The Sterling Years by James Edmiston

Author:James Edmiston
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473819689
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books

CHAPTER TWELVE

Into Civvy Street

Yaffle, the civilian gun distribution company that we had acquired in 1975, was now being run by Tom Kent. Formerly a driver at Sterling, he was unswayed by the emotion of guns; he ran the business carefully and dispassionately, consolidating its successes and slowly improving its turnover and profits. As a result, Sterling was now better placed to judge this market and we began to consider making a new product: an airgun.

The idea was to try and bridge the gap between civilian and military guns, and airguns seemed to be one of the most obvious options. Simple guns, operated by compressed air, they could with relatively little effort acquire a military relevance – in training, for example.

One of several possibilities that we examined came through Tony Bianco. A young Royal Artillery major who looked more Sicilian than British, Tony had joined Sterling as a back-up for Major Keen. He had been in close touch with RFD (the company named after Reginald Foster Dagnall, born 1880) of Godalming, who had made certain advances in the use of small-arms for simulated training in the police and the military. Of particular interest to us was a pre-charged air cartridge that could be used in a normal gun; when fired it would discharge an airgun pellet. It was the brainchild of an automotive engineer called Michael Saxby. In practical terms, the air stored in the cartridge was always subject to too many variable conditions, which could affect accuracy, but in the revolver role it showed great promise. Anyway, it was Mike Saxby himself who approached Sterling with a proposal that we should make an air rifle based on his patents.

It would certainly have been easy enough to make. However, by this time Yaffle was employing a gun expert by the name of Brett Parsons; he had been with Parker Hale, the famous Birmingham manufacturers of sporting guns, and he knew the civilian market well. Although I liked the product, Brett Parsons did not. He felt that airgunners would soon get bored with the hassle of having to pre-charge their plastic rounds by pumping air into them. In fact, he was adamant that we should not go ahead, and we bowed to his expert advice. I was glad that we did. Saxby later went ahead with his idea and produced a Saxby & Palmer rifle (coincidentally working with Parker Hale). It caused an initial flurry of enthusiasm in the market, then all but died.

Another approach to Sterling was from John Whiscombe, a computer expert with an interest in airguns and a clear understanding of trends in airgun developments. He had cleverly adapted the German GISS system – a spring recoilless system – for an airgun, although he was adrift on the cost of manufacture. But it was felt that this was too sophisticated for Sterling to make as a first-off airgun, and it would be too expensive for the market that we were aiming at. We devoted more time to consideration of

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.