Azerbaijani sniper rifle IST 14.5 "Istiglal" (IST 14.5 Anti Material Rifle) will be included in the catalog of world small arms.
According to APA, technical indicators and other necessary information on weapons have already been submitted to Janes, which compiles the catalog.
The Azerbaijani side presented the necessary information at the IDEX-2011 exhibition, which was held last week in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The catalog mainly provides information on the widespread special purpose small arms. This catalog from the CIS countries includes some weapons made in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Minister of Defense Industry Yaver Jamalov told APA that Istiglal is the first national weapon of Azerbaijan: “The research has shown that there is no analogue to this weapon. In South Africa there is a weapon that resembles the Istiglal, but its firing range is 2,000 meters. However, IST 14.5 has the ability to hit targets at a distance of 2500 meters."
The ST-14, 5 Istiglal is a large-bore sniper rifle developed on the basis of the traditional manual reloading scheme with a sliding bolt action. The main purpose of this rifle is to combat the technical and material means of the enemy at medium and long (for small arms) ranges. To do this, the rifle uses very powerful ammunition - 14, 5 mm armor-piercing. The main targets for the IST Istiglal rifle can be cars, airplanes and helicopters in parking lots, communications equipment, fuel storage, against which 20 mm projectiles are especially effective.
