Astor Defence, the world’s leading military packaging specialists are pleased to announce a major investment in a brand new, larger production facility on the South Coast of England.

This significant expansion is to include new manufacturing, testing and design facilities, including a high-tech assembly line with state of the art six stage Zinc Phosphate Pre-treatment Plant conforming to military specification TTC490 and a fully automated Powder Coating and Wet Paint Line with a capability of producing over 5000 boxes per day. To compliment this, a state-of-the-art automated UV print line is to be installed.

The new facility will include in-house laboratories to enable testing of the ammunition containers including a Dycometal SSC 2000 salt fog corrosion Chamber, Tensile Weld Test machines, ovens for Elevated Temperature Storage Tests and a range of the latest Applied Vacuum Engineering Test Chambers to carry out air tightness testing.

Managing Director, Henry Turnbull, said “We are really excited about the future possibilities these new production facilities will offer to our customers. Our new state of the art capabilities will enable us to carry out all required testing in house plus all our manufacturing will now take place in the UK. This is becoming increasingly important with the economic and political emphasis for UK, US and European Governments moving towards supporting national manufacturing industries. Representatives from the US Army are visiting in March to witness a First Article Acceptance Test which once approved, will lead to more US Government business in due course.

We will also be looking to expand our workforce, so this is a big boost for the local towns of Southampton and Portsmouth as there will employment opportunities for both skilled and unskilled workers. We believe our quality and expertise within this industry is unrivalled, and we now hope to expand our expertise into packaging for other specialised, technical industries.”

Astor designs, manufactures, and supplies packaging for many of the world’s largest defence contractors as well as various government agencies. Their products include high quality Mil Spec and Def Stan compliant ammunition cans for both government and commercial customers. The range includes packaging for small and medium caliber ammunition up to 155mm munitions along with all associated internal fitments, bomb pallets for the MK82,83 and 84 family of weapons, fibre wound mortar packaging tubes, timber crates, and M27 M13 and M9 Nato ammunition links.

This is a major boost for British engineering as this significant investment by Astor Defence will keep them at the forefront of the military packaging industry.