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Khyber Pass Copy

External video
Khyber Pass Martini Pistol at RIA.

A Khyber Pass Copy is a firearm manufactured by cottage gunsmiths in the Khyber Pass region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The area has long had a reputation for producing unlicensed, homemade copies of firearms using whatever materials are available – more often than not, railway rails, scrap motor vehicles, and other scrap metal. The quality of such firearms varies widely, ranging from as good as a factory-produced example to dangerously poor.

The most commonly encountered Khyber Pass Copies are of British military firearms, notably Martini–Henry, Martini–Enfield, and Lee–Enfield rifles, although AK-47 rifles, Webley Revolvers, Tokarev TT-33s, Colt M1911s and Browning Hi-Powers have also been encountered. In the United States, a Kalashnikov-style rifle composed of a mix of parts from various style AK rifles is sometimes referred to as a Khyber Pass AK because, like Khyber guns, they are unlike any rifle produced by a factory or issued by a regular military force. The typical example of a "Khyber Pass AK" is a stamped receiver AKM chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge, fitted with the triangular folding stock common to Russian AKS-74 rifles.

The Khyber Pass gunsmiths first acquired examples of the various British service arms during nineteenth-century British military expeditions in the North-West Frontier, which they used to make copies. During World War II, some locally organised irregular forces were issued Khyber Pass-made rifles – partly for financial reasons and partly because there was concern the troops would steal their rifles and desert if issued higher-quality British or Indian manufactured rifles.


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