Firearms Designer, Kimber Founder, Jack Warne Has Died

By Chris Eger

Jack Warne spent over 50 years in the gun industry across two continents. (Photo: Warne Scope Mounts)
Firearms designer and gun culture legend John “Jack” Llewellyn Warne, responsible for the birth of at least three iconic shooting industry brands, has died at age 96.
Raised in the small town of Kimba, South Australia, a 23-year-old Warne went on to found Sporting Arms Limited, best known as Sportco, in 1947. At the time, Sportco was the only private gun maker in Australia and over the next three decades produced dozens of rifle models, with Warne at the drawing board for their designs.
Besides their Martini-action guns, Warne’s bolt-action models proved popular not only Down Under but also on the global export market. Sportco made rifles for Winchester branded as that company’s Models 320 and 325.
After 1966 when Oregon-based Omark purchased Sportsco, Warne transitioned to America as an executive. While at Omark, the company continued making Sportco-style rifles and acquired ammo makers CCI and Speer, sight/optics maker Weaver, and reloading and accessory makers RCBS and Outers.
In 1979, as Omark got out of the rifle making business, Warne and his son Greg founded Kimber of Oregon, which continued in the designer’s footsteps of producing accurate rimfire

Source: Guns.com