I know next to nothing about optics, so I went to a Cabela's in an effort to educate myself. The only thing I learned is not to go to a Cabela's 
They didn't even have any ammunition I needed or wanted. Forget reloading supplies. It's been a long time since I set foot in Cabela's. Things have really gone downhill there.
Cabelas was subject to what was effectively a hostile takeover in 2016 after activist investor Paul Singer's Elliott Management put them under threat... And now, unfortunately, Cabela's is a shell of what it formerly was.
Our local Central Texas Cabelas, opened mid 2000s, and a 30 minute drive or so from me for most of that time and since the merger has lost its fudge shop/general store, cafeteria/restaurant, bargain cave, furniture store, and most of the gift shop; the gun library and surplus/used guns section is now a joke (used to have everything from highly curated and rare to just quality trade-ins or surplus buys, and now primarily just has super-expensive new guns); ammo selection is now extremely poor and they're also now price-gouging (didn't in the Obama years ammo rushes -- one of the few affordable and available ammo retailers in that era, and with online orders w/ free in-store pickup their purchase limits [generally just a single to a couple boxes] meant you could actually ensure you could get it affordable prices by consistently placing your one box per day per email address order); and the inventory of most of the rest of their stuff is now half of what it used to be and a good portion is now Bass Pro branded...
The optics counter also has half of what it did, is now rarely ever manned (used to have 2 employees on it), and they moved some other inventory into the cases -- not recalling what offhand (haven't looked closely at it the past couple of visits).
Effectively Cabela's model was a premium outdoor department store (that premium department store experience [yes, including shopping mall anchors] due to competition really went by the wayside w/ all the mergers in the 1990s to 2000s), and Cabelas was one of the few remaining into the 2010s that had the full experience with enough spectacle/sights and merchandise inventory and food to keep you in the store all day... Now the spectacle/sights still take a good two hours, but the merchandise inventory is easily half of what it used to be. And food is now just all shelf-stable snacks... Unsurprisingly, the fishing section is the only one that's not gutted...
Effectively, Cabelas is now a quick pit stop off the highway, instead of the destination itself.
Still take the kids as they enjoy the sights, but we spend very little $ there nowadays except for snacks and the laser shooting arcade (which like much of the sights is slowly falling into disrepair). But the rest of the experience now tends to invoke an unsettling nostalgia with echoes to the earliest time of the start of the death of shopping malls... So honestly at this point, I'm just biding time for a Scheels to open in the southern half of Texas -- one opened in north Texas in 2020, so there's hope...
And IMO, this BassPro/Cabelas merger (two largest sporting goods chains at the time) should have been prevented by the FTC on antitrust grounds, but they've done little to protect consumers on that front over the past two decades... For instance, the Albertsons (also including their subsidiary Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Acme, Shaw, Tom Thumb, Vons, United, Randalls, etc. stores) and Kroger (also including their subsidiary Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer, Frys, King Soopers, Ralphs, Smiths, Pick-N-Save, Dillons, Food4Less, QFC, Roundys, etc. stores) merger is likely to be approved by them as well, even though those are the two largest grocery chains in the nation...
And that'll basically leave Ahold Delhaize (Food Lion, Giant, Stop & Shop, and Hannaford), Publix, HEB, and Meijer as the remaining major competing grocery chains, but all quite a bit smaller... There will also be Walmart, dollar stores, membership clubs (Sams [aka Walmart], Costco, & BJs), Target, and Amazon as grocery goods competitors, but typically major mergers like this and BassPro/Cabelas result in higher prices and less product selection for consumers, and more profits to corporations.
More on Cabela's change in ownership: "Under Threat From Elliott, Cabela's Sells to Bass Pro for $5.5 Billion
The announcement of a combination comes after the activist investor launched a campaign last year urging the hunting and camping outfitter to consider a sale or other strategic options."
https://www.thestreet.com/markets/mergers-and-acquisitions/under-threat-from-elliott-cabela-s-sells-to-bass-pro-for-5-5b-13839040And Fox News/Tucker did a 10 minute segment regarding: "The death of Sidney, Nebraska: How a hedge fund destroyed 'a good American town'"
https://www.foxnews.com/us/paul-singer-sidney-nebraska-cabelas-bass-pro-shops-merger
