Who make Cabelas binos?

Anyone know who manufactures Cabelas brand binoculars? A few years back I got a pair for christmas and they seem pretty decent. I was just wondering if anyone knew who made them for Cabelas.

Which ones?  They offer / have offered different models made by different suppliers.

All I can tell you for certain on today's offerings is their "Euro" binos are made by Meopta.

Cant remeber but I know they are 8x42 and made in Japan and they retailed for about $350.

If they were made in Japan, they weren't made by Meopta.  The Meopta made Euros are made in Czech.

Plus, there is no 8X42 in the Euro series.

I don't think you'll get a definitive answer on who makes the Japanese binoculars for Cabelas.  Cabelas won't tell you, and their store employees don't know.  If they say they do, they are likely full of crap.  Suppliers are very secretive about that stuff.

If I had to venture a guess, I would guess they are made by the same supplier who makes Bushnell's roof prism binoculars, but that's only a guess.  Bushnell doesn't actually manufacture anything either.  Just like Cabelas, they are just a brand who spec out products and outsource manufacturing.

They seem very similar to a nikon monarch

could be 

I had a contact awhile back who told me that the Alaskan Guide series were made by Light Optical Works which is wildly considered to be the best OEM in Japan. They also make the Leupold Katmai and Pinnacle roof prism bino's for Leupold as well.

To be honest, I always see these questions and I sort of wonder "...what's the point?"  Outside of three or four top end manufacturers, almost no binocular sold under a particular brand name is made by the company doing the selling, even well established companies with storied history.  I wonder if somebody expects to find the "who makes this?" question is maybe expecting to find out his glass is made by Leica or something.

Steve:

Jerry,

To a point Steve you are correct, however, not all OEM's are created equal. My point is that LOW has a very good reputation for building quality products. Yes, I realize that the buyer (Cabelas, Vortex, Hawke, BassPro, Nitrex, Promaster, Eagle etc etc) spec bino's and what they are willing to pay, but some OEM's are better than others, especially in build quality and durability for the long haul.

No, not all OEM's are created equal, neither are the companies using them.  My point in my above post was that a reputable company, we'll use Cabela's since it was in the OP, has a long history of buying all sorts of stuff at all sorts of price ranges from all over the place.  I bet they have a good idea of which optics OEM's are reliable and which are less so and will choose accordingly.  So it still gets back to who the company is, what their product goals is, how they spec the design etc.  If Cabela's is going after a niche in the $500 market with the Alaskan Guide binocular (for example), they aren't likely to use an unreliable OEM to build it, and will bend some extra effort to get its design specs done right.

Edited by Klamath - February/04/2011 at 20:42

Oh, Ok I see your point now. I was the one that offered up a a particular model, the Alaskan Guide model which the OP didn't specify. I also see your point where knowing who makes a particular model really doesn't help the vast majority of folks as they know little to nothing armed with that info. I also know, and I'm sure you do too, that big name retailers switch OEM's from time to time for cost reasons mostly.

I find the original poster's question not only quite relevant, but interesting.  One does not need to have an extensive knowledge of the optical manufacturing base in Japan or Europe to satisfy the natural curiosity of who manufactured the particular binocular or any other product he purchased or was gifted.  Human nature craves knowledge and once learned who made this product the individual desired to learn more about this company and probably about the manufacture of the product.  That is the natural evolution of the learning process.  Before long the OP may be as learned about binoculars as the most knowledgeable on this website.  Besides, the forum is also for others to learn and there may be others interested in knowing the answer to the question, for whatever reason.  Knowledge regarding the build of certain products may change future buying decisions. 

Sure, that's understandable.  The only problem there is the fact that optics suppliers don't usually reveal that information.  Even if they did, it wouldn't mean a whole lot because most of the various optics manufacturers make products to specs and both good and bad stuff can come from the same manufacturing facility.  Take Light Optical Works for example.  They make both high end and bargain basement optics, all depending on what the customer requests based on what price target they are trying to compete in.

quarterbore wrote: I find the original poster's question not only quite relevant, but interesting.  One does not need to have an extensive knowledge of the optical manufacturing base in Japan or Europe to satisfy the natural curiosity of who manufactured the particular binocular or any other product he purchased or was gifted.  Human nature craves knowledge and once learned who made this product the individual desired to learn more about this company and probably about the manufacture of the product.  That is the natural evolution of the learning process.  Before long the OP may be as learned about binoculars as the most knowledgeable on this website.  Besides, the forum is also for others to learn and there may be others interested in knowing the answer to the question, for whatever reason.  Knowledge regarding the build of certain products may change future buying decisions.

Well, I never said the question was irrelevant or not interesting.  It's just that you can ask lots more questions in a quest for optics knowledge than by trying to find out who made it.  I can say that the last place I ever went to learn anything about optics was going off in shearches of just who made what.  You learn about optics by looking at optics and asking questions about what you see and why you see what you see.  Ask those first, and along the way you will absorb some of who made them.  I just don't personally pay much attention as I don't think it matters a lot.  You will never find out in many instances anyway.  As the above post states, a particular optic may eveolve through several OEM's during its life.  Any OEM may well use parts from other OEM's to fill their contracts.

Interesting. I honestly didn't know that major manufactures didn't make their own stuff. I just assumed that Cabelas had someone like Nikon make the bino's for them. To be honest I just figured that cabelas took an existing bino and told (Nikon in this example) make it look a little differnt and put our name on it.

That is precisely what happens in many cases; it's just that many manufacturers, Nikon included, don't actually make all -- and quite often none -- of the products they put their names on.  They simply spec out what they want and contract it out to whichever manufacturer it makes the most sense from a cost and logistics standpoint to make it.

I see. I did find the box last night when cleaning out my storage and found out mine are the Cabelas XT model.

Another thing that happens a lot is that somebody sees two binoculars (or whatever) that look alike and think well then X must be a knockoff of Y.  Or since X costs less than Y, it has to be a better deal since X is less money than Y. 

FWIW- After much research, I found the previous line of Cabela's were indeed made by Light Optical Works.  

I decided to ressurect this thread as I found at least a partial answer to this question while at the Kruger Optical Headquarters a couple of days ago.  I went there to check out the Kruger Caldera binoculars, as they are just a couple of hours from me.

Edited by Klamath - April/02/2011 at 20:12

Well the glass for LEICA is actually made by CORNING. Also the older Leica riflescopes were made by LEUPOLD .then Leupold came back and started expanding their product lines and Have really gotten into the Super Premium line of optics. Leupold glass comes from Japan and assembled here in the USA similar to ZEISS conquest line is.Also at one time Burris actually got lenses from TEXAS and another Northern State (cant remeber ) and now are owned By Beretta Group. and now some products are made in china ....   :-(