Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos S.A.

Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos, universally called CBC, has been loading cartridges at Ribeirao Pires in Sao Paulo state since 1926, and the group it now heads is one of the larger ammunition producers anywhere. Combined output across its plants runs past 1.5 billion rounds a year with roughly 3,500 employees, and the customer list spans more than a hundred countries. The group grew mainly by acquisition. Sellier & Bellot of the Czech Republic came in 2007, the German military cartridge specialist MEN followed, control of the firearms maker Taurus was taken in 2015, the American frangible bullet firm SinterFire was added in 2023, and the British precision ammunition group Extreme Performance was bought in March 2026. A plant in Oklahoma announced in 2025 gives the group centrefire production inside the United States. Ownership stays private, and Brazil classifies CBC as a strategic defence company.

The six segments CBC itself names make the split between civilian and armed customers explicit. Sport shooting, hunting and the civilian consumer account for the sporting side of the business, where the catalogue runs to handgun and carbine ammunition, rifle cartridges, rimfire, hunting shotshells sold under the Velox name, competition loads, reloading components, air rifles and imported accessories. Private security is served with training and duty ammunition together with weapons such as the Pump Military pump action shotgun. Public security brings in shotguns and rounds built for training, crowd control and tactical entry. The Magtech brand carries much of the commercial export volume in North America.

The military segment is a separate business with separate qualification. CBC Defesa and its export arm supply 5.56x45, 7.62x51, 9x19, .300 Blackout and 12.7x99 in ball, tracer, armour piercing and match sniper loadings, with reduced range, infrared tracer and improved performance variants for specific customers. Medium calibre production covers 20x102, 20x128, 30x113, 30x173 and 40x53 grenade ammunition, which puts the group into aircraft cannon, naval gun and automatic grenade launcher supply chains. NATO qualification underpins much of that trade, and the Brazilian Navy and Army are long standing customers at home.

What holds the pieces together is vertical integration. The group draws brass, primers and projectiles from its own component lines, which is why it can quote military contracts that demand traceability at the lot level and still run high volume sporting production alongside. The Taurus stake extends that reach into firearms, since a public security buyer can source weapon and cartridge from the same corporate group. Distribution runs through CBC in Brazil, Magtech and CBC Global Ammunition in the United States, Sellier & Bellot across Europe, and MEN into German and allied military accounts. Brazil classifies CBC as a strategic defence company, which gives it a preferential position in domestic military tenders, and the group has been open that military and law enforcement orders are what carry it through downturns in civilian demand. Volume is the moat.