Why India’s homemade INSAS rifle failed to fire?

With the cutting-edge AK 203 rifle yet to be churned out from the gun-making factory at Korwa, in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, the search for an indigenous mainstay side weapon for the 16-lakh strong Indian Armed Forces is proving to be an endless wait.

First introduced as the soldier’s basic hand weapon in 1990 to replace the .303s and the slender-barreled Self-Loading Rifles (SLRs), the indigenous DRDO-designed 5.56 mm INSAS (Indian National Small Arms Systems) has been riddled with niggling problems from the start.

Failing to secure the confidence of the end-users during the Kargil conflict in 1999 due to issues like cracking of the magazines, jamming, spurting of oil during firing, and going into automatic mode when it was set for three rounds to name a few, the export potential of the assault gun too got a thumbs down when the Royal Nepalese Army blamed the weapon for a 2005 massacre by Nepal Maoists that saw 43 Nepali soldiers being mowed down.

The Nepal Army spokesman Deepak Gurung had said after the encounter with Maoists in the western Kalikot district in 2005: “The INSAS Rifles are okay if you fight for an hour or two but not appropriate for hours-long battle. When fired continuously, the INSAS guns become heated and start malfunctioning. You have to wait for them to cool down before you can fire again.”

The INSAS rifle was the main product issued to the Indian Army as a personal weapon from the state-owned ordnance factories till 2013-14. Since 2014-15, the Army had not placed any indent for the rifle, with the home ministry becoming the main buyer for the paramilitary forces besides the state police forces.

Between 2015-16 and 2019-20, 13-17 per cent of the INSAS rifles were returned for rectification due to defects in components like the breech lock, piston extension, body housing, and unit burst control among others.

And now, a recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has thrown more light on the issues that plague the gun.
In a 2016-2019 audit scrutiny conducted in a sample of 26 cases of ‘defect investigation’ in small weapons, 14 were from the 5.56 mm INSAS rifle. The repetitive defects were the bursting of cartridge case in the chamber, bulging of housing body and cracks in the breech block/barrel extension.

“The rifles were declared ‘un-serviceable’ in all cases. Burst of cartridge case was due to excessive pressure produced in the chamber for lower/higher hardness of components, improper tempering of breech block, and faulty process control in hardening treatment,” the national auditor’s findings said.

The audit probe committee concluded that the problems were due to “pre-existing metallurgical deficiencies in the barrels/components and deviations in hardness of the components due to improper heat treatment process. All these problems indicate manufacturing problems of a metallurgical nature in the concerned weapons.”

The Army’s reluctance to procure the INSAS also results from a shift in focus to a different caliber weapon.

Explaining its position in April 2022, the Army informed the national auditor that “there was a shift in the philosophy of small arms in 2015-16 from 5.56 mm caliber to 7.62 mm since 7.62 mm weapon was found to be more lethal as well as suitable for operational tasks.”