1. First the story of the Danuvia VD 01.

The former example of this weapon was constructed by Hungarian origin but in Germany lived home made weapon master named “Vörös”. This one was only a model indeed not be able to work well and not be able for production. He met some guy who bought the former military factory “Danuvia”. The leader of the Danuvia factory made a contract with him that the factory would develop the idea of this semi auto pistols. They arrange themselves about the future name Danuvia VD 01. (VD means Vörös – Danuvia) On the later produced weapons stay the name” Vörös” too. It took many years to produce a working pistol. Two very good gunsmiths were working on the pistol, László Kotroczó (one of the best in Hungary for long range shooting rifles) and László Bata who an excellent gunsmith too. Some old gunsmith from the former military factory also helped them. I, a practical shooter was one of the “test pilot” consulted with them about the shooting experiences. During the development I managed to find a user for the pistol, like the Hungarian Police, and some foreign government. For a military project three full auto pieces were made with 12″ barrels and folding stocks. It was a really excellent weapon, it could had 10 shots in 3 cm circle from 100 meters.

They produced the first batch of 100 units, but unfortunately it has a lot of serious problems. The black chrome cover was very bad quality, the factory ordered the workers to use different steel material at whim, they changed the technology for interchangeable barrels, but this jammed all the time. The first batch were not to sold. It was the next 350 units ordered and delivered in parts already with Lothar Walther polygon barrels when the factory broke down and closed. A very few examples were sold, mostly through me, I knew all of them from serial numbers, which ones were ok and which ones were not. Maybe two in private hands and I have some modified for blanks, for movies.

Basically, it was an excellent idea but has some weak points. The first is the copyrighted magazine, the construction can not be trusted, I thought of modifying it and solve the problems, but realized that job is only a hobby, never will make profit for a capitalist.

2.Connection to BARK 9.

I have a Slovakian – Hungarian friend name Koloman Szabo who also an excellent gunsmith. We are working on some common weapon projects nowadays too. He knew Jan Balko from former common working place. Koloman was very interested in the Danuvia system and we three came together by a different project, modified VZ 58 for 9 mm, named Marauder. That was a project from Szabo and Balko, but I was also interested in this type and arranged with Balko to buy the main parts of Marauders. I modified them to sell in Hungary. After this time we shared all information and consulted often about new ideas. For example how can we use the good things from the Danuvia and avoid the faults. And that was the way, how BARK 9 born. There are ideas from Koloman too, and I had a lot of shooting experience and gave him advice on how to fix the faults of the BARK. All of us offered the weapons under our names in the market and there are some differences between the weapons because the different gunsmiths. For example I have a copy righted AK clone AMD or AK47 subcompact, we worked together with Koloman on it, I made them from former AK47 or AMD 65, Koloman made them from Yougoslavian AK, so some small differences are there but the system is same. Both of us sell it under our own name. So, we three basically working together, but basically we are independent.

My BARK has also some changed parts on the lock, and in the firing system, and a different recoil spring to avoid reloading problems.