jmcole1984 1 yr. ago Freedom Group marketed its firearms not just as guns but as shooting platforms: modular, lethal Lego sets whose component parts could be updated for years after the initial purchase. Along with suppressors and a bolt-action rifle of their own design, Q has also developed and marketed an improved Honey Badger. By Ian McCollum with Kevin Brittingham. Having once sought a billion dollars for its investment, Freedom was, according to insiders, now internally valued at just $400 million. Blue rolls into wrestling match - "I haven't been to a Cape wrestling match in 40 years," said Eugene "Blue" Brittingham from his wheelchair prior to the William Penn match Wednesday night. I probably would have been better off going to a state school, he said. Reese Maddox and Ryan Madsen. Kevin Brittingham is a rebel in an industry that is increasingly corporate in nature. What worked in the battlefield worked in the forest. Johnny Noveske certainly was. Ruger and Smith & Wesson, Freedom Groups publicly traded competitors, saw their stock prices surge. We were a good 5k into an area, when my aspiring student lollygagged right into the path of one of the largest cottonmouth snakes I have seen, Reichert wrote in an account of the trip. How about stand out on your own credits rather than attack others? What was she named after? Save my name & email in this browser for the next time I comment. A persistent rumor, circulated by email in 2011, alleged that Freedom Group was actually controlled by George Soros: One of the most evil men on this planet who wants to restrict or ban all civilian guns. The rumor was only debunked after the NRA released a statement to its members: NRA has had contact with officials [of] Cerberus and Freedom Group for some time. My dad frickin bare-knuckle fought when I was a kid. You must respect my authority, Justice insists. For a time, it was the largest landlord in the city. He remained on good terms with Feinberg and had only positive things to say about his experience with Cerberus, but he conceded that the firearms side of the business had been a disaster. I use 300 Blackout, and I use the AR platform for the most part. What did you do for two-and-a-half years? It's a rare time that I have solitude. Several people I spoke to said Cerberus had extracted enough cash from Remington during the good years to meet the firms threshold rate of return, and so, in a narrow sense, the investment was a victory. I'm very disappointed in that. Pictures "Honey Badger 2.0" from Kevin Brittingham's new company Q have been posted to SoldierSystems.net, with the cryptic caption "Well, I guess we can show it now.". 2 hr 34 min Rebel Democrats Risk Empowering GOP Extremists on Debt Limit. During the flood of grief that followed, an outcry erupted directed at Cerberus, Remington, and Bushmaster. At approximately 2:15 p.m. on Thursday, April 8, the inmate, Kevin Brittingham, 55, of Newton, was arrested for domestic battery and booked into the jail. KB: Well, we grew 50 to 100 percent a year for eight years. That's a number-one thing to me. . Sometimes you just need bigger balls. His goals as host are to provide meaningful, in-depth and fun interviews with actors, singers, writers and even those outside of the industry. lock in. They got to where they hired Bob Nardelli who, MSNBC ranked as one of the worst CEOs of all time. This round has the same overall length and width as the popular 5.5645mm NATO round, except it fires a 30 caliber bullet allowing for better barrier penetration and external ballistics from short barrels. Get the latest news, stats, videos, highlights and more about forward Hayden Brittingham on ESPN. Among these customers was Nancy Lanza, of Newtown, Connecticut. Feinberg actually did live in New York, but he didnt waver either. Minuteman. As 2012 came to a close, Cerberuss gun play was nearly seven years old ripe enough for an exit. But, his nose for talent and a relentless drive to prove everyone who may have doubted him wrong all combined to make him the Sun King in a firearms industry run by powder-wigged nobility who wouldn't know cool if it were a rapier against their collective throat. He patented the firearm silencer, not the firearm suppressor. I have a 12 year-old-boy, a 10-year-old girl, and a 9-year-old girl. He's completely unfiltered, brilliant and cognizant. Dyke, who remained on Bushmasters board, sensed he was in unusual territory. Our rifles were neither fit nor finished, nor in any condition to be offered for sale. Gun magazines and internet forums were filled with complaints, and after Cerberus bought it, Remington was forced to issue multiple recalls, for both guns and ammunition. Kevin Brittingham, Radical CEO "I think the gun industry overall is very boring. His desire for quick results is masked by a constitutional equanimity: Several Cerberus insiders told me Feinberg never raises his voice, even when he is calling for someones head. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Kevin . Feinbergs hunting expeditions were taking him deep into the bush, outside the range of GPS, and he needed instruction in military land navigation. During the booking process, he was placed . *This article appears in the November 14, 2016, issue of New York Magazine. Other family members and associates include Sheila Brittingham, Kevin Brittingham, Alyson Wages, Diana Brittingham and Kenneth Brittingham. Reichert agreed, and the two began to discuss a new venture. GMAC was converted into Ally Financial, the online bank, and Feinbergs patriotic stake in Chrysler ended up with the Italian carmaker Fiat. It was a Max Atchisson design. His point applied broadly: Freedom Groups business strategy was to use Americas Special Forces as an R&D department for selling guns at Walmart. Through one subsidiary, it ran the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki. It's just like if you want a .30-caliber cartridge in the M4 that feeds from the magazine that gives you the power, then it's the best cartridge. You're at 58.5 percent. They werent in it for the right reasons. When I suggested to him that Cerberus just wanted profits, he responded with indignation. A great thing of not having debt is, if I say we're going to have this in 12 months, and in 12 months we're 85 percent of the way there and we can release it, and it's still something that's going to be profitable and make money, or we work another six months and it's 100 percent and we change the world, and I'm going to make $2 million less money, that's what we're going to do. Whatever it is. It wouldn't be like a pretty boy. Do I drive a Lamborghini to impress girls, or do I do that because I want every 27-year-old kid to say, I want to work with him because that's the f*cking car I want?. Then, to me it's something I can do with my children. I don't think it's the greatest cartridge ever. Texas Family Gunned Down By Neighbor in Horrific Shooting. None of them wavered in the slightest, not even when I brought up the Newtown massacre, or the Pulse-nightclub shooting, or the San Bernardino attacks, or the shooting of the Dallas police officers, or the certainty of other massacres to come. With what I'm going to invest in this, if I lose it, I could still retire and not work, but I want to work. Kevin discusses his run in with The Cameroonian Anti-Poaching Squad in an attempt at one of the most challenging Hunts of his life. [19], In 2016 the BlastOut gives users the ability to redirect muzzle blast forward when shooting unsuppressed. Brittingham sold his company for nearly $18 million in a can't-beat-them, join-them (and-beat-them-from-the-inside) move. He treated his workers like family members. He spoke quietly, patiently, in a gentle New York accent. Theyre great for urban encroachment, said the companys founder, Kevin Brittingham. On file we have 2 email addresses and 2 phone numbers associated with Kevin in area codes such as 302. You know, I'm kind of a stereotype of why people who are anti-hunting hate it. In 2008, it introduced its new Remington-branded assault rifle, the R-15. I just admire that sh*t. How are you motivated by your experiences at Remington and SIG? Its not as hard as it sounds, Reichert told me. Where we can't do that with football or whatever, hunting and shooting we can. I think I'm pretty confident. He came from humble beginnings. Us and maybe DPMS were making money. I think given our industry especially, we're an industry of tiny balls. This password will be used to sign into all, Its impolite to call your customers wannabes, said the former Cerberus insider. Who do you look up to in the firearm industry? Kevin K. Brittingham, 60, of Wyoming, IL passed away at Thursday, March 22, 2018 at Unity Point Health-Proctor in Peoria, IL. Unable to find a buyer, Feinberg proposed a deal: Hed pay a special onetime dividend from Remington Outdoors accrued earnings, letting investors cash out, and Remington would be placed in a special-purpose vehicle, concentrating ownership of what remained in the hands of a few die-hard Cerberus insiders. Did your goals change after becoming a millionaire? I could teach anyone how to do this with a properly sighted gun in five minutes. Gravity was a constant, and one could consult a table to calculate the trajectory. Cerberus continued without him. Each month, he paid an equal share of Bushmasters gross profits to every employee, from the CEO to the guy who cleaned the toilets. If a Remington was a gun buyers first gun, a Bushmaster was the last, the ultimate fetish object for a generation acclimated to imagery from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Kenneth's ethnicity is Caucasian, whose political affiliation is currently a registered Republican; and religious views are listed as Christian. Since the announced closure of the North Haven factory, the quality of Marlin lever-actions has gone completely to hell, wrote one gun blogger. So did a former Bushmaster employee I spoke with, whose complaints about Cerberuss conduct sounded, at times, more like complaints about capitalism itself. You feeling all right? I know all the guys involved, he said. I like carrying a light gun. Advanced Armaments was small but did a lot of business with the military. And, Remington brand or not, a semi-automatic assault rifle is not an appropriate choice for a first gun, or even a second. Moving on to AAC, I think that's how the honey badger, and the LVAW came about. I don't f*cking care. At Cerberus, he talked firearms often, once derailing a Freedom Group board meeting with a discussion of the relative ballistic merits of polymer-cased ammunition and traditional hollow-points. GOP attack dogs will be tempted to illustrate the risks of Bidens age by focusing on his running mate. All four of us hunt together all the time. His fashion sense would develop in tandem with his ability to influence the firearm industry. Kevin Brittingham and Q's twist rates are right now 1 in 3 which is unheard of, but if you want to achieve unheard of things you get the idea. See, the thing is if I were richer, or I were smarter, or I were more articulate, whatever the combination of things would be, I wouldn't have the personality and attitude that I do. He had a huge budget, no 'legacy' product lines he had to deal with, and basically given the freedom to go for it. The problem was I sold to Remington. In the more than two decades that have passed, he has helped to influence the silencer, ammunition and firearms industries in dramatic fashion. Alas, the second time wasn't the charm. Silencers were still a stepchild in the industry. Royal Printing is part of the Business Services industry, and located in Maryland, United States. [21], AAC has been instrumental in forming the American Silencer Association (ASA), a nonprofit trade association "to further the pursuit of education, public relations, legislation, hunting applications and military applications for the silencer industry". What would you tell yourself if the older you were standing next to you that day? Dr. John Sergent, M.D. We're growing 100 percent a year at a 58.5 percent margin and your first question is how do we go to 65 percent margin. We were shooting at a still target maybe 75, 80 meters. Throughout the years, Cerberus has owned controlling stakes in dozens of businesses. There are no official industry statistics for sales of new guns, but a common proxy used is the number of gun-buyer background checks conducted by the FBI each year. Roy Wood Jr.s Best Jokes at the 2023 White House Correspondents Dinner, The Rivalry Between the Knicks and the Heat From the Guys Who Were There. The dude who invented it named it. But his victims were able to bring a civil lawsuit against Bushmaster, arguing that the company failed to ensure the weapon wouldnt end up in the hands of criminals. I hike the mountains. Many of these accessories were of questionable utility. AAC was a big part of the normalization of suppressors and had unique, forward-thinking marketing campaigns that created a raving fanbase. Police in Nebraska rescued a kidnapping victim Wednesday night and arrested an Indiana man suspected in the abduction. This push for efficiency meant laying off skilled workers, introducing manufacturing defects into Freedom Group products. Kamala Harris May Be a Huge Republican Target in 2024. Because the rim of the cartridge is identical, the same bolt and carrier can be used for both cartridges. The motivation of showing them that I was right and that I can do it, and be successful, it far overshadows my fear of having failures. [5], The company's Titan-QD Fast-Attach suppressor is used on the US Army's M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle and the Remington MSR (Modular Sniper Rifle). I ran stuff. He also pointed out that there were about 4 million pistol braces in . The margins on them were superb. Look, I grew up in rural America, he said. Anti-abortion activists want to roll back reproductive rights nationwide. Not long after Feinbergs trip to Blackwater, Cerberuss private-equity arm bought its first firearms manufacturer. To decrease his child-support payments, Biden has to disclose more about his finances, which House Republicans are eager to get their hands on. Im told Freedom Group reps and lawyers were on hand with security guards to lead AACs founder out of the building. Director of the Residency Program: 1983-2003. The whole story is laid bare in court documents you can find online. The companys corporate culture is Darwinian. We're going to build rifles. So When Will Ron DeSantis Announce His 2024 Candidacy? Marketed to civilians as the ultimate combat weapons system, many of Bushmasters gun builds were modeled after the weapons used by Americas Special Forces. The current lineup of Sig cans shows that he did his job well. There was no disguising its military heritage, but by stamping a storied brand onto this menacing instrument, Cerberus was able to expand Freedom Groups business in both the traditional gun-store market and the family-friendly sporting retailers. A man allegedly killed 5 of his neighbors on Friday night shortly after they asked him to stop shooting his gun so their baby could sleep. I named the company Advanced Armament Corporation. Firearms & Survivalists Lifestyle Cerberus set out to create it. During a 2020 interview with Colion Noir, Brittingham said that he was able to work with the agency initially, but when he pressed for specific ways to comply with existing rules in the future, the ATF stopped responding to him in writing. They led me out of the building, I think not as much for me, but the way the office was set up was not too different from here. He's going to do his own thing. Hiram Percy Maxim invented what he called a 'silencer' for firearms in 1909. KB: The M4. I'm super-passionate about hunting at this point in my life and I see the correlation between what we do with the military and the American hunter. Johns Hopkins Advanced Academic Programs 1717 . One was Wonder Woman and the other was Buck Rogers, the one with Princess Ardala. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected. Perhaps no single person benefited more from the automotive-industry bailout than Stephen Feinberg, who, in all other respects, was a conservative. Kevin Brittingham is an Environmental Studies lecturer at Johns Hopkins AAP. Many were using equipment and methods that hadnt been updated for decades. Dormant for two years after Remington's announcement that it would come to market, the Honey Badger has appeared again, but not with Remington. I am excited to have the opportunity to talk suppressors today with Kevin Brittingham. Brittingham will tell you surrounding himself with talented people, such as Ethan Lessard, Q's vice president of engineering, is critical to his ability to succeed. Jones. February 11, 2022. In an exclusive interview with TTAG, Brittingham revealed the tensions leading to his departure from the gunmaker's U.S. division and his plans to start an entirely new firearms company. POD-209275, Home Magazine Issue 25 Kevin Brittingham The Original Honey Badger, RECOIL Talks With One of the Loudest Voices in the Quiet Revolution. Brittingham was a Top 20, nationally ranked, factory BMX racer for Blazer and Redline bikes from age 6 through 12. I think, then, learning to shoot long range, and I think with the stress of the last five or six years, it's kind of been an outlet. It also probably means a paradoxical slackening of demand in the gun market, further devaluing Feinbergs investment. Brittingham currently teaches the elective courses 420.628 Ecology and Management of Wetlands and 420.625 Ecology and Management of Estuarine Systems. The original idea, of an IPO, was out of the question: No reputable investment bank would underwrite it, nor even take the M&A fees associated with a private deal. Mark LaRue and I do not see eye to eye on most things, but I honor him because of the support he's giving those guys, and that he built a really good product. AAC's Honey Badger project would eventually fail to reach the market while SIG's MCX, a competing product, would flourish. Robert Brittingham's birthday is 12/21/1972 and is 49 years old. Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission. Along with suppressors and a bolt-action rifle of their own design, Q has also developed and marketed an improved Honey Badger. Sign Up today for our FREE Newsletter and get the latest articles and news delivered right to your inbox. It's like, I don't know, it's a small part of my brain. Dr. John Leonard, M.D. Of note, one of AAC's chief suppressor designers is Robert Silvers, creator of the PhotoMosaic. [6][7] The suppressor eliminates 98 percent of muzzle flash, 60 percent of recoil, and reduces sound by 32 decibels. Behind all of this is Feinberg. I tried to make up for a lot of sh*t that I missed. Then it's a cute car. Trumps victory means Feinberg will ascend to a position of influence he has never experienced before. to Preston "Dickie" and Patricia Brittingham of Georgetown. Nardellis tenure at Freedom Group was disastrous. They all loved the sh*t I loved. But its a risky strategy. We pick deer out to shoot for that purpose. For now, that waste is buried in Steve Feinbergs yard. The Ultimate Firearms Destination for the Gun Lifestyle, 2023 Recoil Magazine E. Jean Carroll questioned by Donald Trumps lawyer. The CEO, whose company is betting big on artificial intelligence, tells Kara Swisher that hes more worried about humans than machines. Aidan Maxim. Sales of the R-15 boomed. I'm a bully, and I'm an a**hole, and I'm the youngest. I had the same feeling when I shot that MP5SD. Everybody else was sucking. Everybody can guess; whether it's the integrally [silenced] handgun, or it is the next M4, or it is the Honey Badger 2.0, or it's titanium scope mounts, or it's anything that gives a guy an advantage, or it's improved from what's out there now. Born in Dayton, Ohio and abandoned by his biological parents, he was raised and eventually adopted by his grandparents on his father's side of the family. If that means we're developing ammo. I needed to make it legitimate. In 2004, alongside Goldman Sachs, Cerberus privatized 65,000 units of public housing in Berlin. Then he shot himself in the head. Owning a gun business doesnt just affect ones reputation it also affects ones ability to own other, less controversial businesses. But, more so, he's an innovator; that's how he ended up on the cover of the April/May 2019 issue of Tactical Life Magazine. His goals this time aren't acquisition as the measure of success. KB: Oh, it totally motivates me. Good move on their part. Join Facebook to connect with Kevin Brittingham and others you may know. KB: Yeah. I'm driven to work because I love what I do, and I have the opportunity to work with my best friends [on something] that I believe in, and we can support my other best friends; The dudes that really kill bad guys. Before being acquired by Cerberus, Bushmasters bare-bones product brochure had all the glamour of a catalogue of plumbing fixtures. I kill a lot of stuff every year. I come from mean people, and I'm the youngest. The courts didnt buy the argument, and last month, the judge in the case dismissed the lawsuit. KB: I'm going to build accessories, silencers. Kevin Brittingham This study characterizes the benthic communities establishing themselves on recently reconstructed urban freshwater tidal wetlands along the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C.. So, too, did every other gun-industry executive I spoke with. Reichert had earned the Bronze Star for valor that day; two months later, he had a hole ripped in his cheek by an IED. Thompson was AAC's operations manager and one of Brittingham's closest friends at the time. They certainly didnt. But if I lived in New York City in a building with a hundred people, and I saw a guy with an assault weapon in his hand in the hallway, I think Id go back in my apartment.. One recent survey, conducted by public-health researchers from Harvard and Northeastern universities, suggested that this 3 percent owned more than half the countrys guns. They owned maybe 14 companies in our industry at the time. What's the letter Q? Brittingham in 1992. There had been Big Pharma, and Big Oil, but never Big Gun.

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