Meet ASMI, Army's new 33-round machine pistol

Moving a step further in achieving Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' and 'Make-in-India' initiative, the Indian Army has developed indigenous machine pistol ASMI, having firing range of 100 metres and weight of 2.1kg. Anish Singh reports.

The pistol has a 33-round magazine capacity.
 

Jointly designed and developed by the Indian Army and the Defence Research and Development Organisation, the gun can be used for domestic defence.
 

Central police forces, including ITBP, SSB, CRPF, CISF and BSF, and state police forces are in the process of procuring this device.
 

The Indian Army showcased this weapon at its innovation display event in Delhi Cantt area. 

"Few days back, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited the display site and witnessed capabilities and technologies developed by the army," an officer deployed at the display site said. 
 

"If the government wants, 9mm pistols can be replaced with this machine pistol in the security forces," said another officer. 
 

The indigenously-developed machine pistol is of more ease-of-use, reliability, accuracy, light-weight, compact and concealable. In the last four months, more than 300-350 rounds have been fired.

While explaining its features, the Army officer said the gun can be used in counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations. 
 

The production cost incurred in developing this gun stands at Rs 40,000-50,000.
 

Last month, a 5.56x30 mm sub-machine gun had successfully undergone the Defence Ministry's user trials while the Home Ministry had already passed the trials and the central police forces and several state governments are in the process to procure them.