[Partner 2025] The Sniper Rifles of Iran
Anyone who has spent significant time in the Middle East and reads the news knows how much Iran affects politics in the region. One of the ways this country influences the region is through arms sales.
TFB already covered instances when the US Navy intercepted cargo ships with thousands of Iranian weapons and published some photos from the Iranian defense expo. However, in recent years, Iran has made significant progress in small arms development.
I have some basic knowledge and first-hand experience with Iranian guns, primarily in Iraq. But when I visited Iran’s booth at the Partner 2025 expo in Serbia, I realised that the Iranian arms industry now has more to offer than I thought. Traditionally, Iran has been using copies of Eastern Bloc firearms, but at the expo in Belgrade, the display consisted primarily of new sniper rifles.
The first two were bolt-action sniper rifles, chambered in 7.62x54R and 7.62x51 NATO. The rifle chambered for the Russian caliber is using standard SVD Dragunov magazines.
In a similar fashion, there were two new bolt-action anti-materiel sniper rifles. The first one is chambered in Soviet 12.7x108 mm, the second one is 12.7x99 (.50 BMG); otherwise, they are pretty much identical.
Both types of rifles appear to be designed in Iran and do not have any special name or designation other than “precision sniper rifle” followed by caliber.
The first Iranian 50 caliber rifle was a copy of the Austrian Steyr HS .50. Iran purchased those rifles in 2005 and started manufacturing them domestically without license and official transfer of technology. Since those rifles appeared in different conflict zones all over the Middle East.
Evidently, a lot has changed over the years, and now the country can develop a modern sniper rifle in-house. It is also worth noting that even the Iranian arms industry now has to adapt to the changes in the international arms market and manufacture rifles in standard NATO calibers.
Vladimir Onokoy is a small arms subject matter expert and firearms instructor. Over the years he worked in 20 different countries as a security contractor, armorer, field analyst, product manager, and consultant. His articles were published in the Recoil magazine, Small Arms Review, Small Arms Defence Journal, Overt Defense and Silah Report. He also worked as the historical consultant for movies and weapon history books, namely "Vickers Guide: Kalashnikov" series, "Small Arms of WW2: Soviet Union" and the 3rd edition of "AK-47: The Grim Reaper". Email: machaksilver at gmail dot com
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If they can enrich uranium, pretty sure they can produce a decent rifle. Unless you are India, then you can produce nukes, fighter jets and a have space program and not be able to produce a domestic rifle.