Last week, Minister of Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) Zukan Helez published a photo of an automatic rifle produced by the leading domestic military industry company, Igman Konjic.
“What was once our dream is now a reality. We have an automatic rifle that is the work of domestic experts and domestic production,” it was stated.
The development of this weapon is a significant achievement and represents an important step forward for the BiH defense industry, which has so far mainly exported ammunition.
However, while some media reported that this was the first domestically produced rifle, that is not accurate.
In fact, as early as 2017, the media reported that the company “AC Unity” from Gorazde produced the first domestic rifle and pistol. The rifle in question is the AC Alpha SMG, which was said to have been made in several different models.
That same year, it was also reported that this rifle successfully passed all tests in Norway and officially received a NATO code. The owner of the “AC Unity” company is the well-known Gorazde entrepreneur Redzo Bekto.
Igman perfected BNT’s project
On the other hand, regarding the rifle that Igman will produce, its development was started several years ago by the Novi Travnik company BNT.
As reported by the media at the time, the activities were slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic, so it was decided that Igman, being a much larger and stronger company, would take over the project.
Igman’s task was to continue to improve the project and to start mass production.
As previously reported, this is a 7.62 mm caliber rifle. It is expected that there will be significant interest in this product in foreign markets.
