Tag Archives: Norma

European Ammo Makers Fiocchi & Norma Expand Ops with New U.S. Factories

Posted on by Leave a comment

Announced in the same week, Beretta-owned Swedish-headquartered Norma is launching a $60 million/600-job factory project in Georgia while Italy’s Fiocchi is growing its operations in Arkansas with a $41.5 million/120-job ammo primer plant (which will be just one of six in the country).

I guess it is easy to surmise that Americans want bullets and– as overseas car makers have long ago figured out– it is probably cheaper to make them here rather than to ship them here. Especially when you compare labor costs, say, in quasi-Socialist Italy and Sweden, against that in the non-unionized South. Either way, you get more ammo options on the U.S. consumer market and (relatively) good-paying manufacturing jobs, both things that are easy to like.

Beretta Ammo? RUAG goes Italian

Posted on by Leave a comment

Swiss-based RUAG International this week has concluded an agreement on the sale of its Ammotec business unit to the  Beretta Holding group. In the deal, Beretta will take over all 2,700 employees at all production and sales sites and has specifically committed to maintaining the Thun site with around 400 jobs for at least five years.

Besides RUAG Swiss-branded ammo, which includes some seriously high-end rifle loads for sniper/countersniper applications, the company includes the popular GECO label and other iconic European brands like Norma, Rheinisch-Westfälischen Sprengstoff-Fabriken (RWS), and Dynamit Nobel.

Beretta Holding not only runs the Italian namesake firm– the oldest gunmaker in the world– but also owns Benelli and Franchi in the same neck of the woods; Tikka, Sako, and Valmet in Finland; and optics firms Steiner and Burris among no less than 32 brands.