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Ref. Firearms developed and manufactured in Southern Africa 1949-2000. By Piet Winterbach + Kenn Gillie. Credit for this information goes to Pretoria Arms and Ammunition Ass. All rights are reserved. No part of this information may be reproduced, stored, manipulated in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any mechanical, electronic or digital form or by any other means, without prior written permission of the publishers. Any person who engage in any unauthorised activity in relation to this publication shall be liable to criminal prosecution and cliams for civil and criminal damages The name Tressito is derived from “trez” (Spanish - three) and in situ (English derived from Latin: In the approiate position). This can loosely constued as ”Three in the right place” and refers to Johan Visser, Dirk visser and Chris van Zyl, all three of them where directors of Tressitu. This company assembled the Tz99 pistol and, for a while, manufactured the BXP sub-machine gun. They acquired the BXP rights following the closure of Supreme Tegnologies. The Tz99 pistol assembled by Tressitu was not designed in South Africa. In 1993 Peter Oprachek, a representative of the Serbian company Crvena Zastava, negotiated a deal which would give Tressito access to Zastava and the right to manufacture their CZ99 in South Africa, under the name Tz99. Zastava would initially supply all the components for the Tz99 in kit form, including 2 magazines per pistol. Over time Tressitu would manufacture more and more replacement components, until the pistol become wholly South African manufactured. Assembly of the pistol in two calibers, 9x19 mm and 40 S&W, began in1994, apart from the name change to Tz99, one of the main differences between the Tz99 and the CZ 99 is the superior and varied surface finishes which were used on the pistol by Tressitu. The standard blued version with black plastic grips is supplemented by charcoal and chromed finished models. Some pistols have gold-plated components such as trigger, slide stop, safety catch, magazine release and grip screws. One pistol was polished and prepared before fully gold-plated by the Atomic Energy Board at Pelindaba. While exact quantities are not known, approximately 5000 Tz99 pistols were assembled. Of these approximately 3500 were exported and approximately 1500 sold locally. The known range of serial numbers for the Tz99 is from T000001 to T005000. Some of the early pistols exported to USA were named Michell. (Possibly for Michell Arms in Muscatine, Iowa, US) These export orders were not without problems. One was to a Central American country which had purchased 200 Tz99s. During pre-shipment testing, 4 of these pistols gave problems. The remainer of the shipment was forwarded, but the four faulty pistols were retained for repair. While this was done, Tressitu received a request for a single semi-automatic BXP machine gun for evaluation. This was shipped with the remaining four pistol before the required documentation was finalized. The delivery route took the plane across the United States of America and the consignment was confiscated before the documentation could catch up with it. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and United States Deptment of Justice’s Bureau of Alcahol, Tabaco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) investigated the matter. Tressitu was closed down for a short time during investigation and then reopened following its successful conclusion. Tressitu’s agent in Greece ordered several presentation Tz99s in special cases finished in velvet. Johan Visser delivered these by hand to flight personel of the relevant carrier, but later received notificationfrom the agent that the pistols had not arrived on the scheduled flight. The boxes with the presentation pistols were discovered on the aircraft 3 months later, following some maintenance work. The regular supply of barrels and other components which Tressitu received fron Zastava was terminated when the Zastava plant in Kragujevac was destroyed.in 1999, during the Yugoslav Wars. This together with the new pending South African firearms legislation prompted the directors to close the company. The Tz99 pistol has the appearance and the general operating mechanism of the SIG Sauer P226/228 series of pistols, with several variations. Like many contemporary pistols, the front of the slide has no barrel bush insert. The upper portion of the barrel chamber slots into the ejection port of the steel slide to lock the mechanism during firing. However unlike the SIG Sauer P226, which has a pressed metal slide and a separate breechblock, the Tz99 slide is a unit fully machined from bar stock. The Tz99 also utilizes the standard SIG P226 barrel cam lock system. Unlocking takes place whe the barrel and slide begins to recoil and a cam surface on the bottom lug of the barrel contacts the mating angled surface on the locking insert. This pulls the barrel down and out of engagement with the slide. The loaded chamber indicator in in the form of a small pin whick the rim of the cartridge will push up and back at 45 degrees, out the top of the slide where it can be seen or felt in the dark. The Tz99 has no safety catch but uses the same decocking mechanism (albeit ambidextrous) as the P226. This allow the hamer to be safely lowered onto a loaded chamber. The Tz99 also incorporates a passive firing pin block activated by the trigger bar. It also have a different internal blade extractor held in place by a headed pin and secured with a cross pin through the slide. The magazines are standard SIG Sauer type, holding 15 - 9x19 and 11 – 40 S&W rounds. The Tz99 incorporates a full length recoil spring guide rod. The ambidextrous magazine release is located behind the trigger. The internal slide stop, activated by an empty magazine, engages a cut-out in the slide which lock it to the rear, when the last cartridge has been fired. Downward pressure on the de-cocking lever releases the slide just prior to releasing the hammer. The ejector which is also incorporated alongside the hammer and sear assembly, eject fired cases out to the right-hand side of the firearm. The pistol is 190 mm long, 140 mm high and weigh 850g unloaded. The frame is aluminium with vertical serrations on the front grip strap and the front of the trigger guard, for positive finger hold. Uniform serrations are machined on th rear of the slide and provide a comfortable gripping area. Sights are MMC style, with both being adjustable for.windage. Standard finishes include hardchrome, gloss blue, matte blue, and a matte anadising on the frame. Some special edition pistols have gold plated assesories. The frips of the general production pistols are black polymer, but carbon fiber grips are fitted to special edition pistols. Part of the TZ99's charm comes from its rather convoluted history. The TZ99 has wandered around for a very long time looking for somewhere to call home. The gun was originally produced as a commercial venture by the Crvena Zastava factory located in Kragujevac, Yugoslavia, in the late 1980's. Called the CZ99, it departed from the P226 in a number of ways. To begin with, the slide was made from a single piece of forged and milled steel, in contrast to P226's stamped sheet steel slide and press-fit breech block. The number of controls has been reduced from three to two by having the decocking lever serve double duty as the slide stop lever, and all controls save the takedown lever are ambidextrous. A loaded chamber indicator was also added. Only a very small number, less than 1,000 by most accounts were imported to the United States If imitation is the measure of success, then the Zastava CZ99 was wildly popular. Manufacturers in a number of countries sought to produce the gun locally, some with, some without licensure. Israel was one of the countries that actually produced and exported CZ99 copy. The Israeli pistol, known as the "Golan," was much less nicely finished and machined than the Yugoslavian original, often with visible external tool marks. Nevertheless, the guns were reliable and accurate. As with the original CZ99, only a very few were imported in the early 1990's. In the early 1990's CZ entered into a licensing agreement with a South African company called Tressitu. Tressitu collaborated closely with the Yugoslavians to produce a licensed copy of the CZ99 to be called the Tz99. A number of Tz99's remained in storage in South Africa until imported in mid-2000 by Southern Ammunition Company on behalf of PW Arms. Ref. Firearms developed and manufactured in Southern Africa 1949-2000. By Piet Winterbach + Kenn Gillie. Credit for this information goes to Pretoria Arms and Ammunition Ass. All rights are reserved. No part of this information may be reproduced, stored, manipulated in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any mechanical, electronic or digital form or by any other means, without prior written permission of the publishers. Any person who engage in any unauthorised activity in relation to this publication shall be liable to criminal prosecution and cliams for civil and criminal damages

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