Did Bushnell buy RCBS??

Matt_G

Matt_G

Curmudgeon in training
So this past weekend I was sizing and lubing bullets with my RCBS LAM II.
I ran out of C-Red and had to put another stick in and when I took it apart I noticed a part that need to be replaced.
Went to their web site and sent a request for the part I needed and asked for cost and shipping like I always do.
Got a reply back today saying it would be sent without charge like they always do. :)

But what really surprised me was the email address the reply was sent from:
customersupport AT bushnell.com

When did this happen?
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
bushnell is owned by Leupold so i doubt they own RCBS anything.
they all might be under that giant conglomerate that owns 80% of everything reloading.
 
B

beagle

Active Member
That was my thinking. Vista Outdoors owns a major slice of the hobby shooting industries. I once looked at their holdings through my investments guy. It was scary how much they do control of things shooters and reloaders depend on for the existence of their hobby./beagle
 
RicinYakima

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
beagle said:
That was my thinking. Vista Outdoors owns a major slice of the hobby shooting industries. I once looked at their holdings through my investments guy. It was scary how much they do control of things shooters and reloaders depend on for the existence of their hobby./beagle
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Luckily, Vista Outdoors is interesting in making money as profit. No other agenda that I can tell.
 
P

Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
You want to see scary, look into Berkshire Hathaway, GE, or 3M.

I don't fear big companies, nor do I see them as a threat due their "control" of a portion of the industry. If you study history you will see that the giants ALWAYS fall. If there is room for a competitor you can be sure one will emerge.

Standard Oil seemed invincible but along came Shell, BP, and others.

AT&T was the only game in town and now it’s nearly impossible to name all the telecommunications companies, and that’s just the ones in the U.S.

The list goes on, but the reality is that even the giant conglomerates are vulnerable to their competitors.

In the meantime, I’m happy there are sources for the supplies used in my hobby.
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
yeah but making it through the price to profit % fixing thing sure sucks till the new guys come along.
 
P

Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
Standard Oil of New Jersey was a target of the anti-trust legislation (The Sherman Anti-Trust Act). You may know Standard Oil by its current U.S. name of Exxon. Standard Oil made its fortune selling kerosene, not gasoline. By the time of the breakup in 1911, Standard Oil only had about 60% of the refining capacity in America due to the competition eroding its position. Interestingly, the Sherman Anti-Trust act did not prohibit monopolies as is often believed. It prohibits agreements that result in the restraint of trade. It’s not against the law to have a successful company or to control a large segment of the market simply because your company is better at business than your competitors.

The breakup did not create Standard Oil's competitors such as BP (British Petroleum, formerly Anglo Persian) and Shell (original known as Royal Dutch Shell) or others. They already existed.

So, Standard Oil (today’s Exxon) did not control the entire market (as is often falsely believed) even before the breakup.

It is not against the law to be successful.
 
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RicinYakima

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
What they did was lower their price so that the other companies could not make a profit and stay in business. Then Rockefeller bought the other companies and raised the prices back up to what the market would bear.
 
P

Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
RicinYakima said:
What they did was lower their price so that the other companies could not make a profit and stay in business. Then Rockefeller bought the other companies and raised the prices back up to what the market would bear.
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They did a bit more than that.

John D. Rockefeller’s tactics would not be judged as lawful or ethical in today’s world........but at the time, they were not expressly illegal. In addition to giving his competitors “a good sweating”, as he called it. (reducing his prices until he forced his competitors to sell to him or collapse), he also employed a very vicious tactic of collusion with the railroads.

Perhaps the most ruthless tactic was Rockefeller’s demands of a “drawback” from the railroads. A drawback was a discount rate for shipping his products that was secretly funded by the increased rate charged to his competitors. Standard Oil received cheaper shipping rates that were unwittingly subsidized by its own competitors.

It should be noted that Standard Oil often bought out competitors by offering stock in Standard Oil, which in the long run was very beneficial to the companies that accepted those terms. Of course, if they refused to sell, Standard Oil was just as willing to destroy them.

However, the introduction of pipelines, worldwide competition and other factors reduced the power of Standard Oil. By the time the anti-trust legal actions were taking place (1911), gasoline was replacing kerosene as the primary product of oil companies. Standard Oil had already lost huge portions of its market share when the breakup of Standard Oil of New Jersey was forced. Interestingly, Standard Oil of New York (later known as Mobile), recombined with Exxon to become Exxon-Mobile. So the breakup was far from permanent or complete.
 
Urny

Urny

Missouri Ozarks, heart still in the Ruby Mountains
So, back at the Vista thing, Vista has sold off the ammunition makers they owned to concentrate on other portions of the sports markets. Does this imply that the money men at Vista have more faith in the future of reloading than seems to be the case with some of the other operators?
 
RicinYakima

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Well, they still own Federal, I believe, who just got a new contract to operate Lack City Arsenal for the Government.
 
P

Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
Urny said:
So, back at the Vista thing, Vista has sold off the ammunition makers they owned to concentrate on other portions of the sports markets. Does this imply that the money men at Vista have more faith in the future of reloading than seems to be the case with some of the other operators?
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I'm not certain they sold off all of their ammunition making capability.
They did sell off some of their ammunition/firearms companies to Czech based group but I don't know if that sale has been completed.

In any event, I'm not sure what, if anything, that would imply.
 
P

Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
Getting back to the Bushnell / RCBS thing, Vista Outdoor owns some optic firms and some reloading firms but they certainly do not own them all.
 
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fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
it is supposed to be just the remington portion at first then the rest, but vanderdinkus is still gonna be screw err running things..
RicinYakima said:
You didn't stockpile when you had the chance? Woe is you!
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i'm good for the next 20-50 years.
i spent a bunch of dollars across the board when i was making money regularly.
probably too far across the board in too many directions.
i'm sure i could shoot 50 rounds every day for the next 10 years or so without too much damage, but it'd have to be spread out over many different cartridges.
 
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