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Who Owns Ravin Crossbows and Where Are They Made?

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Ravin Crossbows is owned by Velocity Outdoor, an outdoor recreation company that bought the brand in 2018. The wider picture is that Velocity Outdoor is owned by Compass Diversified, an investment firm that holds several sporting goods businesses. That makes Ravin a subsidiary, which simply means a brand managed inside a larger family of outdoor companies.

What that structure means for an archer usually comes down to practical details. Many hunters wonder if a corporate purchase shifts assembly overseas, but Ravin still designs and builds its gear out of Superior, Wisconsin. The ownership also shapes where repairs go, since day-to-day warranty claims stay with Ravin's direct support crew rather than an outside investment office. Here is how that ownership works and what it means for your bow.

Velocity Outdoor And Compass Diversified Own Ravin Crossbows

Ravin Crossbows is owned by Velocity Outdoor, a dedicated outdoor sporting goods company. Above Velocity Outdoor sits Compass Diversified, a publicly traded investment firm that provides financial backing. In business terms, Ravin operates as a subsidiary, which simply means it is a brand owned by a bigger company. Velocity Outdoor acts as the direct parent company, which is the larger business that oversees daily operations.

Compass Diversified, often referred to as CODI, acquired Velocity Outdoor back in 2017 when the group was still known as Crosman Corporation. The investment firm specializes in acquiring established, market-leading brands and providing them with long-term capital. Instead of running factory floors directly, Compass Diversified leaves brand management, design decisions, and customer relations to the leadership team at Velocity Outdoor.

This corporate structure gives Ravin a strong financial cushion. Many small archery brands struggle when demand surges, often running out of money to buy raw materials or pay for specialized manufacturing equipment. With a well-funded parent company behind it, Ravin avoids the sudden cash crunches and supply failures that often plague smaller bow makers. You get the stability of a large corporation while keeping specialized archery designers focused on the equipment.

For bowhunters spending significant money on a premium hunting rig, this setup provides peace of mind. You know the company is not going to vanish overnight, leaving you stranded without replacement parts or factory support. The parent company ensures that warehouses stay stocked with components, shipping lanes stay open, and engineering teams have the resources they need to keep improving bow technology.

The Original Founders Sold Ravin In 2018

A small group of passionate archery innovators founded Ravin Crossbows in Superior, Wisconsin, in 2016. Their goal was to solve a major problem that had frustrated hunters for decades: traditional crossbows were wide, heavy, and awkward to handle in tight ground blinds or tree stands. They wanted a bow that was narrow, fast, and balanced like a fine hunting rifle.

To accomplish that, the founders engineered the patented HeliCoil system. This design spooled the bow cables away from the top and bottom of the cams in helical tracks, keeping the cams perfectly level throughout the entire draw cycle. The innovation allowed Ravin bows to shrink down to unmatched narrow profiles while still slinging arrows downrange at blistering speeds. The brand became an instant sensation in the hunting world almost overnight.

That explosive growth created an immediate challenge. By 2018, demand for Ravin bows was outpacing what a young, independent business could easily manage on its own. Building modern production lines, managing national retail accounts, and handling global distribution required deep pockets. In September 2018, the original founders decided to sell Ravin Crossbows to Velocity Outdoor for approximately 94 million dollars.

The sale allowed the founders to cash in on their groundbreaking design while handing administrative headaches to an experienced outdoor distributor. Crucially, Velocity Outdoor did not clean house or fire the people who built the brand. The original engineering minds and technical leaders remained in place in Wisconsin to steer product design, ensuring that the brand retained its creative soul after joining the corporate family.

Ravin Builds And Assembles Bows In Wisconsin

When an independent brand gets bought by a large investment group, hunters naturally worry that production will be outsourced to cheap overseas factories. Nobody wants to pay thousands of dollars for a bow only to discover that it was slapped together with cut-rate materials. Fortunately, Ravin continues to design, assemble, and inspect its bows at its corporate headquarters in Superior, Wisconsin.

The facility in Superior houses the company's research labs, engineering offices, assembly lines, and customer service desks. Skilled technicians put each bow together by hand, checking critical tolerances, aligning the HeliCoil cams, and setting string tension before any bow ships to a dealer. Keeping assembly in Wisconsin allows the brand to maintain tight control over build standards and mechanical precision.

Like almost every manufacturer in the modern archery industry, Ravin relies on a global supply chain for certain components. While risers, triggers, and cam assemblies are machined to strict specifications, smaller accessories often come from specialized partners around the world. Soft bow cases, arrow quivers, screws, and optical scopes are frequently sourced through trusted international manufacturers who specialize in those specific items.

What matters most to the shooter is that the core mechanical system remains built and calibrated right here in the United States. You can confirm this whenever you inspect an authentic Ravin bow in person. Look at the serial number plate mounted on the stock or barrel, which links the bow directly to its Wisconsin assembly batch. Every unit leaves the facility with proper inspection stamps, proving it met factory standards before going into the box.

Ravin Handles Its Own Repairs And Warranty Support

A big corporate buyout often leaves customers wondering who will answer the phone when something breaks. If your bow develops a strange noise or an optic issue right before opening day, you do not want to talk to an automated call center that knows nothing about hunting. Ravin solves this by keeping its customer support and repair services completely separate from its corporate parent.

The service desk is located inside the Superior, Wisconsin facility, staffed by trained archery specialists rather than third-party phone operators. If your bow requires warranty work, maintenance, or factory tuning, you follow a straightforward process:

  • Register your bow immediately: Visit the official Ravin website right after bringing your bow home. Enter your serial number, purchase date, and retailer name to lock in your warranty coverage and simplify future claims.
  • Review the warranty limits: Ravin provides a limited warranty to the original owner covering defects in materials and craftsmanship. Keep in mind that normal wear items, such as strings, cables, and arrows, are maintenance parts and do not fall under defect coverage.
  • Contact Wisconsin support first: If you suspect limb damage, cam lean, or trigger problems, contact Ravin technical support before taking anything apart. The team will walk you through troubleshooting steps and issue a return authorization if the bow must visit the factory.
  • Work with an authorized pro shop: Ravin bows operate under heavy pull weight (how much muscular effort it takes to pull the bowstring back, handled here by an integrated cocking crank). Never clamp a Ravin into a standard garage vice or generic press. Strings and cables sit under hundreds of pounds of tension, so only an archery pro shop bow press designed specifically for ultra-narrow limbs can safely work on them.
  • Flex-check carbon arrows before every shot: Bend each arrow gently by hand while listening closely for faint cracking sounds. A cracked arrow shaft can splinter when fired, potentially damaging your bow limbs or causing serious injury to your hands and face.
  • Avoid a dry fire at all costs: A dry fire happens when a bow is fired without an arrow nocked on the string. Without the weight of an arrow to absorb the bow's massive mechanical energy, that force slams directly back into the limbs, cams, and axles. A dry fire can shatter limbs, fling sharp debris, and immediately void your warranty.

Hunters who spend long seasons in the woods pay close attention to how parent companies back their gear. If you are comparing warranty responsiveness and service availability across the luxury crossbow category, looking at the best TenPoint crossbow for hunting shows you how another respected American brand handles customer care and mechanical repairs.

Velocity Outdoor Manages Several Notable Hunting Brands

Ravin is not the only hunting brand operating under the Velocity Outdoor umbrella. The parent group manages a diverse portfolio of shooting sports companies that cater to different styles of shooting. Understanding these sister brands helps clarify where Ravin sits in the broader market.

Velocity Outdoor oversees several well-known sporting names:

  • Crosman: A historic American brand focused on introductory airguns, pellet rifles, and backyard target shooting gear.
  • Benjamin: Velocity's dedicated hunting airgun line, producing high-pressure pneumatic rifles capable of taking small game, predators, and even whitetail deer.
  • LaserMax: A specialized manufacturer that builds firearm-mounted laser sights, weapon lights, and aiming accessories for self-defense and tactical shooting.
  • CenterPoint Archery: A sister archery brand that makes budget-conscious and mid-tier crossbows designed for casual hunters and beginners.

When bowhunters notice that CenterPoint Archery and Ravin share the same parent company, they sometimes worry that Ravin will start using cheaper components. Velocity Outdoor avoids this by keeping the two brands completely separate. CenterPoint serves hunters looking for an affordable, straightforward rig that gets the job done on a modest budget. Ravin remains the luxury technology division, focused exclusively on premium materials, extreme speeds, and patented HeliCoil systems.

None of the lower-cost parts from CenterPoint cross over into Ravin production lines. Ravin maintains its own independent engineering staff, its own distinct patent catalog, and its own dedicated assembly facility. The shared corporate ownership simply gives both brands stronger buying power for raw metals, better shipping rates, and broader shelf space in major outdoor retail stores.

For hunters shopping for compact hunting gear, knowing the corporate landscape helps you evaluate build quality and design philosophy. When you want a bow that maneuvers effortlessly through brush or inside a pop-up ground blind, wheel-to-wheel length (the distance from one cam axle to the other) becomes your most important measurement. Evaluating how different engineering teams tackle that challenge, such as reviewing the TenPoint TX Ultra 265 vs TX Ultra 295, illustrates how top manufacturers build high-performance bows for tight spaces.

At the end of the day, Ravin Crossbows is backed by the financial muscle of Compass Diversified and the distribution reach of Velocity Outdoor. Yet its bows are still engineered, built, and supported by dedicated archery specialists in Superior, Wisconsin. That combination gives hunters the cutting-edge performance they expect alongside the long-term corporate backing needed to support high-end hunting gear for years to come.

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John Timmons
WRITTEN BY
John Timmons
I'm an airgun enthusiast and I love nothing more than spending my time outdoors shooting targets. I'm always on the lookout for new airgun gear, and I love sharing my knowledge with others.