This is a very interesting video (a bit less than 30 minutes long) especially from the standpoint of the juxtaposition of some fairly sophisticated methods coupled with guys sitting on the ground working with files.
Pakistani Gunmaking
- Thread starter Goony
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LVSteve
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Not much wrong with the Pakistani Enfield No4 Mk2 I own. Of course, it was was made on British supplied machinery and probably with a UK contractor to oversee matters.
Yendor357
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Oh come on Goony. Everybody knows the best steels come from Pakistan.
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Waay back when, possibly the best CBS news item I ever saw was "The Gunmakers of Peshawar". Documented guys turning out working firearms with hand tools. Sometime later, #2 son and I were in a milsurplus emporium and he asked why one Lee Enfield was vastly more expensive than the others. After careful inspection I realized the action was handmade. No idea what steel, but the workmanship was as good as anything Enfield or Ishapore turned out. (unless maybe it somehow made it out of the factory without any markings?)
Just because it was made on machinery doesn't mean it's good. Back in the 1960's there was a slew of "Systems Colt" 1911s imported. Heat treating didn't seem to be something they bothered with after the Colt inspectors left and the Argies were doing it all. At least in the ones I saw/worked on.
Just because it was made on machinery doesn't mean it's good. Back in the 1960's there was a slew of "Systems Colt" 1911s imported. Heat treating didn't seem to be something they bothered with after the Colt inspectors left and the Argies were doing it all. At least in the ones I saw/worked on.
Jon651
Member
I've watched with interest plenty of those videos showing workers, machinists, craftsmen, etc. build all sorts of items in Pakistan - from cookware to truck axles and more. The combination of time-honed skills and 19th-Century working conditions can be a real eye-opener, but two things always come to mind as I watch these folks work:
1. After watching them pound with hammers and use other manual tools all day long, I wouldn't want to arm wrestle most of them; and...
2. Now I realize why I have always been told to never drink the water there - the pollution is epic.
And for those interested, Pakistan, India, Turkey and places like that get a lot of their steel from shipbreaking, which is a huge industry there and something I've always been fascinated by.
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Jäger1
Member
DLC machines next to guys doing fitting with hand tools while sitting on the floor. Suprisingly or not, it isn't really different than what I saw when I came on board as the ops manager when we attempted to resurrect Montana Rifle Company, a few weeks after they crashed and burned and the ownership group simply got in their Ubers to head to the airport to fly home. Only difference was that the guys doing the filing and hand fitting were standing at small work benches with a vise mounted on one corner, rather than sitting on the floor.
To add more context, MRC's barrel division was apparently making about 30,000 barrels a month for Remington after they purchased that division to make barrels for their AR-15s, while the barrel shop continued making barrels for MRC's bolt action rifles.
All those barrels were made on Pratt & Whitney gun drills and reamers that were surplus from the Springfield Armory - the wartime tags were all over the equipment (I should have pried a few of them off and taken them home - I would have if I had known what was going to happen to them). They dated back to WWI and had been making barrels for everything from 1903s to Vietnam era weaponry. The cutoff machine that cut down the 20' rough stock to individual pieces for drilling and reamers was made in 1903. The drilled and reamed barrels were button rifled on two different machines that were built (probably by Brian Sipe) in that shop. The "custom hand lapping" of all the finished barrels was done by muscular young guys wielding two handed cleaning rods, scrubbing a bore brush well wrapped with steel wool back and forth in them.
So... after watching how things were done at MRC, I don't see those gunmakers in Pakistan as all that much different with their tooling and fabrication.
To add more context, MRC's barrel division was apparently making about 30,000 barrels a month for Remington after they purchased that division to make barrels for their AR-15s, while the barrel shop continued making barrels for MRC's bolt action rifles.
All those barrels were made on Pratt & Whitney gun drills and reamers that were surplus from the Springfield Armory - the wartime tags were all over the equipment (I should have pried a few of them off and taken them home - I would have if I had known what was going to happen to them). They dated back to WWI and had been making barrels for everything from 1903s to Vietnam era weaponry. The cutoff machine that cut down the 20' rough stock to individual pieces for drilling and reamers was made in 1903. The drilled and reamed barrels were button rifled on two different machines that were built (probably by Brian Sipe) in that shop. The "custom hand lapping" of all the finished barrels was done by muscular young guys wielding two handed cleaning rods, scrubbing a bore brush well wrapped with steel wool back and forth in them.
So... after watching how things were done at MRC, I don't see those gunmakers in Pakistan as all that much different with their tooling and fabrication.
Kinda wondering where all the equipment went.
