The K5 was marketed commercially in the United States from around 1990 to 1997 through various importers, including FirstShot, Inc., Kimber of America, Inc., B-West Imports, Inc., and Davidsons, Inc. as the DP51, with a compact version known as the DP51C and S&W caliber version known as the DH40. It wasn't until 2012 that the K5/DP51 was reintroduced to the U.S. civilian market through collaboration between Daewoo Precision Industries (at that point having been renamed to
SNT Motiv) and Lionheart Industries of
Redmond, Washington as the LH9, LH9C, and LH9 MKII (amongst other variants). The LH9 is essentially a DP51 with some cosmetic differences and improved features, such as a redesigned hammer, wider slide serrations, added serrations to the front of the slide, redesigned grips and multi-color option
Cerakote finish. Lionheart also imported a version of the design with a built-in
Picatinny rail under the name "LH9 MKII". The internal design and basic functions remain identical to the original and all the parts interchange between the K5/DP51 and the LH9. Unlike the 13-round Daewoo magazines, Lionheart magazines are 15-round Mec-Gar S&W 59 magazines with an extended baseplate so they will fit flush. In 2016, Lionheart moved from importing the guns to manufacturing improved versions under license in
Renton, Washington, renaming them the "Regulus". Improvements for the Regulus line included Novak sights, heavily textured grips, more aggressive slide serrations, titanium-nitride barrels with single-point machining, jagged front strap serrations, finger-rests on the frame and a Picatinny rail on all guns and an optional threaded barrel. In 2020, Lionheart Industries was sold to a new American buyer, and manufacturing was moved to
Winder, Georgia. In 2023, Lionheart retired the Regulus line and replaced it with the "Vulcan", an improved version of the Regulus. For the Vulcan, further refinements were made to the pistol including an optic cut, a redesign of the extractor, redesign of the recoil spring assembly, a fiber-optic front sight, G10 grips and Cerekote Elite finish. In October of 2025, Lionheart Industries announced that they were going out of business and production of the Vulcan would cease at the end of the year. At the
SHOT Show in early 2025, a surprise announcement was made by
SNT Defense, a subsidiary of SNT Motiv, that the company was preparing to resume importation of various sought-after Daewoo products, including the
K2 rifle and DP51 pistol. The company has set up an assembly section in
Las Vegas, Nevada so that parts can be imported from South Korea while manufacturing essential parts in the United States to maintain 922r compliance In July 2025, SNT Defense provided an update that they hope to sell the new production DP51s for an MSRP of $499. ==Variants==