Brazilian multinational firearms maker Taurus this week announced it has teamed up with an Indian firm to produce test batches of carbines for a large Indian military contract.
Taurus and Jindal Defence Systems have formed JD Taurus with a 51:49 equity participation ratio and are currently making carbines for consideration in regional contracts.
"JD Taurus is actively participating in major tenders, including the ongoing procurement process by the Ministry of Defense, India, for 425,000 Carbines," said Taurus in a statement. "This endeavor underscores the company's commitment to supplying cutting-edge firearms to bolster national security."
With 1.2 million active soldiers, India has the second-largest standing army in the world and has been using the domestically-made INSAS 5.56mm rifle — augmented by various AK models bought from Eastern Europe — as standard since the 1980s.
For the past decade, New Delhi has been trying to upgrade its small arms without much luck, leading to a varied program of orders from overseas to buy time for a planned factory, established with the conjunction of Russia’s Kalashnikov Concern, to produce as many as 700,000 AK-203s domestically. However, the AK plant has been slow to materialize. This has led the country to increasingly place orders for guns from IWI in Israel as well as New Hampshire-based SIG Sauer, picking up at least 70,000 SIG 716 rifles to augment its current arsenal and reportedly was seeking to double down on that amount.
The Taurus T4 Carbine
While best known for its handguns, Taurus began marketing the T4, a direct gas impingement AR-15, in 2017 and pulled down a large contract to supply the carbines to the Philippine Army in 2022.
The move to position Taurus in India comes as the company, founded in 1939 in Brazil, continues to broaden its reach. In 2018, the company, which also owns brands Rossi and Heritage, invested $22.5 million to build a new 200,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Bainbridge, Georgia to spearhead its American operations.
According to federal regulators, the company made 290,780 Taurus-branded handguns along with 505,601 Heritage-branded rifles and revolvers in Bainbridge in 2021.
Banner image: Taurus T4 (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
