How Freedom Group Became the Big Shot

[Gerald]

LINED up in a gun rack beneath mounted deer heads is a Bushmaster Carbon 15, a matte-black semiautomatic rifle that looks as if it belongs to a SWAT team. On another rack rests a Teflon-coated Prairie Panther from DPMS Firearms, a supplier to the United States Border Patrol and security agencies in Iraq. On a third is a Remington 750 Woodsmaster, a popular hunting rifle. The variety of rifles and shotguns on sale here at Cabela’s, the national sporting goods chain, is a testament to America’s enduring gun culture. But, to a surprising degree, it is also a testament to something else: Wall Street deal-making. In recent years, many top-selling brands — including the 195-year-old Remington Arms, as well as Bushmaster Firearms and DPMS, leading makers of military-style semiautomatics — have quietly passed into the hands of a single private company. It is called the Freedom Group — and it is the most powerful and mysterious force in the American commercial gun industry today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/bu...t.html?_r=1&hp

Note: November 26, 2011

[Gerald]

Randy Miller, left, of Cleveland, Tenn., examined a Remington shotgun with Bob Cabral, a salesman at the Cabela's store in Scarborough.

[Gerald]

Remington is good stuff,

[August]

Originally Posted by Vendor

Randy Miller, left, of Cleveland, Tenn., examined a Remington shotgun with Bob Cabral, a salesman at the Cabela's store in Scarborough.

I been there. Nice place but small compared to the Cabela's in Owatonna.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by August

I been there. Nice place but small compared to the Cabela's in Owatonna.

When I saw the location 'Scarborough' and the gun connection I initially thought of the seaside resort an hour or so drive from me then thought......"No it cannot be"

[August]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

When I saw the location 'Scarborough' and the gun connection I initially thought of the seaside resort an hour or so drive from me then thought......"No it cannot be"

It's why we calls it "New England"

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by August

It's why we calls it "New England"

Yeah, similar to Australia and NZ....loads of British towns named there as well.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by August

I been there. Nice place but small compared to the Cabela's in Owatonna.

Although there is comparatively little, it seems they have a decent range,

[August]

Originally Posted by Vendor

Although there is comparatively little, it seems they have a decent range,

Well it IS a Cabela's. Their worst is better than the best of the rest...

[Gerald]

August, what do you prefer from the shop, if you get to choose what you want .... when you have been there...

[August]

Originally Posted by Vendor

August, what do you prefer from the shop, if you get to choose what you want .... when you have been there...

It's the selection mainly. In Owatonna (Minnesota for you foreigners) the camouflage clothing section alone was bigger than most department stores.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by August

It's the selection mainly. In Owatonna (Minnesota for you foreigners) the camouflage clothing section alone was bigger than most department stores.

That is huge,