The INSAS is too easy a gun to make fun of. It is the giraffe of the gun world, a committee designed clone of the AK merged with some miscellaneous FN parts, badly manufactured from cheap materials and forced upon its end user, the Indian Army, by a government-owned gun making monopoly. A reader noticed this interesting photo of an INSAS on the BBC website.

The solider has chopped off the end of his stock to turn it into a pistol-esque PDW weapon (much like the pistol rifle conversations on sale to consumers in the USA). He has removed the stock just behind the receiver’s rear trunnion.

INSAS Kalantak Micro Assault Rifle

The INSAS Kalantak Micro Assault Rifle, said to be undergoing testing, is supposed to address some of the problems with the INSAS, but the Army still does not want anything to do with it and have not forgotten they were forced to adopt the INSAS in the first place …

“The INSAS AR is a non-competitive weapon system and the army became a tied customer with little choice but to pay the asking price however high it might be and whatever operational objections it had to the rifle,” a senior Infantry officer admitted.

The soldiers in the background are, I think, Sierra Leonean. It is hard to say whose uniform it is given that the troops themselves seem a little confused as to how it is supposed to be worn 😉

[ Many thanks to Miles for emailing us the link. ]