Colt is ending production of AR-15s

American Military News ^ | 09/19/2019 | Laura Widener

[GIdget2004]

Colt Firearms will be ending its production and sales of its AR-15 rifles due to lack of public demand amid excess market capacity.

Colt released a statement on Thursday to clarify the decision, which was made because the company simply isn’t selling enough of the rifles in the civilian marketplace to continue devoting the resources into it.

Colt President and CEO Dennis Veilleux said, “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.”

[The Toll]

BCM
LWRC
DANIELS DEFENCE
SONS OF LIBERTY GUNWORKS
SEEKINS PRECISION
JP ENTERPRISES
LANTAC

All superior to the Colt for the same general price point.

[Levy78]

A few questions for you, sir:

Were the Colt Ar’s you had in Vietnam full auto? Mind if I ask what year(s) you we’re in country? (Just trying to figure out what model they would’ve been)

Thanks for your service! Huge respect for ‘Nam guys. My dad is one.

[MachIV]

Colt nearly went bankrupt before a few years ago and their intent is not to allow that to happen again. if you would do some research perhaps you would find out that they’re a ours are around 900 to $1,200 a piece and they cannot compete with a lot of other brands that are of nearly equal quality for less money. That is the fact of this matter. PERIOD.

[doorgunner69]

Dunno if they changed hole dimensions or not. Drop in triggers are still listed as both small and large pin versions.

Way back, I had a HBAR when they first came out. Had a real PITA front take down pin that you had to remove a screw to separate upper and lower. Do not recall if it lacked the detent hole to be able to convert it to standard take down config. Suspect the trigger holes back then were also non-standard.

IIRC, they were paranoid about someone installing mil-spec fire control parts. Dunno about the take down stupidity. left me with a sour taste for Colt.

[YogicCowboy]

Why are they still called ARs? None of them come from ArmaLite, right?

[rolling_stone]

assault rifle /s

[Who is John Galt?]

Why are they still called ARs? None of them come from ArmaLite, right?

"AR" does indeed mean "ArmaLite". But when ArmaLite sold the AR15 design to Colt, the right to use the name ("AR15") apparently was also included in the deal. As a result, ArmaLite calls their AR15-type rifles M15s...

[JoeFromSidney]

1962 - 1963 I was stationed in Bangkok with the ARPA R&D Field Unit. There was a parallel unit in Saigon. Both units were testing the AR-15 for use by the smaller-statured Thais and Vietnamese. Once I had to make a visit to an American advisor group in Vietnam, just outside Saigon. I checked in with the Saigon unit to get transportation. They provided the two of us making the trip with a jeep and a Vietnamese driver. They said we had to go armed. So they gave each of us an AR-15. So there I was, in a jeep with a driver who spoke no English, in disputed territory, carrying a gun I'd never fired. When we got to our destination,the first question out of the US Army officer we were to interview was, "Where did you get the Armalites?" Fortunately we made it out and back without incident. Just as glad I didn't need to use the gun.

[SirLurkedalot]

I’m already happy with my relatively cheap and more than adequate M&P 15 Sport 2.

[Cuttnhorse]

Thanks for your comments.

The AR’s we had on the boats were full auto, and I was in country 1965-66.