Brunton, Inc.

History

Founded in 1895 by David W. Brunton, a Canadian-born geologist and mining engineer, and William Ainsworth, a skilled watch repairman, the firm is most famous for its earliest product, the Brunton Pocket Transit, a compass and measuring tool used by geologists, foresters, surveyors, and archaeologists. Often simply called a "Brunton", the Pocket Transit was first patented in 1894 by David Brunton, who commissioned William Ainsworth & Sons to manufacture his invention in Denver, Colorado. The company later incorporated as William Ainsworth Inc. and for many years produced the Pocket Transit along with surveying transits, theodolites, and other instruments.

Beginning in 1965, William Ainsworth Inc. was owned by a series of corporate conglomerates, and product quality varied as the company changed hands repeatedly. In 1972, a group of Riverton, Wyoming businessmen bought the company and formed Brunton, Inc. The company was moved to Riverton, Wyoming where it began producing a new series of recreational outdoors compasses, hunting knives, and binoculars in addition to the Brunton Pocket Transit.

In 1996, the company was acquired by Silva of Sweden AB, the original Swedish-based manufacturer of the Silva brand compass. Initially, Brunton began selling Silva of Sweden compasses and GPS devices imported from Sweden under the Elite Pro Elite, Nexus, and MNS labels after Johnson Outdoors retained the exclusive rights to the Silva brand name in North America. Brunton also began sourcing some of its compass models from Asia.

In 2006, Brunton's parent company, the Silva Group, was in turn acquired by the Finnish Fiskars Corporation, and along with the rest of Silva Group, Brunton became part of the Outdoor division of Fiskars, which also includes Gerber Legendary Blades. As of 2009, Brunton, Inc. employed about 40 people.

In December 2009, Fiskars announced that it was selling Brunton Inc. to Fenix Outdoor AB, a Swedish company. As a result of Fiskar's divestment of Brunton Inc., Silva of Sweden AB ceased all exports of its Swedish-made compasses and GPS devices to North America, including the Nexus, Elite, and Pro Elite lines, while Brunton in turn ceased export of its domestically produced 8020, 8040, and 9020 compasses to Silva of Sweden AB as the Silva Voyager line.

As of March 2012, the company employed around 68 people at its Riverton, Wyoming location, with plans to add an additional 50 personnel in the near future.

Compasses

As William Ainsworth Inc., Brunton continued production of the Pocket Transit, later adopted by the U.S. Army as the M2 Artillery Compass. The Pocket Transit remains in production today, and is offered in numerous versions and configurations. In 1970, the company introduced the Brunton Cadet, a much-simplified evolution of the Pocket Transit incorporating a compass and clinometer, and intended for use by geology students, survyeing students, foresters, and mining engineers. The company soon began marketing the Cadet to instruct Boy Scouts in the principles of surveying.

In 1972, the newly formed Brunton Company, Inc. began compass and transit production in Riverton, Wyoming. Compasses included the Pocket Transit, Cadet, and an emergency compass called the Life Card, designed to float in a bowl of water. This was followed in 1981 by the Model 8040 Sportsman's Compass, a map (baseplate) compass with folding cover and mirror sight, and the Model 9020, a small baseplate compass intended for general use by hikers, outdoorsmen, and hunters. Over the next ten years Brunton would introduce a full range of map or baseplate compasses, all based on a liquid-filled compass capsule with no-tools adjustment for adjusting magnetic declination. This new line included the Models 8010, 8020, 8040, 9020, and the compact 9030 Trailbuster. Most featured bright yellow-green acrylic baseplates with UTM and map scales designed for use with a standard 1:24,000 USGS topographic map. The Model 9030 Trailbuster, intended to replicate the popular 1960s-era Taylor Model 2912 field compass, omitted the baseplate in order to minimize space and weight. In 1991, an unknown number of Brunton Model 8010 Smoke Chaser compasses originally produced for U.S. Forest Service fire-fighting crews were purchased by the U.S. military for use in survival kits to be carried by U.S. Navy and Marine flight crews. These Model 8010 compasses used clear baseplates and were equipped with lanyards. The compasses were shipped in plain cardboard boxes with military stock number NSN 6605-00-553-8795. Brunton discontinued all 8000- and 9000- series compasses in 2011.

Brunton, Inc. was acquired by Silva of Sweden AB, the original Swedish-based manufacturer of the Silva baseplate orienteering compass, in 1996. Initially, Brunton began selling Silva of Sweden compasses and GPS devices imported from Sweden under the Nexus, Elite, and Pro Elite labels, since Johnson Outdoors had retained exclusive rights to the Silva brand name in North America. Brunton also began importing some compass models from Taiwan and mainland China, including the Model 9075 and Model 9077 lensatic compasses and the Model 9030.

In 1998, Brunton introduced its Eclipse range of liquid-filled baseplate compasses featuring large, low-profile capsules, a magnified degree readout in 1-degree increments, and a new patented circle-over-circle magnetized disk instead of a traditional pointed needle. The Eclipse compasses included the Model 8096 GPS, the Model 8097, and the Model 8099 Pro. Like older Brunton outdoor compasses, the Eclipse series used no-tools adjustable declination. Designed by Brunton, but imported from China, some owners of Eclipse compasses reported issues with air bubbles forming in the compass capsules.

Brunton next introduced an electronic fluxgate compass imported from Taiwan, the Brunton Outback, in 2000. The Outback had gimbal-mounted magnetic sensors which the manufacturer claimed allowed the unit to be tilted up to 15 degrees and still give accurate readings within its ultimate azimuth accuracy (plus or minus two degrees). The Outback stored up to 10 compass bearings in its memory, and featured a night navigation mode with illuminated arrows that warned if the user was moving off-track. The Outback was eventually replaced by the Brunton Nomad electronic compass.

In 2009, Brunton, Inc. was sold by Fiskars, Silva of Sweden's parent owner, and by the following year Brunton began to cease importing most Silva of Sweden compass products, including the Nexus and Elite lines as well as the Silva Model 54, a prismatic-sight baseplate compass relabeled as the Brunton 54LU for sale in North America. The Brunton 54LU was marketed to foresters, surveyors, geologists, SAR teams, and others as a precision navigation compass before being discontinued. Some models that had formerly been imported from Sweden, including the Brunton 15TDCL and Brunton 16DLU, were later sourced from a production facility in China. In 2011, Brunton discontinued the Models 8010G, 8020, 8040G, 9020G, and 9030 compasses.

In 2012, Brunton introduced a new series of outdoor compasses called O.S.S., which stands for Orbital Sighting System. Like the Eclipse series, the O.S.S. compasses feature a large liquid-filled capsule and circle-on-circle north indicator, but with several design improvements, including a deep-well 'global' capsule, a serrated outer bezel, a needle with an orienting circle instead of a magnetized disc, and map meridian lines imprinted in the base of the housing. Unlike older Eclipse compasses, O.S.S. compasses are assembled in Riverton, Wyoming from components made in the United States. As of 2012, Brunton is the only compass manufacturer with U.S.-based production facilities.

GPS

In 2000, Silva of Sweden AB introduced its Silva Multi-Navigator GPS device, which was subsequently sold and distributed in North America as the Brunton MNS. The MNS featured an electronic compass, barometer, and barometric altimeter in addition to GPS reception capability. At $399, the Silva Multi-Navigator aka Brunton MNS faced intense competition from rapidly emerging and frequently less expensive GPS receivers from larger competitors such as Garmin and Magellan, and the MNS failed to gain a significant share of the market. In 2004, Silva and Brunton introduced a slightly lower-priced GPS receiver called the Atlas, which used built-in topo maps and a grey-scale screen display in conjunction with a built-in barometer. The Brunton MNS and Atlas were both discontinued by Brunton in 2009.