When did Colt lose its status as King of the AR?

I didn't get into AR's until ~2007 and at that point in time Colt was not even on the list of makers I was looking at. I ended up with a Rock River Arms AR as my first.

Balrog said:

When did Colt lose its status as the leader in AR's?

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When the bulk of the AR’s they produced and offered had fixed front sight posts and didn’t have free floated rails.

If folks wanted more they ended up with BCM or Daniel Defense generally. If they wanted a deal they had a multitude of options available.

~20yrs ago? Would have been before that, because that’s when I started my apprenticeship and working on them, and Colt already wasn’t “king” by then.

Its been a long time. I think the death blow may have been when FN was awarded the M4 contract many years ago.

When the free market happened.

If I had to guess I'd say around 2006-2008 ish. Shortly after the ban expired and manufacturers decided to fill the gap for the desire for a basic sub $900 AR.

Before there was Bushmaster, Olympic Arms, Armalite and Colt. Maybe a couple others. Now there is a list as long as usernames and a good few of them are producing quality rifles at a fraction of the price.

The moment FN won the M-4 contract, Colt was toast in the .gov sector. BCM, Daniel Defense, POF, CMT, Noveske and several others were better quality with more options, and their rise diminished Colt’s high-end civilian market. As soon as S&W dropped their M&P Sport rifles the common man realized that AR-15s could be pretty well made at an affordable price. Those cheaper rifles really destroyed mid-priced market Colt had been thriving on. Add PSA, Ruger and 7000 other manufacturers whom could produce decent rifles and put them on the shelf ~$500 and Colt was done.

Balrog said:

Used to be the 6920 was the AR of choice
for a lot of people. That doesn't seem to be the case. When did Colt lose its status as the leader
in AR's?

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When the TDP, for all intents and purposes, became public domain,
and CNC machinery became common...

When people discovered they could build what they wanted for themselves. For me, when I was in the Army and was issued an H&R-made AR.

The first rifle I was issued on my way to Iraq was a Colt. Selector switch broke off while trying to go from “safe” to “semi”. I was stuck with a rifle on “safe” in a bad situation. The rifle I was issued to replace it was an FN rifle. It was more accurate than the Colt. It never had a malfunction like the Colt and I was done with Colt. Is that a little silly on my part? Yep. Did I see hundreds of other Colt rifles perform to standard? Yes. Could the FN selector have broken just like the Colt did? Yes. But, my mind was made up and I’ve never once owned a Colt AR-15.

In my mind, it must have been around 1988 when I heard some of the range coaches discussing the differences between the M-16A1 and the M-16A2. This was shortly after the adaptation of the A2. Having spent a lot of time with an M-16A1, an SP-1, and an M-16A2, I could easily relate to the disparaging remarks they were making about the A2. I just hadn't thought that much about it.

I think we’re talking about a few different things.

-When did military personnel cease to have faith in Colt?
-When did the Colt 6920 cease to be the gold standard for civilian shooters looking for an AR in a defensive role?
-When did other brands start to offer more than Colt had to compete with for civilian shooters?
-When did they quit trying to compete with other companies period?

They’re all related, but slightly different.

1985 when colt's union workers went on strike. quality tanked, people went elsewhere, and 20+ years of bad decisions later here we are.

Does anyone remember "the list"? It was a big arfcom thing when I got back into firearms around 2009-2010.

Had all the specs and who met them. I wanna say Colt was considered the best for the money back then.

JeeperCreeper said:

Does anyone remember "the list"? It was a big arfcom thing when I got back into firearms around 2009-2010.

Had all the specs and who met them. I wanna say Colt was considered the best for the money back then.

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Yup IMHO the "list" that compared M4gery manufacturers guns to the TDP had a lot to do with other makers catching up. The 1st few versions of the list were pretty dismal as far as how many companies that actually met any kind of standard. At that time the 6920 was pretty much the standard and a solid value compared the others that made the cut.

Colt has a long history of trying to make its civilian AR's different from, and incompatible with, its military models. This was tolerable as long as it didn't have competition. Colt started to decline, in the civilian market, when numerous other companies began to make guns that were closer to military specs. This was in the late 70's or early 80's. The AR had become a commodity by the mid-80's, and Colt was just one of many players.

But to give the devil his due, Colt's early insistence on differentiating its civilian from its military models probably allowed government approval of civilian sales in the first place.

Attached is a picture of my worn out M-16 I carried in Nam in 1970 and is a Colt of course. It would rattle if you shook it but it never let me down. Fast forward to 1987 and I bought a new Colt H-bar. It is fairly close to my old 16. I still have it and when I take it to the range, the younger guys with their custom AR's have a good laugh at the old guy with the old style rifle. Funny thing is a few have asked to shoot it and it usually puts a smile on their face. Is my rifle better than what you can buy or build today, no it isn't, but it will always be the real deal, at least by my definition. I guess I just became attached to the old style after you eat, sleep and poop with it and it is never more than arms length away at any time. Heck that old military crappy trigger doesn't even bother me. Buy or build what suits you, I did.

Balrog said:

Other brands got trashed back then by Colt fanboi’s.

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Fixed it for you.

By the arf.com list days, I’d already opened my own business building custom AR’s. The first 3 gun boom had hit the US almost a decade before, and we were out of the ban. Lots of folks thumped their chests about how the Colt they had sitting in their closet was superior to the AR’s winning Glassed Gas Gun matches over colts, winning 3 gun matches over colts... same crap we hear from pony pushers today, and no more objectively founded now than it was then.

I don't know if Colt has ever been king, but if they were, it was a long time ago when they were the only ones in the game. They are usually pretty solid. I have owned a 6920 and currently own a 6960. They are well made, durable, and reliable. You can certainly do worse than Colt. People respect the pony because they have experience and generally have good quality control. You know what you are getting with Colt, and that is important to some people. When I bought my 6920 back in 2016, it was considered among the best service rifles available for under $1000. But you could always buy or build a better rifle from other manufactures, even if some of them would cost you more. Colt was a solid, middle of the pack rifle.

I say "was" because they don't sell rifles to civilians any more, so they obviously don't care about maintaining a respectable reputation in their industry anymore. So I am with most people and don't see myself buying a Colt of any sort ever again.

It was before 2008. I was buying a Century Arms AR-15 and commented I was doing so because of all the Colt parts in it and the LGS clerk I was buying it from said “I hope you’re buying because of the price because Colt parts sure as heck aren’t what they used to be”

My answer is around 2010 that Colt started to loose their luster. They had always been the standard but they were sold at a premium, sometimes double the price of other manufacturers.

A lot of AR manufacturers have risen and fallen over the years...DPMS, Olympic, and Bushmaster were hot in the 90's, then along came Rock River and Stag. The Chart was put together and published around that time showing the little corners that some of those companies cut when compared to Colt. At that time a Colt 6920 was around $1,300.00 but they were considered the cream of the carbine crop until...

BCM, LMT, and Daniel Defense showed up on the scene with carbines that were just as good as Colt, met all the criteria on The Chart, but with some improved features. Some, like me, want a midlength gas system and a free floated handguard, etc. Big brands like Sig, Ruger, and S&W jumped in with models that offered these features at a more affordable price and better yet, were just as reliable.

Along came 2008 and there was was an election scare- Obama got elected. More than ever, lower receivers became a hot commodity. The internet spread the word that a customer could buy a lower or ten and stick them in the safe for a later build.

Youtube showed how easy it was to buy a bunch of parts and build your own. Palmetto State, Aero, and Anderson came on the scene offering parts and kits at rock bottom prices. If it didn't run, no problem, there is a huge community of online gun builders that could assist you. Now the hotness is the AR pistol, something that Colt has not even attempted to get in on.

Colt still makes a solid product, and I own one, but it is not my first choice for some of the reasons I mentioned.

Colt has been shut down, re-organized, re-acquired and re-invented more times in the past 50 years than I can count. Some people put part of this over the years on the unions but in all honesty I’m sure that not more than a hand full of people really know the truth. My opinion, from a distance and based on what I read over the years in the gun rags, is that their decline was likely due to three root causes: Poor management, the inability to deliver quality products at a price point that was competitive in the market and employee apathy. Employee apathy was a key factor in the demise of US Repeating Arms (The Winchester brand at one time). These types of employees could care less about what they were making...door knobs or guns, it was all the about the same to them. When Colt came back in the market a few years ago and started making the 1911s again I was hopeful that an American icon had been revived and would once again take its rightful place of prominence in the industry. Their most recent introduction of their revolver line looked promising as well.

Then a few weeks ago they announced that they would no longer be offering their AR 15 rifles to the civilian market because they determined that there were more manufacturers than the market could support and they wanted to focus on filling their military contracts. What a wonderful piece of Madison Avenue, carefully spun, line of TOTAL B.S.! Colt is very carefully playing politics and bowing to the pressure of the liberals on the gun control issue so that they can suck up to what they think will be the next liberal POTUS in the White House! This is the exact move that nearly put Smith & Wesson out of business when they knuckled under to the Clinton Administration. Remember that? Mandatory locks on their handguns and none of their dealers could go direct with Smith & Wesson if they sold assault rifles. I had the privilege of being in a sporting goods store in Bradenton, Florida when a Smith & Wesson factory rep told the owner he would have to stop selling assault rifles and prohibit children from coming in his store. The response from the store owner could not be printed on this forum without being deleted by the moderator, but it sure did my heart good! Time to send a message to Colt folks. Boycott them. Talk to Colt through their wallet. They no longer deserve our business or support. Perhaps the next corporation that acquires Colt will have the balls to stand up to the liberals in Washington.