Peter Hofer Jagdwaffen is an Austrian firearms manufacturer. They are most known for making fine bespoke double rifles and all kinds of combination hunting firearms. In their catalog, you can see some unbelievable combinations and barrel layouts of break action shotguns and rifles. They make guns like quad barrel shotguns and five barrel combination rifles and much more.

The Peter Hofer Hummingbird rifle with a .17 HMR cartridge and a .600 or .700 Nitro Express cartridge for comparison.

One of their rifles is also very interesting not because it has an unusual amount of barrels, but because it is the world’s smallest and lightest double rifle. It is not a miniature copy with some scaled down specially made cartridges. It is an actual side by side double rifle chambered in production calibers. Both barrels of the rifle are chambered either in .17 HMR or .22 Hornet. Peter Hofer calls this gun Hummingbird Rifle, which is self-explanatory. This rifle is also not a rechambered or lightened version of an existing model. They’ve literally designed and built every part of the rifle from the ground up.

Note the hummingbirds engraved and gold inlaid all over the rifle.

As the title of this article implies, this double rifle is also the world’s lightest one. The Hummingbird Rifle weighs 2.2 lbs (less than one kilogram)!

I think this company does an amazing job pushing the boundaries of the classic break action design.