Midway now Brownells?

P

Pond James Pond

New member
although the prices are high, here and the shipping bites too, I do occasionally buy through Midway Germany if they have something I need and can't get elsewhere. I have it on my favourites listing on my computer, but today I noticed that the logo had changed and clicking the link I got the Brownells.de page.

In Google I cannot even find Midway.de anymore. And it seems that Brownells do not have the choice of stock that Midway did.

Is it true?
Are Midway no more?
 
The midwayusa website comes up just fine for me. I don't know how much help that would be for you since I am in the United States and use midwayusa.com though.
 
James, Yes, It was happening yesterday to me too.. It was Google links from the search engine.. Yahoo was fine.:confused:
 
Hmmm. Strange. I'll give it a while or try through Yahoo.

I hope they are still around. They are very expensive but they do have a huge choice and sometimes they are simply the only ones with what I want.
 
Midway.de is currently owned by a company called Neue Medien Muennich GmbH, an Internet hosting company in Germany. That would be the reason it takes you to a login page you don't recognize. Looks like someone configured a Wordpress blog there but hasn't started it up yet.

MidwayDeutschland.com is owned by MidwayUSA, but contacting their server returns the following code:

Code: 
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<html><head>
<title>301 Moved Permanently</title>
</head><body>
<h1>Moved Permanently</h1>
<p>The document has moved <a href="http://www.brownells-deutschland.de/">here</a>.</p>
<hr>
<address>Apache Server at midwaydeutschland.com Port 80</address>
</body></html>

In non-nerd-ese, this means that MidwayDeutschland is being fulfilled by Brownells Deutschland, and people don't expect that to change in the foreseeable future. The other international pages (MidwayFrance.fr, MidwayItalia.com, MidwayIberica.com, etc) also redirect to Brownells pages in one way or another.

I don't know enough to give an informed explanation for why that is. Maybe Midway sold the overseas business to Brownells, or maybe they decided to get out of the overseas business and are redirecting as a service to their customers? Larry Potterfield makes his email available on the company contact page, so it may be worth emailing him to ask.
 
Thanks for taking the time to investigate. Seems that, steep prices or not, I may have missed my chance on some Midway stock. On the plus side I recall Brownells have some Rust Bluing solution! So every cloud...
 
So Brownells don't allow goods to be sold outside the country of the affiliate in question.

So despite being in the EU free market, common currency area that is Europe, Brownells Germany, for example, can't sell to even its neighbouring nations. Any nation who want from Brownells, but don't have an affiliate in their country such as myself has to go through the US parent company which means restricted goods, sky-high customs fees or, in other words, a huge market essentially wiped off their market share.

Good going!
:rolleyes:

At least I know where I stand with this source for shooting supplies and accessories... shame. :(
 
Yup same here in sweden

and I think it will be good, brownells couldn't ship everything to sweden and there was a limit on how much.

and midway sucked, high prices and a lousy webpage
 
I tried ordering some equipment from USA to be sent to Sweden and they said no, long story short. The workaround was to send it to one of my sons and they forwarded the package to me in Sweden. Just don't let MidwayUSA find out. :rolleyes:

I have asked around in Sweden what happened and no one knows for sure, just one day Brownell's came up, as mentioned earlier, and all internet searches for MidwaySverige are directed to Brownell's.

If anyone does discover the "inside information" I for one am curious.
 
and I think it will be good, brownells couldn't ship everything to sweden and there was a limit on how much.
Click to expand...

That is OK for you as you have a Brownell's in Sweden, but ordering from Brownell's Germany is now no-longer possible for me, nor from Sweden, nor from any other branch. They say within affiliate borders only! :rolleyes:

Hello? European Free Market Economy anyone?
I can't understand why the US State Dept has any say in how EU businesses function within the EU, particularly for stuff like the speedloaders I was after: hardly strategic goods.
That was the reason given when I pressed for an explanation.
 
I cannot say anything about why Brownell's-Sweden will not ship out of Sweden, I have to look further into it. As for MidwayUSA the Admins of the company said it was their policy not to ship outside the USA. I also find it nonsense. One glaring example was a 20# melting pot, with shipping and VAT it cost me $115.00 US from MidwayUSA (shipped via my son). The SAME POT WAS $1110.00 US from MidwaySverige until recently. I cannot understand the price difference even when one takes into consideration shipping, VAT, and 2.7% import fee.
 
I also find it nonsense.
Click to expand...

Midway USA, yes, but whenever I had expressed an interest in something from Midway Germany, I would ask for shipping costs to Estonia and the idea of shipping there didn't seem to cause an issue, provided it wasn't ammo, powder and the like.

Brownells Germany, France, Spain, UK etc are apparently prohibited, by the US State Dept from shipping outside Germany, France, Spain, UK.

This is the EU. The whole point is free movement of goods and citizens, especially in the Euro-zone and even if it weren't it is not under jurisdiction of the State Dept. That is what I don't get. Especially when the US economic philosophy is generally that of free trade.

Either way, they've lost a customer. I would have been interested but as there is no way to get their stock, I cease looking that it.
 
From my experience both personal and from reading the issue is not a matter of the State Department but the "Mother Company". The US, EU and a number of other countries have signed treaties that prohibit items that can be used to Wage War, such a primers, powder, etc., as mentioned here.

What is the case with Midway USA and its affiliates (now we know it to be Brownells) is that MidwayUSA does not ship internationally so as not to impede on the other affiliates sales. Contracts and all that.

The trick is to find a good reloading and shooting equipment web site in the States that ships internationally without interference from the Mother Company. One example is Titan Reloading who is a Master Distributor for Lee Reloading Products. Once they have their inventory from Lee Titan Reloading is free to sell as they wish. I have used them and they are fantastic.

As for MidwayUSA they lost me a good two months ago as their policies are far too restrictive.
 
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