes sure that the supply of arms to the military reduces dependency from the outside.

From Modern Firearms-

Caliber(s): 12.7×108 mm (.50 Russian)
Operation: manually operated, bolt action rifle
Barrel: 1000 mm
Weight: 12 kg w/o scope
Length: 1400 mm
Feed Mechanism: 5 rounds detachable box magazine.

This video shows extensive PKM medium machine gun production-

Somewhat related, but it appears that Vietnamese MoD workers are refurbishing Vietnam Era M16A1s in this video below. If there are any Vietnamese readers out there, we’d love to get a better description of what is going on in the videos-