India launches first indigenously made side-swing revolver ‘Prabal’

India's first long-range revolver 'Prabal' was launched on August 18 and will be available for online booking from August 21. With a range of up to 50 metres, the Prabal revolver is available for Rs 1,40,800. The revolver is quite light and has a barrel length of 76 mm. Notably, Prabal is the first revolver with a side swing cylinder to have been manufactured in India. 

It has been prepared by the government-owned company Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited (AWEIL), Kanpur. This lightweight 0.32-bore revolver can engage its target at a distance of more than 50 metres. “This is India’s first side swing mechanism revolver. In the previous versions of the revolver, there was always a danger of the user’s hands getting burned during loading, the discrepancy has now been eliminated in the current version of Prabal. The side swing mechanism facilitates easy loading of the cartridges,” said Rajeev Sharma, executive director, of Small Arms Factory Kanpur.

Prabal’s core strengths

The preceding versions of the revolver had to be folded to insert cartridges. Apart from this, the capacity of all revolvers available in the market was only up to 20 metres, but the range of Prabal is up to 50 metres. Moreover, it does not have to be folded to insert cartridges, they are loaded via a side swing. It weighs a mere 675 grams (without cartridges) and has a barrel length of 76 mm while its overall length is 177.6 mm.

The revolver will be sold on a first come first serve basis. AWEIL is a government company manufacturing defence products in Armapur, Kanpur and the manufacturer of ‘Prabal’ has eight factories of the erstwhile Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and primarily manufactures small arms and guns for the Indian Armed Forces, foreign armies and for domestic civilian use.