The Captain’s Journal – by HERSCHEL SMITH
Not too long ago the Internet was filled with warnings that some mysterious company, supposedly owned by ultra-liberal businessman George Soros, was buying major firearms manufacturers with the idea that they would be closed down.
It wasn’t true, although I’ve spent months countering versions of the story sent to me. But one big company — investment group Cerebus — was indeed buying up gun companies under its Freedom Group name.
It already owned Remington when the story broke, then added Marlin and H&R/New England Firearms; then Bushmaster and DPMS and Dakota Arms. A lot of the manufacturing for all of them has been swept from their former homes and is now being done at the Remington plant in Ilion.
You can imagine the paranoia returning since Reuters News Service broke a report this week that Alliant Techsystems was in the final stages of acquiring Bushnell Outdoor Products from investment group MidOcean Partners.
ATK is known for making rockets, tank and artillery ammunition and has the contract for small arms ammo for the armed forces. It also owns the nation’s largest ammo maker, Federal Cartridge, and recently purchased Savage/Stevens Arms. It already owned Alliant Powder, CCI, RCBS, Speer, Weaver Optics, and Champion Targets.
Acquisition of the Bushnell brand portfolio would give ATK an instant market presence with Bushnell, Butler Creek, Final Approach, Hoppe’s, Millett, Night Optics, Primos Hunting, Simmons, Tasco, Stoney Point and Uncle Mikes brands.
According to Jim Shepherd’s Outdoor Wire, the acquisition would put ATK on equal or slightly higher footing than Cerebus/Freedom Group.
Paranoia be damned, having so many ordnance manufacturers under stable regimes good news.
My feelings concerning Remington and the plant in Ilion (and their commitment to the state of New York) are well known. As for Cerebus / The Freedom Group, I have monitored from a distance and tried to let the free market dictate the outcome.
But according to the article, as for the companies they bought, “A lot of the manufacturing for all of them has been swept from their former homes and is now being done at the Remington plant in Ilion.”
If this is true, then Freedom Group essentially bought out the competition rather than acquiring it, making it better and letting it contribute to the community. They closed down manufacturing and put it all in Ilion.
Good grief. They centralized and conglomerated rather than managed, and now it’s all concentrated in a totalitarian state. Nothing good came from it, and it won’t end well for anyone involved. How sad.
And my opinions concerning Remington haven’t changed. If anything, they have become stronger.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2013/08/08/freedom-group-and-remington/
An on the ground observation from SW Oregon’s largest outdoor supplier this week: They have tons of guns of all kinds, but virtually no factory ammo. They have a few reloading bullets (perhaps 10% of what they used to stock), but no primers and no powder. Same situation at a smaller retailer chain. Unless everyone and their mother is still going into the stores and stripping the shelves bare of ammo and reloading supplies before I ever walk in, these corporations must think we’re stupid enough to keep buying guns when there isn’t anything to feed them with.
Does anyone have any actual current data on ammo production and sales in the civilian market?
The Intelligence Report M-F 5,6, and 8 pm e.d.t.
libertytreeradio.4mg.com
cerebus is the 3 headed dog that guards the gates of hell and that is where the jews that own it come from. they bankrupted and looted chrysler and GM when GM sales were at their highest much of the money ending up in Israel. I feel the ammo “shortage” is being caused by them