CRPF becomes the 1st customer to buy the indigenously developed 7.62 X 51mm Ishapore assault rifle for its forces reported Alpha Defence on its Twitter handle.


The Ishapore Rifle Factory had developed a prototype of the 7.62x51mm rifle in response to the Uri attack in September 2016 and OFB intended to build a more powerful rifle than its INSAS 5.56 mm calibre rifles. The prototype was developed in a record four months which “impressed” the Ministry of Defence who formed a Project Monitoring Team (PMT) to guide the “developmental” process”

Board of Officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs had also conducted extensive trials of the assault rifle and termed it a reliable weapon which can be introduced with the paramilitary forces too.
However, the Defence Acquisition Council 2020 meeting led to the approval and subsequent announcement of procuring a second batch of about 72,000 assault rifles of the same calibre from American SiG-Sauer at a cost of aprrox.780 crore. OFB sources said the Ishapore factory’s lethal 7.62x51mm automatic rifle, with a firing range of 500m, was assembled and test fired at the factory range with “much satisfactory results”. The rifle can fire 300 rounds at a go and has piccatiny rails for mounting sights and other platforms. It was pointed out that Ishapore factory had also manufactured a 7.62 mm calibre semi automatic rifle for the Army during 1962 war with China.

Rejection By The Army

The Indian Army had in rejected in June 2017 the indigenously built assault rifle, citing poor quality and ineffective fire power, 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.

However, it seems that the Ishapore Factory has overcome these shortcomings and produced a world-class product for the armed forces.