[Shooter 2.5]

That may very well be but you never give ammo to your enemies.

I can imagine the uproar if Tom DeLay said something like that.

I also didn't include this one, simply because of the trashy way the article manipulated the quote:

"Of course we were opposed" to the ban initially,

Notice the word "initially" as though right now, they're comfortable with the ban. That quote is unfair and yellow journalism.


Just so you know, the way Bushmaster was able to expand their business was by offering a CMP model and then they offered at cost rifles to the Rifle Teams. Before that, the best on the market AR was the Armalite. Bushmaster has come a long way from being a distant third. It also helped that Colt changed the pin size that made installing an Upper Receiver a tiny bit confusing.

[ninenot]

I have also heard that Colt's quality has dropped like a rock on the 'standard' model, although the target model is pretty good...

[Kadric]

Colt has always used a large front pin on their civilan AR-15's as far as I know. I know that at one point they changed the trigger and hammer pin size also not sure when but would guess it was when they installed the block in the lower. I have a '68 production with the large pin. I would say it was more of quality and marketing issues which cost them. Why pay the extra money for the Colt name when you can get a better product for a lot less.