Khyber Arms Company
 

Alvin [Thank You, Alvin!] originally linked to these two videos showing a present-day weapons manufacturing facility in Pakistan... :thumbup:

Disclaimer: I do not mean to belittle or disparage these people; to be truthful, their machinery is much more sophisticated than my own... ;)

...But I can't stop laughing... :roflmao:

Watch the videos -

http://khyberarms.shutterfly.com/videos/8

http://khyberarms.shutterfly.com/videos/7

Then visit their web site...

http://www.khyberarms.co.cc/

...And enjoy the pics of skilled machinists at work... :)

(BTW: The still pics have been 'sanitized'; the videos show the machining in progress...)

In my imagination, making pistol frame is probably like making furniture dovetail joint?? It's possible to make dovetail using chisel and hammer, but a template to guide router bit makes the process much easier to follow. But I did not see any templates in the video. Any explanation on that? Purely controlled by hands?

Off topic. Just watched a tank restoration video. Yes, WWII tanks!! Making those big machines running again takes huge amount of effort. Although much bigger, the restoration process in principle is same as gun restoration. They take a few damaged tanks apart, and assemble a working one out. Disassembling a tank is an eye-opening process:

http://www.amazon.com/World-War-II-T.../dp/B0063FL758

I would love to have one of those milling machines. I can't make out the make in the video, although the cameraman pans onto the makers tag on the front of the machine...

I'm wondering if they are 25 hertz...If AC, I would think so...But could be DC motors...I would not be surprised if there was an old truck engine (still in chassis) outside driving a generator for the power for this shop... :evilgrin:

The wiring has me giggling insanely...Single strands, looped all over; no color coding, no proper junction boxes...Florescent lights hanging from their own power wires...And a boom box in the corner, probably belting out Om Kalsoum as loud as possible... :roflmao:

Edit: I see now what auto pistol they are making...It is Pak copy of TT-33...

Can you imagine...no guards on the drive belts, no eye protection, exposed wiring! What would OSHA say??

Mike:cheers:

Cost, cost, cost. They can make $5 gun, and postie you cannot. That's their advantage :)

Posti,

Are those vertical and horizontal mills?

Peter

Yes, and looks like a surface grinder and what appears to be a shaper...

Alvin, you are right. I could not do what they are doing. But there are more of them...Division of labor... :rolleyes:

Now, maybe if I had your help... :)

But the world has enough TT-33's...let's make something really different... :thumbup:

The poster in the background in pic 5 looks like a line card. It would seem they make some long guns as well as something that might be a Skorpion or HK variant.
Thanks for posting this Postino. It makes me want to go out to my backyard shop and build a Broomhandle from scratch.

I feel the same way...But now I am a victim of "Catch 22"... :(

Before, I worked 10+ hours a day, 6 days a week...The money was good but I had no time for 'hobbies'...

Now I am retired with lots of time...But because of Reaganism [WEP], now I don't have enough money... :crying:

Oh, well...I'd probably spend it all restoring a tank or something... :thumbup:

From old memoirs, there were records saying that capable blacksmith could make "a bunch of revolvers and broomhandles in two months". Neither was simple gun to make..... by whom? blacksmith using hand tools?? and, the volume was "a bunch of them in two months"?? How could that be possible.....

Finally, I figured those revolvers and broomhandles were crude single-shot, not automatic. Very remotely had the appearance of revolver or Mauser.

Recent years, there were some police captured PPK-like blowback pistols. I saw those on another forum. Much better made, all have rifled barrels, one instance even had safety (not sure it's decoration or not), but the appearance still cannot compare with those Pakistan made ones.

The old Khyber Arms videos are on YouTube too -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EnM9gkE4Zs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nxQDbmpQBM

And Khyber has a competitor in the lucrative Beretta pistol market - Moon Star Arms...And these guys are crankin' out the M9 clones like my mother used to crank out Xmas cookies... :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cQDvBrVCCM