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Hello
Looking throught the latest news on Afganistan, and was amazed to see this shop selling a vast array of automatic Pistols,Rifles and machine guns, and would you believe in amonst the stock on show was a lowly WW2 Russian M44 with attached bayonet. Wonder if they have anything else interesting Enfields, Mausers, Springfields, rolling blocks, obsoletes.

See far left of picture and use + button to enlarge as quality not great.

There has been a tradition of gunmaking in the Khyber Pass Region for many years, long before the Taliban, and everything from Martini-Henry rifles to AR copies are handmade, some are actually very good quality whereas others are barely servicable.AK rifles are popular as they are relatively simple, often gas pistons for them are made from railroad spikes!.

Link to an article on Khyber Pass gunmakers......

https://silahreport.com/2019/08/23/the- ... yber-pass/

Not sure i'd fancy explaining sending the money there to M16 or the import paper work to Border Force

And yet there have been "news" reports of the taliban collecting up weapons from the general population...........
Plus clips of smashed up yank ordnance, helicopters humvees etc., and at the same time, taliban joyriding over Kabul in a blackhawk, and driving around in humvees.....

I'd take it all with a large pinch of NaCl myself...

Pete

Pete wrote: ↑Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:16 am And yet there have been "news" reports of the taliban collecting up weapons from the general population...........
Plus clips of smashed up yank ordnance, helicopters humvees etc., and at the same time, taliban joyriding over Kabul in a blackhawk, and driving around in humvees.....

I'd take it all with a large pinch of NaCl myself...

Pete

The gunmakers of the Khyber Pass region and Dara, which is roughly halfway between Kabul and Herat, have been widely documented for decades and as said the making of firearms was going on way before the Taliban were even thought of, they started making copies of British service rifles before they'd even kicked the British out of the country in the 19th century!.

In the States there is quite a collectors scene for firearms produced in the region, I have seen a number of photos of excellent copies of Soviet Makarovs, TT-33's and AKM's etc that even have Soviet Refurb depot markings added to them and some very well copied Lee Enfield rifles to name but a few.

I backpacked around Afghanistan in the 70's, and I've seen the workshops in the NW frontier province.
The quality varied enormously.....much of it was poor, but hey, it went bang and the bullet went more or less where intended, so the locals were happy.
Some of the AK's were very good.

Pete

Pete wrote: ↑Mon Sep 06, 2021 4:44 pm I backpacked around Afghanistan in the 70's, and I've seen the workshops in the NW frontier province.
The quality varied enormously.....much of it was poor, but hey, it went bang and the bullet went more or less where intended, so the locals were happy.
Some of the AK's were very good.

Pete

That must have been quite an adventure, any photos?

Only a std 8 movie film spliced up from around 20 spools that I never got around to digitising. (It covers Germany to India).........I still have the Eumig projector somewhere, so maybe a project for the autumn.
As for an adventure, I had the wrong visa... when I tried to leave via Torkham, they took my passport, so my stay was extended somewhat.
Pashtuns were great warm hospitable people, though.

Pete

Here you are.....doesn't seem to have changed much.......

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=torkha ... &ia=images

Pete

Pete wrote: ↑Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:01 pm Only a std 8 movie film spliced up from around 20 spools that I never got around to digitising. (It covers Germany to India).........I still have the Eumig projector somewhere, so maybe a project for the autumn.
As for an adventure, I had the wrong visa... when I tried to leave via Torkham, they took my passport, so my stay was extended somewhat.
Pashtuns were great warm hospitable people, though.

Pete

One of the guys I work with is a Pashtun, he would go back to Afghanistan to see his family every December for about 4 weeks (don't know if he'll go this year!) and on one trip over there he brought me back a 1986-dated Soviet Border Guard winter Afghanka jacket that one of his relatives had tucked away for years, it has a definite "been there, done that" look to it!.