On another forum I am in a heated debate with an 85 year old firearm's "expert" convinced that Colt Manufacturing Company never made a decent double action revolver in their history and are all vastly inferior to Smith & Wesson products. Furthermore, everyone who has ever fired a revolver knows this and only a complete idiot like me would even consider owning a Colt revolver.
I have no interest in arguing the merits of this silly argument but I am curious to know if this thinking has been encountered by others here and how often? This is the first time in fifty years of gun ownership I have met someone so persuaded.
Sometimes these reactions are push back to product Cultists or maybe someone who met a Colt Executive. I was quite surprised to find how much the Pony meant to a large population of the shooting community. The Pony sells. Used to be, for AR15, Colt AR15 Cultists were very loud and vocal how Colt was the only true AR15, and all others were crap. I do remember, back in the 1970's, 80's, up to the Kimber Custom Classic, the only good 1911's on the market were Colt, and the rest were crap! It was a huge event when Kimber introduced the Custom Classic, and a very serious threat to Colt.
It is always surprising to find the power of brand names. Many here remember how awful American cars were by the 1970's. Stud's Terkle quoted a GM Executive who said "
Manufacturing makes it, Marketing sells it, and Customer Service makes it work." This was the business model for American cars. You paid $15,000, drove the vehicle off the lot, and within the month you were sitting in the Service Department waiting for the vehicle to be fixed. This happy period for the American Automobile Companies ended when American's discovered cheap, reliable, Japanese cars. General Motors almost went bankrupt. Japanese cars were selling for a premium, the Japanese could not met American demand. A buyer of a Japanese car paid list, plus additional dealer profit. (ADP). However, the sixth generation Novas were a relabeled Toyota Corolla, and if you were at the GM dealership, that car sold for a discount!
Colt revolvers were state of the art in the 1920's, but the lockworks remained the same delicate, handfitted parts they always were, and that was a mistake in my opinion. In comparison to what Ruger was doing, creating price competitive, durable, revolvers, Colt never fundamentally improved their product line. It took Colt until 1990 to introduce a 44 Magnum revolver! They were totally behind the times.
I did get to meet a Colt Executive at the Camp Perry National Matches. Colt had a table of Hbars, all of which has 1:9 twist barrels. None of these rifles were competitive at 600 yards, because the largest bullet that could be used, was the 69 grain match king. The 69 SMK is a superbly accurate bullet out to 300 yards, but floats like a badminton shuttlecock at 600 yards. I did ask the Colt Executive behind the table why they did not install a 1:8 barrel, which would have allowed 80 gr SMK's, and the rifle to be competitive at 600 yards, That Executive replied that Colt was selling all the HBars they could produce and it was stupid of me to ask the question. Here is Colt, at the National Matches, selling rifles that no competitors could use out of the box, and yet we, the shooters. were the stupid ones! It had to be a total financial bust for Colt, and knowing how Corporations act, they never came back, as they did not want reality to intrude on their delusions of perfection.
I have no romantic feelings for Colt, or their products. I also don't believe rocks have genders, though many people buy pink "girl" rocks, and "blue" boy rocks and treat them as people. To me, fake hair and a paint job do not change the essentials of the items: they are rocks. Colt has always been, just another brand with products that I may like, or dislike. Colt has always been over priced, and behind the times.
