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Tasco


Lee Watne

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  • 3 months later...

We heard the same down here in New Zealand earlier this week. I checked with the local Importer/Agent and he had heard likewise. He was unable to get hold of anyone at Tasco to find out what was happening. As of Friday 4.00pm NZ Time we had not heard any contradictions to the rumours.

So glad I bought an AIMPOINT.

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I'd guess 2 possible reasons.....

-They focus on low-end rifle scopes and binoculars, and one (if not the) biggest retailer for those Tascos was K-Mart, and we all know what's going on there.

-They lost the competition market.  Aimpoint, C-More, and a couple others basically blew them out of the business.

Maybe it's other stuff and I'm way off the mark, but that's my guess.....

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I suspect 1/2 of what BrianH had to say is on the money. The K-Mart and other non gun shop retailers do not want to pay normal distributor prices, they cut the market to crap and offer no service to the customer. They also have no loyalty to their suppliers because their customers have no loyalty. So real shooters, ie the people who stick with a brand, do not buy from K-Mart, WalMart etc. Also anyone with 1/2 a brain would put a Weaver/Leupold/Burris on a decent firearm.

The competition business. Aimpoint makes about 2500 Competition / Domestic units per year for the entire world, mainly the CompC and the previous model the CompXD.

They have just scored a contract with the French Military for 30,000+. No one will tell me how many went to the various US Military units that use it. I don't think the competition business is a big issue with them. Just the brownie points that go with it.

I think Cmore make more units for open IPSC type guns than Aimpoint, then there is Dr Optik and others.

Also I think that BSA, Simmons and a couple of other brands that do it the same way as Tasco ( make in ASIA, and then market all over ) are biting into something that Tasco had a strangle hold on.

My boss said it was a matter of who could take the losses the longest would survive.

Now we know.

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The latest is, so we hear from the horses mouth.

Tasco was up until about 5 years ago a family owned business and everything was zipping along real neat. Then the Texas America Sales Co was sold to a group pension fund. The pension fund suddenly decided that they wanted to put their money somewhere else and offered the Tasco company for sale, this was going on late last year. A purchaser was found and the changeover of ownership was progessing. Suddenly the new buyer was not looking too secure, the pension fund meanwhile had commited itself to other projects and was going to liquidate assest to get the cash any way possible. Hence the problems we see today. There were no financial problems as far as day to day running of the company were concerned, just corporate backroom bull.

Currently there are some new buyers in the wind. One is trying to put a deal together that will see business carry on as per normal.

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  • 1 month later...

Hurray!!! Looking forward to them re-introducing the Optima 2000/Firesight and give us an affordable option other than the doctor. Its such a good sight I can't imagine they wouldn't. Thanks for the update.

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Dont hold your breath on the Optima. The company that made them for Tasco folded some time before Tasco went downhill.

Word is Bushnell bought the name, and eliminated a potential competitor at the same time. There has been no word if they will make anything that Tasco made.

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I had picked up an Optima a while back to play with and it worked well when I used it so I guess I got a good one.  I know they had quality problems and when I heard they were folding I didn't want to be stuck with an unrepairable scope if mine went down. I decided to sell mine off on E-bay and got more than I paid for it.  It was still a good scope but I figured if I ever wanted to go that route I would get the better made Dr. sight anyway.  

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Unless they improved the quality. Buy the Docter. Most of the guys are rotating through 2-3 optimas. They always carry a spare sighted in on the gun so when it goes south they can switch. The guys shooting the docter haven't seen the same problems. The docter costs 2x as muck but you only have to buy one.

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