History of Darra Adam Khel
Pakistan Hunting And Sporting Arms Development Company

Darra Adam Khel is a village of two story wood and adobe buildings in the sand stone hills near the Kohat Frontier region in Orakzai Agency. It is the gun factory of the Tribal Areas, located around 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Peshawar on the road to Kohat. The drive takes around forty minutes.

Darra (Adam Khel denotes a clan of the Afridi Tribe) is inside Pakistan, for everyone here seems to make or sell just one things, i.e., Guns.

In the countryside beyond Peshawar, among plush fields, stand solemn enclosures with high windowless walls and tall gates. Some 300 feet long with battlements and rifle slits in the walls. These aren't villages but houses. A village is just a cluster of these forts.

The town has just one street lined with shops. In Darra Hundred's of closet sized rooms where craftsmen make working copies of the hunting & sporting arms with nothing more than hand tools and a small drill press. The tools are astonishingly primitive, yet the forges turn out accurate reproduction of every conceivable sort of sporting arms. A Darra gunsmith, given a rifle he hasn't seen before can duplicate it in around ten days. Once the first copy is made, each additional copy takes two or three days due to the templates created. Handguns, due to being more complex take a little longer.

In Darra, almost three fourths of the people are in the gun trade. Around 400-700 guns are made in Darra each day and the number is rising with the adoption of more tools.

The Darra arms trade of weapon started some more then 100 years ago. The brave pashtoons fought well and exhibited a strong front  aginst every invader, the British were guaranteed safe passage along the main roads. In any case, the British believed it better that the Pathans have inferior weapons of their own making than snatched British-made guns. This arm trade has won fame for the Adam Khel Afridi who is the major inhabitants of the town.

S.No. DAK Detailed Numbers
1 Establishment  of DAK cluster   150 years
2 Number of Employees in DAK 37,000
3 Direct employed                               15,000
4 indirectly  employed                          22,000
5 No. of Small Arms Units                                                      200
6 No. of Small Working Places (Workshops)                      1,600
7 No. of Retail Arms & Ammunition Shops                          2,500
8 Products currently manufactured:    2,500
a Pistols  
b Revolvers  
c Guns of various types  
d Skills Level                                                                            High

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