Posted on 06/16/2015 9:02:38 AM PDT by servo1969
On June 15, 2015, Colt Defense filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11. How can that possibly be?
In Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, he warned the Nation of the growing influence of a vast “Military Industrial Complex.” In the next decade plus, 2,709,918 Americans served in Vietnam, witnessing astronomical amounts of ordnance dumped on the Southeast Asian jungles, the manufacture of which made many in the Military Industrial Complex obscenely rich.
Most of the troops were issued M-16 Rifles, provided by Colt, presumably one of the members of the complex that reaped the benefits.
The newest iteration of the M16 Rifle is the M4 Carbine, which was the standard issue weapon for our latest excursions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Colt makes those too.
How can a company whose largest customer is gullible enough to pay $400 for a hammer and $600 for a toilet seat go broke?
According to Bloomberg, Colt lost the military contract to provide the standard issue M4 (that procurement went to Fabrique Nationale Herstal USA) in 2013. Since then, only 7% of Colt’s business goes to military contracts. That means 93% of their business is dedicated to servicing the civilian and law enforcement markets.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Good grief my eyes, mind, etc is going. I read it as the NFL Colts. *sigh*
If someone would start making Colt Pythons again they could make a fortune.
I know he's being facetious but Colt relied on their military contract and stopped paying attention to civilians. This fact is evident by their truly abysmal customer service. I sent one Commander back so many times that I finally took a dremel to it myself. And they honestly weren't concerned that their quality control and customer service sucked.
They've got some learning to do now.
Well if anything good comes of this, hopefully there will be some surplus weapons going for cheap.
Not unlike the Bushmaster AR in 5.56 I scored for $599.
ROFL!!!!
Marxists always expose themselves ... seldom that quickly, though.
Anyone who relies on government for their bread must become corrupted or dependent.
The guys that made them are retired and gone. You’d just get a licensed other-country manufacture. Not nearly the same.
I have never seen a problem with quality but they sure did seem to not have much interest in civilian sales.
Clearly they put all their eggs in the military basket.
They make several of the most popular guns in history and can’t make a go of it?
They probably need to move to the South and decrease costs.
Someone's gonna have to buy the tooling gear, parts, and get the heck out of CT. TX, AR, TN, and FL are great places to start a gun mfg business.
That's not true. Most liberals and Dombocrats in particular want all gun makers out of business and all guns confiscated from all Americans the way the Brits did a few years ago.
They cost too much in comparison to their competition.
The S&W 586/686 is superior and 30% less.
Yes, the Python is legendary...after a $400 trigger job on it's weird internals.
The S&W is thee right out of the box, new, for $800.
Still, EXPENSIVE for a revolver.
No kidding... greatest .357 EVER.
The finish alone would add hundreds of dollars to the price. Not to mention the hand fitted internals.
That's the first thing I thought too.
How long before Norinco buys Colt?
Or the Houston Colt .45s.
So, what happens to the market value of Colt firearms now?
“How long till Norinco buys colt?”
More likely Century Arms becomes Colt.
That was the past. Any mechanical design can be mass produced as long as attention is paid to tolerances and material quality. This is more true than ever given the quality of cnc manufacturing today.
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