Why it matters: Interchangeable AR-pattern magazines are a baseline assumption for 5.56 rifles. A Tavor X95 in the Royal Armouries collection, examined by Forgotten Weapons, was built around an Indian cartridge that does not fit them.
Forgotten Weapons host Ian McCollum has published a video on an Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) Tavor X95 made for India, part of the firearms collection at the Royal Armouries in Britain. From the outside it looks like a standard X95. The difference is in the magazine and the magazine well, which McCollum measures as roughly 3 mm longer than AR-15 pattern. He calls it the most unexpected thing he found on his visit to the collection.
Why the Indian X95 Tavor magazine is longer
McCollum traces the change to Indian ammunition. India's INSAS rifle, which he describes as a hybrid of AK and FAL design, used its own proprietary magazines rather than AR magazines, and those magazines are slightly longer front to back. When the Indian Army later sought better terminal performance from its 5.56 ammunition, McCollum says, Indian industry developed a 64-grain bullet in a loading it called the "lethal" loading, also referred to as 5.56 INSAS.
According to McCollum, that cartridge uses the same brass and the same generally published dimensions as 5.56 NATO, but it is loaded to an overall length of 60 mm instead of the NATO figure of 57.5 mm, which he says appears to be the maximum the INSAS magazine allows. The result, in his account, is a round that fits INSAS magazines but not AR magazines. He says the bullet's internal construction is not clear to him, that good information on the program has been hard to find, and he asks viewers with direct knowledge from the Israeli or Indian side to contact him.
IWI license production and the Zittara name
McCollum says the Tavor family has long been used in India by elite police units, commandos and army special forces, that India bought several versions including the X95, and that it then contracted with IWI to manufacture the rifle domestically. He believes the rifle on camera is a model production gun, one of a batch IWI built before production was to move to India.
He labels the next step as his own inference, backed by the physical rifle: to make domestic Tavors compatible with the full range of Indian-issue ammunition, India would have needed the magazine and the receiver's magazine well stretched by about 3 mm, and this rifle shows IWI did that work. He says it is not clear to him whether the license deal led to production, or what its current status is.
McCollum says the Indian designation appears to have been Zittara, and that the program also planned a version for 5.56x30mm MINSAS, an experimental Indian cartridge for submachine-gun-type weapons. He notes that searches for Zittara mostly return that short-cartridge version rather than the standard-length rifle shown in the video.
Magazine fit tested on camera against AR-15 and standard Tavor
“A few millimeters account for the whole difference: enough that a standard AR magazine wobbles in the Indian rifle, and enough that the Indian magazine will not go into a standard Tavor at all.”
J.D. Whitfield, The ReticleOn camera, McCollum sets a standard AR magazine beside the Indian X95 magazine. The Indian magazine carries an "IN" marking and the vertical tabs he associates with IWI magazine production, and its pressed features suggest the extra 2.5 to 3 mm was added at the front. A standard AR magazine goes into the Indian rifle but wobbles considerably, which he expects would hurt reliability. The Indian magazine does not fit a standard Tavor's magazine well at all.
He also points out that the integrated flip-up rear sight normally found on the X95 has been removed from this example, and says he does not know whether that was another Indian requirement.
McCollum says the design first struck him as a strange decision, but that it makes sense in the Indian context. The Indian Army was not using AR magazines in large numbers, he says, so the longer magazine would have become its standard pattern. More importantly, in his view, it would let the army keep one standard ammunition supply without troops being issued cartridges that do not fit their magazines. He suggests the rifle was meant for frontline army use, while existing Tavors were concentrated in police and special units.
McCollum thanks the Royal Armouries for acquiring the rifle and for giving him access to film it. The video is sponsored by Headstamp Publishing and Varusteleka.
For context
- The INSAS is the Indian service rifle family built by the Ordnance Factory Board; it fires 5.56 mm ammunition from its own magazine pattern rather than AR-15 magazines.
- The Tavor X95 is IWI's updated version of its Tavor bullpup rifle, with a more vertical pistol grip and no magazine release at the front of the magazine well.
- Separately, IWI and India's Punj Lloyd formed a joint venture, PLR Systems, which opened a small-arms plant in Malanpur, Madhya Pradesh, and has reported building X95 rifles under license.
- Published references link the Zittara name to Ordnance Factory Tiruchirappalli and mainly describe its 5.56x30mm MINSAS version, which was not adopted for service.
