U.K. Turns to Canadian Tech for Next-Gen Defense Manufacturing Facility
A Canadian innovation is allowing the U.K. defence industry to bring more of its gun manufacturing in-house, lessening its reliance on foreign suppliers as it strives to fulfill new defence spending targets.
Toronto-based Paradigm Shift Technologies is partnering with Andover, U.K.-based Perfect Bore Defence, a division of Perfect Bore Manufacturing, to open a gun barrel coating facility in Hampshire county.
The U.K. operation will use Paradigm’s patented coating technology to line the inside of gun barrels, including those manufactured by Perfect Bore.
The Canadian company’s process, known as enhanced physical vapor deposition (EPVD), uses alloys able to withstand high temperatures to create a more durable, less toxic alternative to traditional chrome plating, which contains a known carcinogen, chief operating officer Eugene Yumshtyk said.
“As soon as we make these barrels and we show them to the world, there’s going to be a lineup from all the other countries that are going to want to purchase,” he said.
Similarly to Canada, the U.K. is also looking for ways to boost its industrial base since committing to spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035. On Monday, it released its defence industrial strategy, vowing to invest in domestic industry and identifying a range of sectors, from shipbuilding to weapons, that it would like to achieve some level of autonomy.
Founded in 1995, Paradigm began developing coatings for the inside of equipment used by the oil and gas industry. Today, the company’s expanded repertoire includes defence, where its coating is used inside gun barrels to protect and preserve the weapons from the hot temperatures and impact of projectiles passing through.
Despite chrome plating being the industry standard for decades, awareness of its dangers, namely that it contains hexavalent chromium, is growing.
Exposure to hexavalent chromium poses a risk to workers – owing to its strong link to lung cancer rates – and its toxic nature also makes it extremely difficult and expensive to dispose of without causing environmental harm.
Efforts to track and report the use of chromium compounds in the U.S. can be traced back to 1993, when former president Bill Clinton signed an executive order stating that the Department of Defence should search for opportunities to reduce their use of toxic chemicals and hazardous substances.
Today, countries continue to revise and reinforce restrictions around the use of the compound. In April, the European Chemicals Agency proposed an EU-wide ban on some hexavalent chromium substances to protect workers and the public from the carcinogenic chemicals.
To comply with these restrictions, gun barrels manufactured in the U.K. or EU are often sent to Switzerland where chrome plating is still done, said Will Laughton, business development director at Perfect Bore Defence.
However, he added, that no longer has to be the case thanks to Paradigm’s partnership with Perfect Bore.
“They’re pairing up with not just a company that’s re-establishing sovereign barrel manufacturing in the U.K., but they’re also using us to help to inject a brand-new technology into the U.K. defence system,” Mr. Laughton said.
The Canadian-made coating is also cheaper to use. In a business case analysis done by the U.S. Air Force in 2011, it found a 28-per-cent cost reduction for the 20-year life cycle of a 30 millimetre seven-barrel gun if it switched to the EPVD coating from hexavalent chrome.
The analysis also found the coating could increase the life of a gun barrel by two to three times. Mr. Yumshtyk said Paradigm’s customers have since done tests in which that number has grown to 12 times.
The Canadian Armed Forces and Defence Research and Development Canada also tested Paradigm’s coating in 2016, Mr. Yumshtyk said. But the federal government never took any action to procure it.
“Europe is very much on the environmental side, in terms of actually putting action forward and trying to reduce their impact, knowing that this causes a big problem. Unfortunately, Canada is not on the same page,” Mr. Yumshtyk said.
The Department of National Defence was unable to answer questions about the details of this testing in time for publication.
Mr. Yumshtyk said currently Canadian gun barrel manufacturers will send their parts to the U.S. to be chrome plated.
The building for the companies’ new gun barrel coating facility has been secured and testing is the next step, Mr. Laughton said. A timeline for ramping up production hinges on gaining traction with the U.K. Ministry of Defence and integrating the technology into their existing operations.
“I know there’s no one else in the U.K. that’s doing what we’re doing with this. And at the moment, quite frankly, it’s ours to lose, not to gain. So, I think it’s just about us shouting as loud as we can, ‘We’ve got this tech.’”
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
