The INSAS was said to be plagued with many reliability issues like cracking of the polymer magazines because of cold weather, oil being sprayed in the user's eyes and the rifle going into automatic mode when set on 3-round burst (the INSAS does not have an automatic mode).

In November 2011, the Indian Army sent a request for proposal (RFP) to 34 vendors for 65,678 multi-calibre rifles for about ₹2,500 crore (US$400 million).

[6][7] The tender also included a license to manufacture about 100,000 more rifles in India, with a total expenditure of the phasing out estimated at ₹5,500 crore (US$900 million).

[15][16] In June 2017, the Excalibur was announced to have failed tests due to concerns about quality control and ineffective firepower.

By September 2015, it had passed the water and mud tests, which four of the foreign rifles in the tender competition had failed.