Comments on: A Slightly Different Take on Pakistani Gunmaking

By: duchamp

duchamp — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 17:31:06 +0000

i was in pakistan in the early ’90’s and spent a day going through the shops and factories in darra, the place is an incredible destination for someone interested in the history of small arms.

By: sth_txs

sth_txs — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 21:29:53 +0000

Darn! No OSHA rules in any of those confined shops. How do they manage? :LOL:

By: Storm

Storm — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 02:37:18 +0000

Make no mistake : not a single firearm replica there is made “only with hacksaw and files” – although some kind of an weapon (fiream?) could be fabricated with such tools, not in a million years you could make such perfect looking replicas of an Ak, Ar,mp5,etc. or a pistol only with simple tools. The guns are just fit,assembled and finished using files and other rudimentary simple tools (emery cloth, etc.), and photos of this, last operation in the process are often shown, leading to false conclusions. I suspect gunmakers there machine the parts few thousands bigger, and than they are finely finished and fitted, as you see often with pistol frames and slides. I’ve also seen pakistani websites and blogs seriously advertising their products !

By: Nirvana

Nirvana — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:33:47 +0000

Wow….nice link. Here is google translates effort at it:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbigpicture.ru%2F%3Fp%3D63558&act=url

Its interesting. No matter where or when people live, they want to have access to arms.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:58:09 +0000

the link to the pictures comes up in my browser as a series of question marks, but still works. My browser mustn’t like cyrillic script.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:46:02 +0000

There we go:
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/gunsmithing/filipino-backstreet-gunsmiths-218391/

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:41:07 +0000

Is there a reader with family connections to that area, who is both a machinist and good with a camera?

Short of having all of those attributes, I guess it would either be a wasted trip, or material for yet another snuff video.

There were some good shots a while back from the Philipines – now there’s a safer place for most of us to visit. I’ll see if I can find the links.

By: Nirvana

Nirvana — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 00:31:38 +0000

If you all have more than a passing interest in the topic there is a book that covers a fair number of designs and modifications, though it is mildly dated. “Improvised Modified Firearms: Deadly Homemade Weapons” by Truby and Minnery. While it was published by Paladin Press, it is decently done and had a lot of strange and interesting guns.

I think the topic as a whole could use another good book, with more and better pictures.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:55:56 +0000

Me too…but I don’t think I ‘m interested enough to make the trip myself.

By: raven

raven — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:13:34 +0000

I would love to see a video about gun making in Darra from a machinists perspective- focusing on the details of the trade, instead of the brief news type overview.