Colt LE901 16S AR-15 rifle
Nick Leghorn for TTAG

The long, difficult saga of Colt’s Manufacturing has taken another turn. Firearms distributer RSR Group has sent an email blast to their retail customers announcing that Colt will no longer produce long guns for the retail market.

Recall that Colt filed for bankruptcy protection in June of 2015, emerging in January of 2016. We hear that they’ve struggled to make money on their retail long gun sales for a long time. Colt lost its primary military contract for M16 and M4 rifles in 2013.

Colt logo

 

In response to the news, one industry insider told us . . .

They’ve been losing left and right to companies both big and small. They don’t have the high end or the low end market, and they’ve finally realized that the prancing pony isn’t enough for this generation of shooters to buy less rifle for more money. Instead of getting better, they’ve given up.

TTAG has requested a comment from Colt, but has not received a response yet.

UPDATE: TTAG was able to speak directly with Paul Spitale, Senior Vice President of Colt’s commercial business line. He confirmed the above. Colt has halted production of its commercial long guns lines and is focusing its manufacturing and sales on 1911s and revolvers.

He also stressed that Colt has about 110 days of long gun inventory in its distribution network and if market conditions change down the road, they could revisit this decision.

FURTHER UPDATE – 9/19/2019: Colt has issued the following statement on their web site:

Company Response to Questions about Colt Participation in Consumer Markets

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. (September 19th, 2019) – There have been numerous articles recently published about Colt’s participation in the commercial rifle market. Some of these articles have incorrectly stated or implied that Colt is not committed to the consumer market.  We want to assure you that Colt is committed to the Second Amendment, highly values its customers and continues to manufacture the world’s finest quality firearms for the consumer market.

The fact of the matter is that over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity. Given this level of manufacturing capacity, we believe there is adequate supply for modern sporting rifles for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, our warfighters and law enforcement personnel continue to demand Colt rifles and we are fortunate enough to have been awarded significant military and law enforcement contracts.  Currently, these high-volume contracts are absorbing all of Colt’s manufacturing capacity for rifles.   Colt’s commitment to the consumer markets, however, is unwavering.  We continue to expand our network of dealers across the country and to supply them with expanding lines of the finest quality 1911s and revolvers.

At the end of the day, we believe it is good sense to follow consumer demand and to adjust as market dynamics change. Colt has been a stout supporter of the Second Amendment for over 180 years, remains so, and will continue to provide its customers with the finest quality firearms in the world.

Very respectfully,

Dennis Veilleux, President and Chief Executive Officer

Note that nowhere in our report did we state or imply that Colt lacks commitment to the civilian market. As Mr. Spitale told us when we spoke, demand for Colt’s 1911s and revolvers is strong and the company is focusing its production on those lines.

We simply reported that the company has halted production of civilian market long guns, a fact that Mr. Veilleux (and Mr. Spitale before him) has confirmed. We stand by our report.

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138 COMMENTS

  1. Colt apparently still bears the yoke of the UAW around its neck, which first all-but-destroyed the company back in the 1980s.

    Colt has never even seemed to try to build its guns in whatever way necessary to make them more affordable.

    Instead of re-tooling, going with more CNC, etc., the UAW has forced Colt to keep its guns far too dependent on too much hand fitting. Hell, they dropped the Python altogether, then made it a custom item, then just off and on repeatedly. I’ve lost track of how many times they’ve played the same game with the SAA.

    Colt won’t let itself compete in the open market because it can’t (or won’t) produce guns that ordinary people want to spend their money on when they can get identical, or even better guns elsewhere for a third less money.

    • And unlike other gun companies (in Connecticut too) who have moved production to modern factories in New Hampshire or down south, colt has stayed in CT in expensive and old factories.

      the management of colt over the years has been abysmal. At some point a competent company will buy the colt name and products, manufacture them and do very well.

      • It’s not the factories that are expensive it’s the do-nothing Union leeches. There’s a reason why manufacturing is dying outside of right to work states.

        • The private sector still HAS unions??

          Thought they gave them up a decade ago. They still using Palm Treo’s with the optional “wifi card” too?

        • Or maybe its due to all the money that goes to the top in pay, bonuses and options while the regular workers salaries shrink.

          “From 1978 to 2013, CEO compensation, inflation-adjusted, increased 937 percent, a rise more than double stock market growth and substantially greater than the painfully slow 10.2 percent growth in a typical worker’s compensation over the same period.

          The CEO-to-worker compensation ratio was 20-to-1 in 1965 and 29.9-to-1 in 1978, grew to 122.6-to-1 in 1995, peaked at 383.4-to-1 in 2000, and was 295.9-to-1 in 2013, far higher than it was in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s.”

          But don’t pay any mind to those undeniable facts. I like stories about the union boogeymen more anyway.

        • >skilled and semi-skilled labor want fair compensation and benefits for their labor
          >This makes them leeches
          If Colt handles their employees relations like they do their product lines then I’m siding with the union

        • It’s also the factories. They’re old factories that probably have high maintenance expenses and states like CT have high taxes, high electricity and water costs, etc. It’s expensive to manufacture in the northeast regardless of the union issues.

    • You people are IDIOTS! The damn “unions” are not the reason Colt went bankrupt, nor are they the reason for their BAD decisions today! The “union” saved Colts ass in 2016, and MANAGEMENT is the damn problem, NOT the workers. Idiots According to analysts, Colt’s problems were due to the loss of the contract and low demand for its civilian handguns.[65] In January 2016, Colt announced that the bankruptcy court had approved its restructuring plan. By the way the “union” contract with Colt ran out in March 2019, you stupid MORONS.

      • Hey douche bag. When people vote a union into a company it’s there until the day that business closes its doors, unions don’t do contracts. And on another note unions have put more businesses out of business and more people out of work then any other organization in the world. In a union it takes 5+ people to do same job as one person in a non union company.

        • That’s funny I worked for a major high tech metals company that I am now on a comfortable retirement from and I worked my a#s off. It was hard hot dangerous work and you were expected to do your job like any non- union plant. There were several deaths and life-changing injuries while I was there. We were paid good money and had excellent benefits but believe me we earned every penny. We were and still are the premier company of this kind in the world. Our products are the absolute best money can buy and we had no trouble keeping market share even with us union leeches sucking the company dry.

      • Yeah I’m not buying the silly “UNIONS BAD” argument here either. Colt’s woes can be pretty easily traced to very poor upper decisions without the need to find some sort of cause that fits neatly into ideological lines.

      • yet, other companies managed fine despite the market turns and dives. Leadership bears a burden always as they call the shots, but one has to question who has more concern about a sinking ship: The captain who owns it, or the crew who can jump to the next available ship for work?

        It’s possible someone could be stupid enough to drain their own livelihood for some short term gain, but the fact is unions have served their purpose and are trying to fit a 19-20th century model into the 21st century. In a world of increasing automation and globalization, unions are simply dead weight and they know it, their only real function is to fleece their members to feed democratic political machines

      • They stayed in Hartford…they didn’t step up to 21st century machine tools…they cant get a CNC operator to hand fit/finish a 20th century (or a 19th) handgun…but mostly they stayed in Hartford, and went bankrupt, a couple of times… and nobody wants their overpriced guns…THINGS CHANGE…should have died in the 80’s…Smith, Springfield, Ruger, all Connecticut Valley gunmakers, adapted and overcame…and never got trapped in Hartford

      • Calm down you fool. You sound like an unhinged wack job that has no business around a Colt or any firearm in general. Yeah we get it you’re enlightened and everyone else is an idiot. 😏👌

      • Hey, Scotty . . . did ya know that it is possible to disagree with others without calling them names? You may learn that in 11th grade . . . stay in school, kiddo!

    • Fake News Alert!
      My contact at Colt (very high on the Colt food chain) confirmed they ARE NOT suspending them, but prioritizing international, Gov, and LE orders above commercial due to immediate demand.

      They’re still shipping, but just a bit slower than usual.

    • Colt has sold it’s soul to the state there for cash a bunch of times, so they can never leave where they are at.

      Other companies are moving away from their labor problems and going to other states. They nailed their feet to the ground with the past deals with Connecticut. So they go under. The name lost any luster decades ago with just slightly above fair guns.

  3. This leaves the market to better and cheaper versions of their guns.

    Friend of mine bought one of the Colts years ago. It didn’t have a chrome barrel and rusted out. They replaced it with another and he sold it on

    • It wasn’t a 6920 then.. it was probably that garbage Expanse thing they did.. which wasn’t really a colt to begin with

  4. When Colt started to cheapen their product no one was going to pay more money for their guns when they could buy duplicate junk guns from cut rate manufacturers. Colt was at one time even run by a man who stated he hated and feared guns and refused to sell small concealable pistols. Colt lost out in millions of sales from Colt fans due to that marketing idiotic blunder.

    The real worry is that other big name arms producers may follow suit as well. Will H&K that has millions in military arms sales do the same? It could happen there too.

    I might add I bought two AR 15’s roughly 10 years apart and when I detailed stripped the latest gun some years ago I was horrified how Colt fked me on the quality. There was a junk plastic washer that replaced the aluminum one under the butt plate and the buffer in the butt stock was a total brittle junk piece of plastic as compared to the former one that had some mental in it and a much higher grade of material (uhmw) in the rest of it. There were other cheapening short cuts as well but its been years now since I looked at the gun or used it so right now they escape me as to what they were.

    • “as compared to the former one that had some mental in it ”

      ****
      Pace yourself, Vlad. Your 3rd grade education is showing.

      • quote——————–“as compared to the former one that had some mental in it ”

        ****
        Pace yourself, Vlad. Your 3rd grade education is showing—————quote

        You just made a laughing fool out of yourself. Look it up sometime as to the difference in the Colt buffers in their AR-15’s and yes the originals did have a combination of metal and UHMW.

        Research first before making a fool of yourself.

        • Dan: Vlad has “gone” mental? When has he ever been anything else? Two months ago when he was writing how his master, Satan, was going to put all of us on his table and he’d enjoy eating us? Presumably, to consume our souls in the fashion of primitive tribes everywhere.
          One wonders when he will start taking pictures of people and eating the pictures, to satisfy yet more insane cravings. With ones that unstable, anything can happen. The sky’s the limit.

      • Vlad has enough substantive errors to speak of, there is little to be achieved by jumping on typos of the sort that most of us make and have little if anything to do with reasoning capacity or ethics. If we started pointing out everyone’s typos that’s what a very large portion of the posts would be about.

    • Washer under the “butt plate” in an AR-15…? Uh… what?

      Btw, UHMW is meaningless without the actual identified chemical. I presume you mean UHMWPE.

  5. The reality is that Colt has been badly managed for many years. It is a wonder they hold on as long as they do. Hate to see it happening, wish it were not so.

    • Sad indeed. It shows how iconic the brand is that it’s still around even with the numbskulls at the top seemingly *trying* to run it into the ground.

  6. Empires rise and fall. So sorry that Samuel Colt’s legacy ended up this way.

    Large companies that live over long spans of time typically follow three “generations”, or phases:

    Generation 1 – Founding
    Creative force responsible for ascension and expansion of company. The heart of the company.

    Generation 2 – Maintenance
    The company is established and reputable, so the founder retires. A second person or group is entrusted to take over the helm, and usually only maintains the status quo, following the predecessor’s formulas but lacking the original creativity.

    Generation 3 – Investment
    The second group eventually retires or cycles out of the company, introducing the third (and subsequent) generations of management. These people typically have no emotional connection with the founder or his/her principles, and and usually focus on the financial investment rather than the spirit of the company. Employees are no longer viewed as family, but as “resources” who can be shuffled around or replaced. This is where we see activities the founder would never have approved, such as divestment of portions of the company or questionable forays into new product lines meant to generate renewed interest by its customers. Any benefits of these actions are short-lived. This is also the stage in which the company is challenged or overtaken in the market by competitors who themselves are in their own creative generation.

    Generation 4 – Decline
    Most corporations don’t reach this stage, but those that do are treated solely as financial instruments and are squeezed like sponges for any available profit until they’re dry. Then the assets are sold off as the company is reduced until insolvency is reached.

    • I have seen the cycle several times from inside the company. When it is sold by the second generation things usually go down hill, the buyers see only an income source and don’t worry about employees or customers. They wring it dry and dump the residual.

      An additional factor is tight union contracts limit what the company can do. Short sighted union leaders also work to milk the company, apparently not caring for the long term effects on the union workers.

  7. Not surprising. They’ve been trying to sell entry to mid level ARs at a premium price for years thinking that “The Pony” will make people pay extra. Unfortunately for them, they have gotten a bad reputation for QA/QC problems, other manufacturers offering equal rifles for far less money and better rifles for the same money that they try to get for their basics, the modern shooter isn’t bound by brand loyalty but is looking for a solid deal. Maybe if they invested in more and modern machinery they wouldn’t have to rely on all that hand fit and finishing.

  10. Colt, like Harley Davidson, is essentially a Boomer brand. Sitting on their histories, charging unjustified premiums, failing to introduce anything new and on the off chance they do it comes with that premium price then complaining nobody wants to buy their decidedly average product at that premium price.

    • Yeah, that’s it. A bunch of well meaning but desperately delusional boomers are the reason for their failure. Sure, that’s it.

        • “for some reason or another we’re just not very popular with those awful little jerks that no one can stand.”
          rando new yorker ‘toon.

    • I won’t blame the boomers for it, but it’s true that H-D makes an overpriced product for what it is. Why would I spend more money on an archaic, air-cooled bike that vibrates my fillings loose, when I could get a Goldwing that runs smooth as silk for less. Even one of the large police departments near me finally switched out their Road Kings for BMW’s. I know I’d welcome that change if I had to spend eight hours a day on one!

      But, it’s as much about selling shirts as it is bikes for HD. I work with a guy who’s basically a walking Harley shop. I wonder what it’s like to have that kind of money to piss away?

      • Out of curiosity I looked into a HD dealership. That place is a huge gift shop with couple of motorcycles in the corner somewhere. They must make more money on HD mugs and socks then on bikes judging by the square footage dedicated to them.

  11. BCM, DD, LWRC, HK, FN, KAC all make vastly superior rifles. No reason to buy a pos Colt these days. They died a long time ago.

  12. I guess this is the death knell for Colt; it’s been a long time coming.

    Even if their numbers on long guns to retail aren’t high this will have much further impact on their retail sales than just losing long guns. What do they even have left? A swath of 1911s that, while decently made, are more or less purchased for the pony on their slide. That and a mediocre revival of the less coveted brother of a legendary revolver. Neither offering is quite frankly impressive to anyone on the market these days. You can buy a quality 1911 for the same if not better priced from a million other people and as for the revolver, well, Ruger and S&W have long held the ground Colt wishes to gain some market in… after this move, good luck.

    So take your long guns and stuff them, Colt. You’ve been a farce for a long time and I as well as many others are willing to finally give up the ghost with this move. If I ever buy a Colt again it would likely be one that’s C&R eligible anyway.

  13. Does the Colt management team come directly from Hillary’s school of global bullshit. How could they run a profitable, historic company completely into the ground by accident? It is an incredible outcome. Another victory for Hillary and her team.

  14. Unions might be “great” but they virtually screwed the American auto industry in the 60s when they forced “no layoof” clauses on the industry. It was about then the large numbers of foreign-made less expensive cars started coming in. There is an old joke that it is a good thing we won World War II or we’d be diving Toyotas, Nissans, Hondas, Mercedes, and Audis. Remember the Twinkie debacle a few years ago when the union was told the company would have to close because of union demands and poof!, it did and Twinkies was sold to another baker. They should be reminded that you can’t eat solidarity.

    • The problem is “Anglo” unions and management are antagonistic to each other. I remember the Union strife in the 70s and 80s where there would be major strikes every other week somewhere.

      In Germany and Japan there are union representatives on the company’s executive board and they try to be cooperative for the success of the company.

    • Hostess shut down because the union rejected a contract which increased executive pay and bonuses while cutting worker pay, after the union had already taken a pay cut. The real greed and intransigence was Hostess management wanting to line their pockets at the worker’s expense. Colt is a similar saga as Wall Street whiz kids loaded Colt with debt from successive buyouts while stripping assets. Remington is the same story, brought low by financial engineering. If a gun maker lost money between 2008 and 2016 it was because management was incompetent. Look at the two biggest Ct. gunmakers, Mossberg and Ruger. They read the market, made and priced product accordingly and are solidly profitable, same with S&W.

    • Unions didn’t force the auto companies to build massive, inefficient land yachts that noone wanted in the middle of an oil shortage.

      Now the “American” auto companies are once again dropping their smaller cars in favor of building more trucks and SUVs. Cuz gas is cheap so WHEEEEE!
      Until it’s not and then it’s all the unions fault again that they don’t build what people want.

      • “….then it’s all the unions fault again that they don’t build what people want….”

        Replace unions with Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam loves to dictate how cars will be built and sold.

        Uncle Sam will not allow cars that people want to be built.

        IMMV

    • Corporate Twinky story should be remembered correctly, Twinky corporate asshats stopped paying benefits to members, they had three union CBA, and went through 2 corporate inspired bankruptsy to strip mine value by debt, huge salarys to the grifters all (Bakers/Teamsters/OperatingEngineers)unions giving huge consessions to their fraud…they stopped paying the bargaining agreement…everybody walked, they sold the brandnames…but everybody didn’t live happyeverafter…truth is union labor bent over backwards to make their CBA work, asshats notwithstanding, only party to “wins” was banks and management thieves…

  15. One wonders if Colt will soon be bought out for the name brand by another gun maker, and/or become the equivalent of Springfield Armory – an American brand name slapped on imported firearms made overseas.

    • TTAG went as far as to make an article speculating on this. It’s an amusing notion but my thoughts are they’d manage to screw it up.

  16. The only Colt I ever wanted was a revolver. THIS boomer does not wax nostalgic for a Colt AR15…

  17. It’s actually not a bad move. Just focus on wheel guns, 1911’s, military contracts and please try and bring something new to the table.

    There are just to many AR manufacturers to make it worth it.

  18. What a surprise! Colt hasn’t been Colt for years, just overpriced wanna he’s. Hope it doesnt start a stampede of outfits afraid of being called bad names by the libs!

  19. “Colt Halts Production of Long Guns for the Retail Market”

    I really don’t see this as a huge “hit” for consumers, that is unless you’re a Colt “disciple”, there are plenty of other manufacturers out there…

    • LMT, LWRCI, LLC, Barrett … gee, what’s their secret?
      If you want sales contracts you manufacture hardware the customer asks for and that doesn’t include kissing Progressive political @$$.

  21. Just when I thought I was going to start purchasing some Colt products..BOHICA! Hopefully my 6940 will become and a collectors item and go up in value..

  22. What is Colt going to bring to the table (handguns or rifles) that isn’t already here – and probably hundreds of dollars cheaper because the Pony isn’t stamped on it? Nothing that I can think of, unless Colt suddenly goes into the taser market. The only Colt I was anxious to buy was an M45A1 1911, but that’s only because of the USMC connection. There will be no others.

  24. When about a thousand other companies make your two core products (most for less money and equal quality), it’s going to be hard to stay in business.

  25. The last Colt AR i even laid my hands on was a M-16A1 in Army basic in 1989. After that, I could see the price tags and shied away. The ‘Colt’ branded Umarex .22s don’t count do they?

  26. I call BS unless a statement is released by Colt. That email seems to have been created to help clear out the slow-selling Colt rifles at RSR. With no current government contracts to fill, how would stopping production for the commercial market allow Colt to hope to “regain” government contracts? This would only make sense if they had a large contract to fill and didn’t have the capacity to also build for the commercial side.

    • The story has been confirmed by Colt.
      Colt does have current military contracts, including parts for the long guns. Those are contracts which almost certainly contain caveats that they are to be filled before any other orders.
      Colt would do well to look at the civilian parts market, but not the complete rifle product for that same market. It’s there that their AR parts are most wanted, and the parts margins are good.

    • Those who live by the military contract, DIE by the military contract.
      My last AR purchase was a POF P308 SPR (gas piston operated) with the factory Robar NP3 (Teflon impregnated nickel) finish.
      Colt couldn’t even imagine building something like that, due to rectal cavity cranial impaction.
      Bye bye Colt, undone by more innovative competitors.

  28. It’s not about Unions. It’s about management and vision. Sadly Colt has lost its vision. They made amazing pistols and great rifles at one time. Now they turn out abominations like the Night Cobra. They think that if they make it people will buy it and that is not the case anymore. I love my Colts but they have lost their way.

  29. Sadly, Colt along with other poorly run companies has only management to blame. It is the job of management to manage the company; to protect the jobs of the employees, produce for sale a PROFITABLE AND AFFORDABLE item that is desired by customers. If this isn’t being done then you have a management problem. Don’t complain about the workers; they will always be there wanting more. Manage or get out. If you are charging 20%-30% more than your competition for a like item and your quality is not demonstrably superior, you’re doing it wrong and are not long for the business. I give you Colt.

  32. The Vietnam war proved ONE thing……a colt….is only good against a slingshot….not the excellent AK…..they haven’t made ANYTHING worth a DAMN since the 1911…… GREAT GUN !!!!!! ( thanks to…. ( of COURSE )…John MOSES BROWNING !!!!) Hope the bastards go broke and are just a bad memory some day.

  35. Did anybody else notice the difference between “Colt will no longer produce long guns for the retail market.” and “discontinuing production of all Colt long guns”? My source says that this is a 60 day slowdown to catch up on government orders.

  36. Don’t care about Colt. Years ago, I bought a Colt .380. That gun would jam on any ammunition I fed it.
    That was pre-Internet and I was too young to take up the issue with Colt. I sold the gun to the first comer.

    Never wanted another Colt after that bad experience and would never consider them today. Goodbye, Colt, you did it to yourselves!

  37. So much for hoping they come out with a new copy of the Python. But seeing as how they totally f’d up the Cobra, no one would probably want it.

    #ColtIsDead

  38. Colt is not even the original producer of the AR15 instead just a producer of someone else’s product. Where they got a reputation for quality is a mystery. Most of the complaints about the AR15 of old have been addressed today by superior manufacturers.

    Colt is not a player in ARs any longer and should focus on making pythons like they used to.

  40. Looking at Colt’s long gun catalog I see a bunch of .223 AR variants and a hand full of bolt action .308s with various stocks. Oh wow.

    I bought two Colt AR-15s back in 1984. I was an 01 FFL, and I put a regular AR and an HBAR on the table. Those were not AR type times, so when I surrendered my FFL I 4473’d them to myself. Flash forward to 1994 and all of a sudden they are in high demand. So I sold them for well in excess of two times what I paid for them. Who says guns aren’t a good investment? lol

    Charlie

  41. Where can you buy a good spare parts kit for a 6920? Been thinking of getting one, but not if parts will not be available.

  42. What baffles me is who are the people that run Colt because it seems that they ignore basic business sense that 4th graders understand.

    People want their revolvers, people lust after their Pythons. What do they do? Release a snub-nose revolver that can’t even take 357mag…at 30% higher price than a similar S&W.

    Their AR15 was the gold standard, then everyone started producing the same (if not superior) quality rifle for less. What do they do? Sell some half-baked rifle probably made by PSA/Anderson with a pony logo…at a price higher than the entry level ARs.

    Their 1911s? Again, people are producing the same quality 1911s at much cheaper prices.

    They want to stop selling long guns to civilians to focus on military/government contracts? What contracts do they still have? It cannot be very busy for a Colt employee. Their PR/Social media employees seem to be gone. Nobody is putting in contracts for their guns. Lord knows if the CEO and board members even realize they still work for the company.

  43. TTAG comments section are sorely in need of a moderator. The majority of postings on the subject of Colt read more as teenage babble than a substantive discussion on Colt and Colt firearms.

      • Confirmed by Colt’s by “Twitter”! Hardly conclusive! There’s NOTHING on any of the News Sights that are varifiable of Colt’s CEO’s claim. You would think if Colt’s BoD and CEO were to put out a Press Release to the General Public, they would some other means of the Official Statement by the News Media and not by “Twitter”…

        • I don’t know anything about their Twitter. I’m referencing the sources listed in the article above.
          No, a press release from the board would not be expected, and not be wise. That makes a mountain from may end up being a mole hill. Simply informing their distributors that there would be a significant delay in shipments for retail customers would be more appropriate, and more flexible. This appears to be exactly what they’ve done.

    • See the update added to the article above early this morning. This has been confirmed by Colt’s senior vice president of commercial business. I spoke to him myself.

  45. Bartocci explained this in a video he posted a while ago.

    Colt’s main downfall was twofold

    1.) Lack of innovation/R&D. Colt Canada did the opposite and they stand on the bleeding edge of Stoner rifle innovation IMO.
    2.) Overemphasis on military contracts.

    It didn’t help that a certain head tried to run it like the Marine Corps, which doesn’t translate well into a successful corporation, and their research took a back seat as they were content with the M4 as it was “good enough for the army, why change it?”

    This led to the SCAR program, which has a family of rifles rather disliked by their end users and which are getting phased out by improved generations of the M4 and AR10.

    While Colt floundered, other companies (SIG, FN, Knights, etc) took the stoner design to new heights, addressing noted deficiencies from GWOT and other end users.

  46. Colt should drop the rifle business altogether. Government purchasers aren’t any more impressed by the dancing pony than civilian market, and there are many manufacturers able to put out a Stoner rifle at least as good as a Colt for less money. This should come as no surprise; during WWII everyone from typewriter to sewing machine makers made an equally good 1911. Colt is a revolver maker, period. Every attempt to make a semi automatic pistol since the 1911 has been a failure. The best thing that could happen to them would be a sale to the Beretta group. Uberti already makes a better single action Colt than Colt; maybe they could start a new line making revived Pythons.

  47. Sad in a way. I still remember when the Colt AR-15 was the gold standard of MSR’s and the “Colt’s Firearms Division/Colt Industries” rollmark meant something. Now? Don’t let the door hit your a$$ on the way out. Colt lost it when they temporarily stopped making AR’s in 1989 and then added features like the useless “sear block” to make things even more complicated.

  49. I own 3 colts. An 1860, an 1911 made in 1917 and a colt SAA from the 1950’s. I don’t want an AR-15, so I don’t own one. Modern colt’s are no better made than KEL-TEC. So…..All things must end. I won’t lose any sleep over colt tanking. I had a 1991A1. My Springfield Armory “GI.45” is twice the gun at half the price.(when I bought it) That and the “Series 80” SUCKS. They have plastic parts and piss poor tolerances.

  50. Funny to see all the anti union talk concerning the private sector, where unions are really needed, yet no one addresses the government employee unions, which are bleeding this country’s taxpayers dry with platinum plated pay raises and benefits……………..

  53. Well we workers at Smith & Wesson haven’t stopped making long guns, nor hand guns! If you want to ruffle Colt’s feathers, Buy a Smith & Wesson long rifle, and why not a hand gun as well! Lets keep the gun industry alive on our own, and fight these bastards that want to take away our rights and our property! Long Live the 2nd amendment, and the 4th amendment!
    Buy Smith & Wesson!

  55. Since COLT still owns the proprietary TDP for the AR rifle and licenses the same to FN, the only genuine “mil spec” ARs are COLT and FN AR-15s.

  56. Colt is pretending this is a business decision but it looks like more appeasement and virtue signaling from a company that doesn’t believe the second amendment means what it says.

    Colt is about to learn what Dick’s Sporting Goods learned after they decided to stop selling AR-15s to American citizens. They probably figured that gun sales weren’t their strong suit, they weren’t competitive in the ruthlessly competitive commercial market, and it wasn’t a hugely profitable sector for them, so they could jump on board the disarm Americans band wagon. Colt probably believes the same thing. Dick’s didn’t figure on the fact that their anti-gun policy and virtue signaling would alienate a large portion of their customer base, and those entire families would never again go to their local Dick’s Sporting Goods store to buy ANYTHING. No more running shoes, camping equipment, soccer balls for the kids, etc. This one decision may well have been the one that finishes off Dick’s Sporting Goods. They’ve been struggling, and I hope they go out of business.

    Colt has an even worse problem. ALL of their customers are gun owners and gun buyers, so they’re offending a much larger percentage of their customer base. They might have a few customers who won’t be mad at Colt for their anti second amendment policy of arming the government and not selling to the citizens, but it’ll probably be the two imaginary guys at the gun show who allegedly told Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke that they’d give up their AR-15s if it’d make everyone safer.

    Colt shot themselves in the foot, and maybe in the head. How many gun owners will learn of Colt’s “No AR-15s For Deplorable Tax Serfs” policy and decide they’ll never buy a Colt 1911 or revolver?

  58. Just like the sinking of Titanic. It wasn’t just the iceberg that sank it. It was a combination of things: the iceberg, the iron used to make the rivets, the lack of binos by the look-outs, etc. Management, unions, location are all culprits but are all under the same heading: expenses.
    Colt seems to have followed in Blackberry’s Footsteps by resting on their laurels and not continuing to innovate and market like similar companies. In this case though, the blame squarely rests on management’s shoulders. They need to get off the AVP side of their asses and get to work. They still have a solid brand to market, but without a solid product to market, it will continue to decline because they’re not reaching new customers expanding their base.
    Maybe it was the right call to focus more on the military/LE contracts, but they can’t lose sight of the retail market. They need something to keep the lights on until they figure things out.

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