Dasan Machineries Co., Ltd.

Dasan Machineries is the other Korean gunmaker. Where SNT Motiv holds the domestic service contracts, Dasan has built its business on exports and on parts, and it came to firearms sideways. The company was founded on 1 November 1992 as an investment casting and precision machining shop serving the automotive, aviation and defense trades, moved into licensed firearm production for police use in 1996, and was designated a Korean defense contractor by the Defense Acquisition Program Administration in August 2016. Casting and machining are still there. The plant in Wanju County pours steel components for defense and automotive customers and machines parts to order, and that base is what lets it make barrels, bolts, receivers and complete rifles at a cost that works in export markets. Export licensing and the paperwork behind it became a competence in its own right. That mix is deliberate.

The rifle catalogue centres on an AR-15 derived family with a short stroke gas piston, cold hammer forged chrome lined barrels and rails on the receiver top and both sides of the handguard. DSAR-15P is the full length 5.56mm rifle. DSAR-15PC is the 11.5 inch carbine that Korea's Special Warfare Command selected in June 2020 to replace the K1A, and which became the basis of the K16 designation. DSAR-15PQ, sometimes shown as NGAR, adds a quick change barrel in lengths from 7.5 to 16 inches at 750 to 850 rounds a minute. The 7.62mm line runs from the select fire DSAR-762 to the semi-automatic DSSR-762 designated marksman rifle with a 20 inch hammer forged barrel and bipod. DAK47 and DSAR-47 chamber 7.62x39mm for customers holding AK pattern ammunition stocks. DSMG9 is a 9mm submachine gun using Glock magazines, launched at DX Korea in 2018 in 7.5 and 10.5 inch barrel forms. XR-17 is a belt fed long stroke piston machine gun offered in 5.56mm and in a 6.3 kg 7.62mm medium version. The company also builds K1A and K2C1 rifles to Korean designations and offers shotguns, pistols and separate rifle and pistol parts. Barrel making is done in house, which is the step most AR pattern builders buy in, and it is the reason Dasan can quote complete weapons rather than assembled parts kits.

The special forces carbine programme did not end cleanly. In June 2021 the DSAR-15PC selection was suspended after an investigation into unauthorised access to classified requirement documents by a former executive, and the competition returned to the start. Exports have continued regardless, to the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Finland and elsewhere, and a US subsidiary, DASAN USA, set up manufacturing in Gwinnett County, Georgia, an investment announced with roughly 150 jobs attached. Automotive parts and castings still carry a meaningful share of turnover, and they smooth the gaps between firearm orders in a way a pure gunmaker cannot manage. Around 378 people work for the company, which remains privately held.