Tag Archives: S&B

Ammunition, Firearms

Sellier & Bellot (S&B) Ammo Was Bought By Colt CZ Group — Who is Colt CZ Group???

I recently posted a video of Ian McCollum touring the Sellier & Bellot (S&B) ammunition factory located in Vlašim, in the Czech Republic. In the back of my head, I knew S&B ownership had changed in 2024 but couldn’t recall the details.

S&B is one of the world’s largest ammunition companies and has changed hands a few times. In December 2023, Colt CZ announced it would acquire 100% of Sellier & Bellot from CBC of Brazil. for $703 million, excluding Sellier & Bellot’s net debt. The deal included cash and new Colt CZ common stock. It’s my understanding the deal closed in May 2024.

Okay, being an American, I saw “Colt” and immediately wondered if there was a relationship with the traditional Colt firearms brand in the US. As you often see in the firearms / defense industry, owners may come and go but established brand names rarely die and Samuel Colt’s name and brand continue to live on.

In 2021, the European company Česká zbrojovka Group (CZG) acquired Colt Holding Company, the parent company of Colt Manufacturing Company (CMC), for $220 million. On April 12, 2022, CZG renamed itself Colt CZ Group SE. The interesting thing is that CBC of Brazil is the second largest shareholder of Colt CZ after René Holeček, which owns Česká zbrojovka Partners SE.

The Colt CZ Group now owns quite a few brands including but not limited to:

Summary

The brands continue to move around. Colt is owned by CZ who changed the holding company’s name to “Colt CZ”. They bought S&B in May 2024. So, Colt CZ has a formidable lineup and it’s always interesting to see “who owns whom” at a given time.

I hope you found this interesting.

Note, the logo source was from Wikimedia.

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Ammunition, Factory Tour

Ian McCollum Tours the S&B Factory – It’s a Very Cool Video

I am a huge fan of S&B ammo, factory tour videos and Ian McCollum’s Forgotten Weapons series (If you don’t know about Ian, click here for his website and here for his Youtube channel.) So, when he posted this morning about his tour of the S&B facility in Vlašim, in the Czech Republic, I knew I had to watch it.

As usual, Ian does a great job. Larry Vickers created a video back in 2018 of his tour and it was interesting to compare what Larry saw six-plus years ago to what Ian just saw.

I learned three new things watching Ian’s video:

  1. Literally every single round that ships from S&B is QC inspected at each step of manufacturing through various computerized methods – imaging, weight, etc. Literally, every single round – not samples – must pass their quality checks. No wonder their quality is so good.
  2. It takes 2-3 days to change over from one to another caliber so they want long production runs to absorb all the setup costs. I can only imagine the fixed costs are enormous too. A facility like you see in the video costs millions and millions of dollars.
  3. Civilian and military ammo both have their necks annealed. The only difference is that the military inspects want to be able to see that it happened whereas commercial/private shooters view seeing the discolored neck as defective so additional polishing is done to remove it. Other than the additional polishing – the process is the same.
The 100% QC capabilities are stunning. This machine will kick out any case that video inspection deems as being deffective. Literally every single case! All of my old school sampling and inspection methods from 30+ years ago sure seems dated now.

So, with no further to-do, here’s Ian’s S&B factory tour video:

Summary

This is S&B factory tour video is another great production by Ian. I have shot S&B for years – espectially 9mm, 10mm and .45ACP plus some .300 Win Mag and .338 Lapua and they continue to impress me.

I hope you find this interesting also.

Note: All screen shots are from Ian’s video and remain his property.

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Ammunition, Pistols, Shooting in General

Yes, Sellier & Bellot (S&B) Makes Good Ammo

Many folks are new to firearms these days or they are experienced and scrambling to find ammo. This means they are encountering brands they may never of heard of and Sellier & Bellot (S&B) is one such example. I get asked regularly if they make good ammo and if I would recommend their pistol or rifle and the answer is a definite YES.

First off, S&B is a Czech company that was founded in 1825. The Czechs produce some excellent small arms, such as the cz.75 pistol, and S&B turns out some great ammo. My point is that they know their stuff.

I have been using S&B ammo for years including 12ga shot shells, 8mm Mauser, .308, 9mm 115 grain and 124 grain full metal jacket (FMJ) plus 10mm 180 grain FMJ rounds. I use it for firearm testing and shooting at the range and have shot thousands of rounds with not one failure that I could attribute to the ammo – bear in mind I am using it often to test and break in guns. For example, the recoil impulse of the 9mm 124 grain ammo is great for breaking in pistol caliber carbines (PCCs) as well as newly built Polymer80 pistols.

I’ll keep this post short, S&B ammo is good to go. Below are some vendors with S&B offerings:

If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.