Tavor TAR-21

The Tavor TAR-21 is an Israeli bullpup assault rifle developed by Israel Weapon Industries, designed through the 1990s and entered into Israel Defense Forces service in 2001 after outperforming the M4A1 carbine in Israeli trials. Its bullpup layout places the action and magazine behind the trigger group, giving the rifle a shorter overall length than a conventional assault rifle of the same barrel length, an advantage valued for close-quarters combat and for infantry who fight from inside armored vehicles, and it uses a long-stroke gas piston system broadly similar in principle to the AK-47's. Chambered primarily in 5.56x45mm NATO, the Tavor family was expanded into the improved X95 variant, which the Israel Defense Forces selected as its standard infantry rifle in 2009, and the design has since been adopted or license-produced by several other countries' armed forces.