Khyber Pass copy

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Copies of British Martini and Snider firearms built in the Khyber region

A Khyber Pass copy is a firearm manufactured by cottage gunsmiths in the Khyber Pass region in Pakistan.

The area has long had a reputation for producing unlicensed copies of firearms using whatever materials are available; more often than not, railway rails, scrap motor vehicles, and other scrap metal with basic hand tools.[1] The quality of such firearms varies widely, ranging from as good as a factory-produced example to dangerously poor.




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.[2]


External video
video icon Khyber Pass Martini Pistol at RIA

Khyber Pass rifles are usually copied exactly from a "master" weapon (which may itself be a Khyber Pass copy), markings and all. It is not uncommon to see Khyber Pass rifles with numerous errors and particular identifying factors, notably:

  • Spelling errors in the markings (the most common of which is EИFIELD for ENFIELD)[3]
  • Generally inferior workmanship, including weak or soft metal, poorly finished wood, and poorly struck markings.

Afghanistan was a point of conflict between the British Empire and Imperial Russia throughout the 19th century, from which it is reasonable to assume that tools and expertise relevant to both cultures were accumulated by local gunsmiths. Rather than a translation error, a reversed "N" or "L" in ENFIELD may be the Cyrillic "И" or "Г" character, with the gunsmith using whichever available letter punch best resembled the original letters.


WW2 era Khyber Pass pistol

Not only are there counterfeit weapons, but there is counterfeit ammunition as well. Typically they are based on low-powered modern cartridges. .30 bore cartridges are compatible with 7.63×25mm Mauser or 7.62×25mm Tokarev. .32 bore cartridges are compatible with .32 Auto Colt Pistol / 7.65mm Browning (7.65×17mmSR). 12 bore cartridges are 12 gauge (18.5x70mmR) shotgun shells.

44 bore cartridges are compatible with the 7.92×33mm Kurz round for the World War Two era StG 44. Pakistan has a ban on rifles designed to fire military cartridges; the use of the 44 bore cartridge was a loophole in the law until specifically banned in 2012. It was used in AKM copies chambered or modified for it. It was a popular cartridge because it was easy to modify AKMs to fire it but still fed from standard AK magazines. Saquib brand makes 44 bore ammunition.




New casings and bullet jackets are usually copper-washed steel, like Chinese ammunition. The casings are sometimes recycled from scrounged US or NATO military brass casings. 5.56mm NATO cases are cut-down and reshaped to make .30 bore rounds such as 7.63x25mm Mauser or 7.62x25mm Tokarev. 9×19mm Parabellum cases are cut down to make reloaded .380 ACP / 9×17mm Short or 9×18mm Makarov rounds.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Ahmad, Riaz. "The Way of the Gun". Small Arms Defense Journal. Retrieved 31 March 2019.

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