Externally the weapon resembles the NSV; however, the internal mechanism has been extensively reworked, changing from a horizontally pivoting breech block to a rotating bolt design.

These changes give the weapon reduced recoil compared with the NSV, allowing greater accuracy during sustained fire.

The catalyst for the development of the weapon was a complete lack of any heavy machine guns in construction at that time in the Russian Federation.

[3] The Russian Degtyarev bureau was given the job of producing an updated version of the weapon chambered in the 12.7×108mm cartridge, which could be used for support, mounted on vehicles or in an anti-aircraft capacity.

Because a new barrel made of a high-tech alloy minimizes distortion and drop, accuracy has increased tremendously over previous Soviet machine guns.