My guess is that there is a significant “overhead” in supplying a DoD customer — to include, possibly, safety cases that will only be used once (for shipment), instructions (that no one will read), briefings by Colt reps (to which no one will listen), and — it is to hoped — some significant support requirements on the part of Colt to service defective parts. (Just my speculation.)
P.S. Hope the Corps sells some of their used .45s as surplus in a couple years!
My Kimbers came in a nice little black case with a smallish owners manual and a dumb California lock.
They are better than the Colt and I say that as a Colt owner.
Someone is making commission.
From the article:
“Marine officials would not discuss the individual price for each new pistol. But the $22.5 million contract to Colt will allow the Corps to buy replacements for the new pistols as they wear out, Clark said. The contract also includes some money for spare parts.
“The contract is built so we can re-buy the approved acquisitions objective three times, so we can buy 4,000 guns three times,” Clark said. “These pistols will be getting used a lot; deployed a lot so the guns are going to get shot out.””