Colt Halts Production of Long Guns for the Retail Market

[HCM]

I have one of the early M&P15 1-9 rifles and it's a 1 MOA rifle with Federal M193 and my Hornady 55 FMJBT handloads. It's my goto rifle. Never an issue and it'll ping an MGM flasher at 300 yards all day long. I have no need to stretch it further with heavy LR bullets. My only bitch is the magwell doesn't want to take a Pmag unless you pound it in. About 5 strokes with a file on the bevel would fix that, but I'm lazy and have the metal mags that came with it which run flawlessly.

I have one of those too. Bought it on the recommendation of Pat Rogers. Magpul E mags and the Gen 3 PMAGs should work. Mine was a T model though I replaced the 10” quad rail with a 13” Troy Alpha VTAC.

[Spartan1980]

I wasn't suggesting, or attempting to suggest which twist rate is or was superior. Simply that HCM probably meant to include 1/7 in his post above rather than repeat 1/9 twice.

My rifle came with a Gen2 PMAG so I simply purchased a bunch of same since I know they work with it.

Well FWIW, I'd rather have a 1-7 just for the capability of shooting heavys. But I really think the twist rate thing is overblown. If one needs to reach out and hit hard out past my rifle's capability, a different rifle in a bigger caliber is probably the better plan.

And my rifle is an early one. I think they got some complaints and beveled the magwell heavier/deeper post haste in their production. I don't think a huge number got out into the wild before they "fixed" them.

[Bucky]

Colt should cherish civilian sales based on the fact they get a price bump for their products just based on the name.

[rob_s]

Colt should cherish civilian sales based on the fact they get a price bump for their products just based on the name.

I would say that in today's market the price bump is far more often with their competitor's simply by claiming that shooting some unicorn jizz on their gun and making a bunch of proprietary parts makes them "better than Colt".

[BillSWPA]

Don’t point out such obvious things....and try to apply sanity and logic...



When it comes out that this is totally concocted or whatever....I’d like to be the fly on the wall waiting to see all the anti-Colt crowd here eating their words.

As I said in my initial post in this thread, I have been a Colt fan for a long time. I would be happy if this is wrong and I can put Colt back on my list of options. We will hopefully learn whether or not that is the case.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Cory]

I really want to make a clone of my issued M4 at some point, and a Colt 6920 is pretty much the base rifle to get that started.

Realistically, there are some defensive things to get in order before that. It will likely be years before I get started on that project. If Colt is no longer making rifles when I get around to it that would really, really suck.

There is a very large an active "clone" market amongst gun owners. People who seek to very accurately mimic military rifles (albeit usually semiauto). Colt rifles are understandably very popular for this. USGI M4s, M4A1s, M16A4, MK18, CQBRs and Mk12 Mod0, Mod1, ModH… and a lot of others... all normally based on Colts.

-Cory

[Borderland]

I have one of the early M&P15 1-9 rifles and it's a 1 MOA rifle with Federal M193 and my Hornady 55 FMJBT handloads. It's my goto rifle. Never an issue and it'll ping an MGM flasher at 300 yards all day long. I have no need to stretch it further with heavy LR bullets. My only bitch is the magwell doesn't want to take a Pmag unless you pound it in. About 5 strokes with a file on the bevel would fix that, but I'm lazy and have the metal mags that came with it which run flawlessly.

I don't understand the need for 1/7 twist. Those barrels require heavier bullets for best accuracy. Of course they will shoot 55 gr bullets but I've seen less than desirable accuracy using those lighter bullets.

What I see at the range is people with 1/7 barrels using 55gr ammo and they can't figure out why their groups are so bad. It's because those barrels were designed for 77gr bullets. They don't want to pay the high prices for that ammo so they just piss and moan about the rifles being a POS.

1/9 twist is ideal for what most people use a carbine for, excepting the military of course. 55gr ammo and bullets are cheap. My 1/9 mini-14 loves 55gr bullets.

[TCinVA]

Guys, let's remember this news "story" broke on The Truth About Guns - the gun media Equivalent of the New York Post.

Or, frankly, the New York Times.

Or MSNBC.

Same same.

Expect to see this claim walked back today as Colt or RSR "clarifies" things.

Colt isn't leaving the civilian market. They're halting production for the civilian market temporarily because they have time sensitive contract work that needs more personnel and resources.

[Tokarev]

Or, frankly, the New York Times.

Or MSNBC.

Same same.

Expect to see this claim walked back today as Colt or RSR "clarifies" things.

Colt isn't leaving the civilian market. They're halting production for the civilian market temporarily because they have time sensitive contract work that needs more personnel and resources.

Here's what TTAG has posted for an update:

UPDATE: TTAG was able to speak directly with Paul Spitale, Senior Vice President of Colt’s commercial business line. He confirmed the above. Colt has halted production of its commercial long guns lines and is focusing its manufacturing and sales on 1911s and revolvers.

He also stressed that Colt has about 110 days of long gun inventory in its distribution network and if market conditions change down the road, they could revisit this decision.

[farscott]

My inner cynic says that this is Colt's way of getting rid of some inventory. There is no better way to sell guns than to tell gun owners the guns will no longer be sold to private individuals.