Army rejects indigenously-built rifles for 2nd year in a row

Cites poor quality and ineffective firepower

The Army has rejected an indigenously built assault rifle, citing poor quality and ineffective firepower, and is soon likely to take a fresh call on procuring similar weapons to replace the INSAS rifles.

The Army decided to reject the 7.62x51 mm guns built by the Rifle Factory Ishapore after they miserably failed the firing tests last week.

Official sources said there were "excessive number of faults" in the guns and "complete redesigning of the magazine" was needed to consider the guns to be used by the Army.

"Excessive flash and sound signature" were observed in the rifles during the trials, they said adding reliability aspect of the weapons needs comprehensive analysis.

The rifles had excessive number of faults and stoppages to the extent of more than twenty times the maximum permissible standards, the sources said.

The Army last year had rejected another indigenously- built assault rifle called the 5.56 mm Excalibur guns as it did not meet the required standards.

A high-level meeting is being convened tomorrow to decide about procurement of assault rifles for the armed forces. The meeting is likely to deliberate on specifications required for the assault rifles.

The meeting is being attended by representatives of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy besides top officials of the Defence ministry.

The Army last year had floated Request for Proposal for the assault guns and around 20 firms had responded to it.

The Army badly needs the assault rifles it is learnt to have been disappointed over delay in their procurement.