Last year, when I was working on my book about Zastava AKs, me and fellow TFB writer Lynndon Schooler visited Zastava factory in Kragujevac, Serbia. Since then, Lynndon has published several comprehensive articles about new Zastava weapons, but there is one more firearm we saw that certainly deserves another article - a .50 Cal sniper rifle called Black Spear.
The development of anti-materiel rifles at the Zastava factory started in the early 1990s. According to Dragoljub Grujović, former CEO of the factory, the idea to develop such a weapon came from weapon design engineer Milojko Brzaković. He offered this idea to Dragoljub Grujović, who was in charge of weapon development at the time; in 1992, the project was brought to the Yugoslav military for evaluation.
The response was unexpected: “Infantry Directorate does not see any perspective in such a weapon system”. Clearly, the US Army did not get the memo, since at that exact moment they were procuring Barrett M82A1 rifles en masse. Right before Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, the US Marine Corps purchased 125 .50 Cal rifles; the US Army soon followed suit. The Swedish Army purchased Barrett anti-materiel rifles even earlier, in 1990. But obviously Yugoslavian generals knew better.
It wasn’t the first time Yugoslav military brass demonstrated impressive foresight. In the mid-60s, when Zastava offered the military their version of the AK rifle, the response of the Chief of General Staff was similar: “Who needs automatic weapons now? They have no future”. Some things never change.
The consequences were similar. Just like with the M70 back in the day, the factory decided to develop a new .50 Cal rifle independently, without any financial support from the military.
Dragoljub Grujević and Radmilo Lepoević were in charge of the project and decided to use the proven action of the Mauser 98 rifle as the foundation. Zastava factory has been producing Mauser 98 variants since the 1920s, so now they needed to adapt it to .50 caliber ammunition.
From the very beginning, Black Arrow was developed in two calibers: Russian 12,7 x 108 mm used in DSHK and NSV machine guns and 12,7 x 99 mm, better known as .50 BMG.
Since the factory was already producing cannons, the barrel production wasn’t an issue; for Black Arrow, Zastava used the same chromium–vanadium steel. The bore was chrome-lined, which extended barrel life to 5000 rounds. The barrel was fluted for better heat dissipation.
In order to decrease the felt recoil, Black Arrow was equipped with a muzzle brake and a special dual spring recoil buffer system in the stock as well as a rubber buttpad. This solution was quite effective; recoil is comfortable for the caliber, but naturally, the side blast is massive. When we were on the range, the blast from the muzzle device knocked our equipment down and threw the poncho we were using as photo background to the other side of the shooting bay.
The original Black Arrow was equipped with an 8x power scope manufactured at the Zrak factory in Sarajevo (now capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina). According to Serbian firearms historian Branko Bogdanović, during testing the rifle demonstrated pretty impressive results - 1 MOA group (43.6 centimeters) at 1500 meters (1640 yards).
Only in 2001 was the Black Arrow formally adopted by the Yugoslav military. A new general in charge of the Infantry Directorate, Milorad Stupar, had an extensive special forces background and plenty of combat experience and understood the importance of anti-materiel rifles.
Some of the users on forums reported ‘teething problems’ of the early Black Arrow rifles, but it appears that most issues were fixed after a few years of production. Rifles were exported to Jordan, Indonesia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, the Philippines and a few other clients. It was also sold on the civilian market in multiple countries, including the United States.
My first introduction to Black Arrow was quite bizarre. I was visiting a small gun shop in the Russian town of Samara. The guy who wanted to buy my Glock used this store to get his guns from other regions and countries. I wanted to sell my Glock and get out of there, but he kept showing different weapons he purchased and just left at the store. The last gun he wanted to show was a .50 Cal Black Arrow. It was so big that he could barely assemble it without crashing glass display cabinets in this tiny gun store.
In recent years, Zastava developed an improved version of Black Arrow that is called Black Spear. During his visit to Serbia, James Reeves filmed an excellent video about this rifle for TFB TV.
The newer version I saw on the factory range last year had a new folding buttstock with a cheek piece and monopod. The bipod is now mounted on the handguard, which has both KeyMod and M-LOK slots.
Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to test the long-range capabilities of the Black Spear; it would be interesting to see what this rifle is capable of. Overall, it appears that Black Spear is a clear improvement over the M93 that better matches modern requirements.
