#Peshawar

A Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) based handgun company appears to have successfully been able to replicate a select fire Glock 19 with the rear selector switch. Khan Afzal Manufacturer Arms recently shared videos on their Facebook page showing various company employees test firing the Glock 19s both on semiautomatic and on full automatic, once the selector was engaged.

Daudsons Armoury is a Pakistani defense manufacturer based in Peshawar, that is starting to really come into prominence within Pakistan. The company makes a number of different products, from break open double barrel shotguns to 40mm high velocity automatic grenade launchers. Daud, or “داوود”  in Arabic, is the Islamic version of Christian Biblical David, who is considered a prophet in Islam, and thus is a popular name among many Muslims, Pakistanis included. Thus, Daudsons Armoury probably should have been named Daud’s Son’s Armoury. The company appears to have been formed in 1954.

Due to a previous post on small arms development in the Federally Administered Tribal Region of Peshawar, in Pakistan, TFB received some excellent first hand knowledge of firearms standards in Pakistan, from a Pakistani firearms enthusiast. One of the common assumptions about Pakistani firearms from our side of the market, especially ones from Peshawar are that they are all handmade contraptions of metal that will be lucky enough to last you several magazines safely, and maybe a couple hundred rounds operationally. Of course, this is no slight to the gunsmiths in Peshawar who are able to churn out many thousands of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of small arms from within mud walled huts by hand.

When the subject of the gun making markets in the village of Dharra, within the autonomous region of Peshawar, Pakistan comes up, most of us wouldn’t be wrong to think of the copying of older firearms designs, such as your typical Peshawar Kalashnikovs, Martini Henrys, Tokarevs, and the list goes on and on. However, recently the gun markets have been pushing towards modernity in their new designs, much like any firearms community the world over. These designs have some interesting characteristics and twisting of various old time features alongside the new. Whether that means they are safe to fire is a whole other ball game but just from an enthusiasts perspective, the rifles and handguns coming out of the gun markets are some kind of eye candy, and makes me wonder what is going on in the minds of some of these guys! The majority of variants appear to be AK based platforms, including an interesting twist on things with incorporating an AR charging handle into the top cover of an AK. This modernity doesn’t seem to have reached handguns yet, as most of the handguns sold appear to be Turkish imports from the various Turkish companies out there. A really interesting note is that these gunmakers are putting alot of effort into adding design elements of the AR15 into their rifles. Such as charging handles, carrying handles, entire rail systems, stocks, etc… You would think that in a part of the world where the AK has been the most reliable, more people would want to stick with the status quo. However, similar to the Iraqi Army wanting M16s over AKs, or even the Karen Hill tribes in Burma wanting M16s as well, the AR platform turns up in the oddest of places. Either way, the ingenuity put into these designs is quite something, and remember that most of this is being made by hand in Peshawar.

The Durrand Line has divided the countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1893 when the British Empire created it with the king of Afghanistan. More for territorial reasons than ethnic, the line literally splits the Pashtun tribe in two, half of it’s people in Afghan provinces and the other half of them in Pakistani provinces. Most of these Pashtuns don’t even recognize the Durrand Line as a legitimate border because families are divided on both sides of the border. In Pakistan it has become such that most of the border area with Afghanistan is known as the FATA, or Federally Administered Tribal Areas. These parts of the country are largely self ruled and Pakistan has little to no jurisdiction there. In one such part of the FATA, there is an area known as Peshawar. This small valley is infamously notorious for being one of the most “ lawless places in the world“. Along with the lawlessness comes the unrestricted manufacture of small arms which are sold to whomever comes through the valley. These have been discussed thoroughly in other media. But for the purposes of TFB, we have some pictures of guns coming from the region from a local Pakistani who graciously sent them our way.