Maybe someone will buy them out and actually DO something. Or maybe not.
Oh well.
Sad.
A Colt revolver was the first gun I ever fired, the first one I reloaded for , my first handgun, and the one at my side (well, my wife’s, she’s the lighter sleeper and better shot, and it’s shiny and big, two things she appreciates, 6” King Cobra in stainless).
They really need to re-establish themselves in the civilian market. Re-issue the anaconda, python, 10mm Delta, maybe a 45 colt snubbie with the quality they used to put into their products.
There is a lot of competition in the three fire arms that colt made famous. The M1911, the AR style and of course the venerable SAA.
Colt has cast it’s lot with it’s own enemy.
Colt made their bed with the US Government. They hung their hats on selling M4’s to DOD and police agencies while mocking the civilian market.
Lie with dogs, get up with fleas.
The large pin AR-15 lowers that weren’t compatible with other uppers was the stupidest decision ever made by a gun mfgr.
High end builders like LaRue, Daniel Defense, LMT, Knights Tactical saw their opening and went for the jugular.
H und K is in the same boat. Who buys their overpriced crap? Only fanboys that buy into the stupid marketing and outrageous pricing.
“The company’s decision to whittle their civilian division down to a few obligatory 1911s wasn’t really doing them any favors, given that their competitors were rushing to fill the demand of a gun-hungry republic.”
Never understood that decision.
I always felt the gun suppressor rules were stupid. Suppressed guns sound nothing like the movies. Even if a .308 rifle had a suppressor, it’s still effing loud!
And there was a time when the only car I would buy was the Chevrolet.
(Not that the rest of them haven't done likewise, but Colt had less padding for such faceplants and pratfalls.).
Mr. niteowl77
IIRC, the army had Colt down and it was a contract with the Texas Rangers buying pistols with which to fight the Comanches that saved the company well before the Mexican War.
Sad and annoying. Colt stopped making 38 snubs. No more Cadillac python revolvers. They stopped making 380s and 32s. Now that the market is saturated they roll one out and barely produce it.
For a few years their website was difficult to find, and when you got there it was basically like a website for General Dynamics. Very clearly aimed at government.
Most sinful of all. .. their peacemakers sucked until the market was flooded with Italian clones of better quality at half the price. I love colt, but they are run by idiots, in the northeast.
Python, stainless 6”.
My favorite, next to my XD subcompact and my five-seven.
Colt has been on the ropes for years. This is not a new development.
When you’re taking regular orders from the government for M-4’s, it’s probably not too difficult to turn a profit. But you should always have a plan for what to do if or when the govt. contract ends.
Having your company headquarters in one of the most anti-gun states probably doesn’t help much either.
I look forward to Colt going under and having its rights purchased for pennies on the dollar.
Then a new owner can do the historic brand justice.
Heck, it was only within the last few years that Colt finally got around to deciding that a pocket pistol (the .380 Mustang) might be a good idea. Uh, wrong. The Government .380 has been in production for years, and the Mustang, Mustang Pocketlite, and Mustang Plus 2 appeared before the first Gulf War. That's been 23 years now.
There is literally nothing that Marxism cannot destroy, and Colt is the perfect example.
Colt zigged Left while everybody else was zagging right, and that is the end of the story.
Too bad, too, since they made (and still make) a nice product.
Not sure who Michael Schaus is, but he would do well stick with talk radio hosting, and give up the amateur attempts to explain the gun industry.
He’s managed to get the history of Colt’s completely upside down and backwards. Except for the part when he names it one of the nation’s most prolific gunmakers. Also, one of the earliest that’s still carrying on.
Sam Colt’s first attempt did go under, but the second did not succeed because of “crony capitalism” (which did not exist in the 1840s); it got a start selling revolvers to the War Dept, but most of its products were sold to private individuals. Some numbers: 1100 Walker revolvers made and sold to War Dept 1847-48; 325,000 M1849 pocket revolvers sold to private buyers, 1849-1873. Another illustration ought to convince: the Single Action revolver - staple of western films since the beginning of filmmaking - was introduced in 1873; the US government bought some 35,000, and removed the arm from active service in 1892. Colt’s kept making the arm until 1940, eventually making more than 350,000. Public demand convinced the company to return it to production in the 1950s, but no government agency has bought any.
Colt’s did indeed make and sell many guns to the national government and numerous state and local agencies in peace and in war: all the Gatling Guns, the M1895 Browning Machine Gun, most M1911 pistols, most M1917 (water cooled) machine guns, many M1918 BARs from 1917-WWII, most M1919 (air cooled) machine guns until WWII, every 50 cal machine gun until WWII, every Thompson Submachine Gun before WWII. Plus millions of revolvers large and small (some of which the feds did buy, it’s true), and nearly all semi-auto pistols until after WWII.
If delivering hardware to government agencies in fulfillment of contractual obligations is “crony capitalism,” then any private business, large or small, that contracts with any government to provide goods or services is just as guilty.