Ordnance Factory of Tiruchi (OFT) has developed a new 7.62x39mm assault rifle. From what can see, the Trichy Assault Rifle looks to be an improved version of India's 5.56mm INSAS rifle.
Times of India reports ...
TIRUCHI: The Ordnance Factory of Tiruchi (OFT) has designed and developed an indigenous assault rifle matching the specifications of the AK47.
"When put into use by our armed forces and other security agencies, the rifle will be recognized as pride of India. It has been indigenously developed and has all the features of AK-47,'' said A K Prabhakar, OFT general manager, in an interaction with reporters on the sidelines of OFT Day celebrations. OFT, one among 41 such factories in the country, was established 45 years ago on the outskirts of the city.
To mark the contribution of the Tiruchi factory in developing the rifle, officials have decided to christen it "Trichy Assault Rifle,'' Prabhakar said. Field trials have been done for the 7.62mm caliber rifle with a range of 400 metres. "The rifle has been successfully tried by the Indian Army,'' Prabhakar said. It features a foldable butt and boasts of night vision device besides telescopic day vision system.
[ Many thanks to Moa for emailing me the link. ]
If you were gonna go through the trouble of developing and adopting an entirely new rifle design, why would you base it around a 68 year old cartridge design? Has nobody in India heard of a Ballistic Coefficient? I can’t believe that the Chinese have already adopted a rifle that’s better than what India will be getting in the next decade.
The outer body looks completely like a FAL chambered in 7.62x39mm.
Looks like it takes a lot of inspiration from the FAL. $0.02
Well, it is’nt exactly an improved version of the INSAS by any means. It could be considered in theory a 7.62×39 equivalent of the Brazillian IMBEL MD-2. Instead of FAL parts as a base, the OFT clearly used components from the RFI SLR1A along with some FAL based components like the folding stock.
Like Matt said what a waste of effort and resources.
To be fair to the Indians, I think they have to consider the large stocks of 7.62×39 they have.
On the design – it looks like a FN FAL (or FNC) and AK47 had a love child!
I actually like it!
Not sure anyone could actually “Improve” the turd Insas.
Look Like FN CAL/IMBEL MD-97 in 7.62M43 with AK mag
FN CAL=> http://world.guns.ru/assault/be/fn-cal-e.html
IMBEL MD-97=> http://world.guns.ru/assault/braz/imbel-md-97-e.html
Indian Armed Forces just needs to give up and buy a license from someone. The INSAS is routinely derided as horrible compromise of a design-by-committee rifle. The INSAS (and the Trichy here) are rather inflexible and it’s adherence to the Kalashnikov ergonomics and 7.62x39mm cartridge make them poor equivalents to modern 21st century assault rifles. I know they’re sticklers for reliability (Op. Meghdoot’s insane coldness had even their Kalashnikovs freezing up) but reliability for the expense of accuracy is just as bad as accuracy for the sake of reliability. It’s all the same if the round malfunctions the gun or misses wide in the end.
I hear Fabrique Nationale could use the money and the IA would probably love to be outfitted with SCARs or something.
“Why would you base it around a 68 year old cartridge design?” Several reasons:
1. Logistics – you can gradually phase out the old rifles. Quite similar to the reason why the US is stuck with 5.56×45 and why all competing designs (6.5 Grendel, 6.8 SPC) tried to be as compatible as possible (same mags, same lower receiver…)
2. Exports – if you want to sell a rifle to a different country, you make sure they can use up their old ammo. 7.62×39 is still one of the cheapest ammo choices there is, thanks to the former Soviet Union.
3. It is not a bad bullet design for an assault rifle. Ballistic coefficient may not be good, but this is for India and not the US Army, which, all snide remarks aside, has an impressive marksmanship program(*) that other countries can rarely measure up to.
4. It works very well in the AK system – you do not have to recalculate measurements. Let’s not fall for marketing lingo here: “Indigenously developed” probably means “locally produced” and not “developed from scratch”.
(*) The appropriate snide remark would be: How else could the US deal with having a great, but prissy sporting rifle as military rifle?
it looks more FAL based than AK based
The lower receiver geometry looks more FAL-like to me.
more than a INSAS derivate it seems to be a FN FAL/Rifle 7.62mm 1A1 (as it was called in india) with a INSAS gas block and berall profile, adapted to fire the m43 cartidge…
The AK is a prooven design, it’s probably going to be around for a very long time.
Why not just adopt the AKM or AK-103 then. The INAS has many problems I heard.
The reason I think they’re sticking with the 7.62x39mm is because their small-arms ammo production facilities are probably very oriented around producing this round. Add to that the fact that it’s cheap to produce, it makes little for them economically and logistically to switch to another round.
Also considering the probable training standards of the Indian military, I see little reason for them to switch to another round.