Evaluating the Indian Ordinance Made 0.32 Revolver

The 0.32 bore revolver is a handy weapon for self defense.It is also extremely popular as it can be easily carried in a briefcase or a coat pocket. The .32 revolver is manufactured by the Indian ordinance factories. The weapon is freely available to license holders and is priced at about Rs 75000 or $1600. The Indian ordinance factories are government owned and thus have no competition. This has affected the quality of the weapon which to say the least has a poor finish or esteem value.The IOF 0.32 revolver is modeled on the British Webley Scott and is a six round double action revolver.

This revolver though freely available however has a waiting period of about 3 to 4 months. The weapon has to be applied for ,along with a bank draft in full for the price of the weapon as an upfront payment direct to the factory outlet. Applicants have to send a photo copy of the license to the outlet as well. The Webley it must be noted was a standard side arm of the British army during the Second World War and by corollary of the British Indian army as well. As such a large quantity of these are available in the second hand markets all over the world.

I had occasion to test one such weapon. The weapon is sturdy and has a barrel length of 76.2mm. The weapon is quite light and weighs only 700gm. It uses 0.32 Smith and Wesson 7.62 caliber cartridges.

A first look at the weapon does not please the eye. You can see the shoddy finish of the weapon and the engravings are effected in a crude manner. The revolver details and number could have been etched in a better way. Attention to the finer points of the weapon is sadly lacking. I compared it with the original Webley and the shoddy piece of workmanship of the IOF weapon clearly stands out.

The weapon however cocks and fires easily and is effective up to a range of about 30 meters. The quality of steel used appears suspect and the weapon if stored for a long time is prone to rusting. Hence regular cleaning and oiling of the weapon is a must.

I fired about 20 rounds from the revolver and the weapon handled reasonably well. If the IOF pay a little more attention to details, they can have a winner to market. However to break into the international arms market the IOF will have to make a Herculean effort .They will have to lay down and follow stringent quality control norms.This should not be difficult as the IOF is manufacturing this weapon for decades.