No Keeping This Hush-Hush

Our final – for now – report from Huggett headquarters involves a major announcement

Last month, I left you with the promise of revealing where the shape of the new Huggett Astille silencer came from, so let’s begin with that. Later, I’ll bring you another revelation, and it’s a huge one for those who prefer to own bespoke airgun gear.

For now, picture Andrew Huggett leaning back in his office chair and speaking through a light fitting that was flared at the end like a trumpet. As with the trumpet, the shape of the light fitting amplified Andrew’s input, as it has done for musicians over the centuries. Nothing much to discover there, then, except when Andrew Huggett wondered if reversing the ‘flare’ of the light fitting, would have the opposite effect.

THE REVERSE TRUMPET EFFECT

Cue some technical drawings and the setting up of various CNC machines, and Andrew had something with which to test his ‘reverse trumpet’ idea. It worked, so the refinement phase began, the Huggett Astille was the eventual result, and the rest will be modern airgun silencer history before we know it.

I’ve glossed over the small matter of developing the Astille, and the eye-watering amount of imperfect stages required to get it to where it is today, but now that I’ve seen what Huggett Precision Products does, and how it does things, I can at least properly appreciate the time, expertise and expense that goes into something like the Astille.

THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

However, the next revelation given to me during my visit to Huggett headquarters, really did have me sitting up and taking notice. You see, in partnership with former Theoben co-founder, Ben Taylor, Andrew Huggett’s company is currently developing a bespoke air rifle. From the components I’ve seen, and more importantly, from what I understand, there has never been a rifle like it.