Developed in the 1970s and released in the early 1980s, the Type 77 was designed by the same team of People's Liberation Army engineers responsible for the Type 64 Pistol and the Type 64 Silenced Pistol as a dedicated police sidearm. Reaching back several decades in arms design, the PLA team resurrected the "Einhander" system of Lignose with the front of the trigger guard doubling as a lever to rack the slide with the shooting hand alone. Improving on the European design, the 77's cocking lever automatically disconnects from the slide when fully retracted, and after a short let-up can be squeezed to fire the pistol. A manual safety on the left side of the frame gives the user the choice of transporting the pistol with an empty chamber and racking the slide with their trigger finger before use, or using the more conventional "cocked and locked" loaded-chamber method. Fixed sights, with "316 77(Chinese symbol) 0925953" on the slide, checkered grips with 5-point star imprints, and a lanyard ring. NOTE: Do not mistake this pistol for the more common 77B export model; this is the original, straight-blowback Model 77 in the proprietary Chinese 7.62x17 chambering. The consignor states this is the only example in the United States. While we have not verified that it is the only one, we didn’t come across any others in our research and have sold no Model 77s in the past.