For those of you who can read German, the following article suggests Swarovski is
1) looking to sell the Kahles factory (in Vienna)
2) that the Kahles brand will not be a part of the sale (presumably to avoid competition from an existing brand in the future?)
3) that there appear to be potential buyers for the Kahles manufacturing facility (Austrian companies Glock, Steyr as well as Beretta are mentioned).
4) Swarovski has been laying off people big time - the article mentions layoffs in the Austria headquarters of Wattens of 450 in May and an additional 100 until the end of 2008. (The last announcement of layoffs was also mentioned in a Swiss hunting magazine).

Pity if the Kahles brand will no longer exist . I wonder who (if anybody) will stand by the Kahles warranty??

http://www.wirtschaftsblatt.at/home/oesterreich/unterne...ex.do&_vl_pos=3.2.DT

- mike

You don't need warranty with a Kahles.

Observing the frequent disparaging of current Sako/Tikka products, I bet that many would prefer that Kahles will be closed and disappear, rather than be bought by Beretta

Value for money a Kahles cannot be beaten, as the Swarovski, Schmidt und Bender and Zeiss scopes are much more pricey and it is almost the same quality. I am very fond of my 3-9x42 Kahles. Much better and clearer than a Leopold VX3. If they are going to be discounted, I will buy another one.

Warrior

quote:

Originally posted by Warrior:
Value for money a Kahles cannot be beaten, as the Swarovski, Schmidt und Bender and Zeiss scopes are much more pricey and it is almost the same quality. I am very fond of my 3-9x42 Kahles. Much better and clearer than a Leopold VX3. If they are going to be discounted, I will buy another one.

Warrior

Amen brother!

I would rather spend $500 on a Kahles than $500 on an inferior product from Leupold.

This is sad news. I am a fan of Kahles scopes. I have one of those newish 6x42 helia, with circa 3.55 - 3.6 eye relief on my .338-06.

It is a really good scope - image quality and, in this day and age, a useful eye relief. It is light in weight also.

It is a pitty that it now seems Kahles is to follow Pecar of Berlin, who recently went out of business also.

I bought a used kahles 6x42 helia steel tube 26mm while living in Namibia. the reticle broke. I called RSA Kahles and they put me in touch with Austria - shipping was going to be $100 both ways and $120 to fix it. I was going to have to pay $320 to get this fixed. I shot the gun with the broken reticle a lot then took it on a hunt and shot 3 animials with 3 shots. 150 yards, 250 yards, 250 yards... After returning to the states i sent it to Swarovski/Kahles and they entirely rebuilt it and it only cost me $11 shipping one way. They put 27 new parts in it and upgraded my turrents! WOW! What a great company!

Aaron

quote:

Pity if the Kahles brand will no longer exist

Selling a business normally goes together with some goodwill that it has built up over the years with its clientele. So, it does not make sense for the name to disappear when it is a good product and there is product loyaty. Brand names signals a message and they are important in marketing.


Warrior

I wonder, seeing as Swaro are keeping the Kahles brand, if Kahles will eventually become an outlet for Chinese made Swaros or something similar? That might explain selling the manufacturing base but not the brand name. Just a wild guess on my part.

A great pity. Wonderful service and excellent product.

I had always thought that when my eyes faded I might upgrade to a pair of 1" tubed 8x50 scopes. Maybe I should get them now

Kahles is the oldest rifle scope and binocular manufacturers in the world. - Beginning in 1898, Karl Robert Kahles manufactured, by hand, one of the first rifle scopes. Working in his "Optical Manufactory" located in Vienna, Austria, it did not take long before the new device became very well known among hunters everywhere and gained a very strong reputation. The Kahles family managed and ran the company until 1974. With no heir in the family to take over the company, an ailing Fredrich Kahles sold the business to his friend Daniel Swarovski. From 1974 through 1988 Kahles was a subsidary of Swarovski. In 1989, Kahles Limited G.M.B.H. was registered as an independent company within the Swarovski Optik Group.

Warrior

+1 for wildboar's comment.

2 years on .... and Kahles is still there.
The recession hit them hard, as they are not as diversified as Zeiss and Swarovski.
But it remains a good quality scope.
I think most Americans prefer the cheaper Leupold scopes based on price and service.

The new USA importer - Visit gamousa.com - no detail on their site, just a contact number so to speak.
Any comment as to their customer service?

Warrior

Warrior,

more likely the quality VS price issue. The other thing is the forever warranty with no small print BS Leupold offers. Sure beats the bejeesus out of sending it back to Europe and waiting up to a year.

Gamousa sells airguns, cheap ones.

Rich
DRSS
Leupolds, of course...

but if it doesn't fail and the old stock ones can be had at roughly the same price, it's a no brainer to go for the euro...

quote:

Sure beats the bejeesus out of sending it back to Europe and waiting up to a year.

Rich,

I must agree with you to pair off a high-end scope with a cheap airgun is somewhat of a miss-match. If they are only the distributors and have no contact with the customers but select good gun shops to interact with customers then I suppose it can work. It seems clear that Gamo will not effect repairs, but will send repair/warranty work to Austria and that would make the wait longer. The surprising thing though is that Gamo does not seem to promote or advertise their newly acquired agency of Kahles scopes for the USA. I could not see a single piece of information about Kahles scopes on their website. I must admit that is a poor show. It then brings up the question who did Kahles Austria select Gamo over other potential distributors.

I just checked again, and it seems that they have added right at the bottom a logo of Kahles, and if you click on that it brings up the various Kahles models. Somewhat obscured at the bottom - not in the body of the page where one would expect to see it.

Also, no more 1" tube scopes; only 30 mm tubes are listed.

Warrior

www.kahlesusa.com is the new website.

LWD

Thanks,
LWD!

Just something I came across ....

The trend in modern manufacturing has been toward more, not less, automation. The highly trained craftsman who takes great pride in his work has largely been replaced by a machine operator who monitors a computer screen while robotic arms sway to and fro, assembling, sorting and packaging products from a fast-moving stream of components. But there are places where the old ways not only survive, but thrive. On a recent trip to the Kahles Optik factory in Austria, I saw how Kahles mixes the old and the new to produce high-quality optics for hunters and shooters. Resting on a commercial street in metropolitan Vienna, the nearly block-long Kahles building is unpretentious. Inside, the factory is structured more like a research facility than an industrial manufacturing plant. I expected to see massive machines spewing aluminum and behemoth presses slamming parts into submission.

What I found instead was a spacious, meticulously clean facility filled with craftsmen who completed nearly every step of optical construction by hand. It was obvious they took immense pride in their work. With the exception of the computer-operated CNC machines (each personally monitored by a single operator), there were no sprawling rooms overflowing with parts. There were tidy personal workstations, where just a few parts were finished at a time. Even the reticles are handmade, and an individual, not a machine, glues each piece of glass into place. "We complete our construction process with care and take the time to make sure every part of our optical construction is perfect. Certainly we keep a schedule; however, quality control is our first priority," said Stephen Schafer, the company's managing director.

Though Kahles is often overshadowed by Swarovski, its parent company, American retailers and their customers might be surprised to learn that Kahles is a fully independent company and is in fact older than Swarovski. "We are the oldest existing riflescope manufacturing company in the world. We've been making product since 1889," Schafer said.

I have a couple of Kahles scopes and some 8x42 binocs. I bought the binos for my wife to use on trips she takes with me. They are fantastic glass, I think even better than my Swarovski scopes and binos (8x30 SLCs). While it is true that they go back to Austria for repairs their representative in the US, Herman, an Austrian gentleman, is a delight to deal with and I had my scope back within 4 months. I am willing to accept a longer delivery time for repairs as a tradoff for the optical quality that Kahles delivers.