Is Colt gone?

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Again- revolvers are still selling quite well.
May be a joke to you, but it's far from a joke to the manufacturers.
If they WERE a joke, they wouldn't still be cranking them out.

We're agreed that the Cobra isn't going to save Colt, but I don't know why you seem to have such an antipathy to revolvers in general.

Ruger continues to introduce new revolver models & the wheelguns are an important part of overall sustained sales.
Denis
 
Did Colt even submit a handgun design for the last competition for an Army contract?
I doubt that Colt has any designers of the caliber that made Colt a powerhouse in the past.
I doubt that Colt has enough skilled employees to even build handguns of the caliber that made Colt a powerhouse in the past.
It is very sad.
 
CD, my number (885,259) was according to ATF production numbers, which totaled about 7.8million not FBI background checks. Revolvers accounted for 25% of handguns and 11% of all firearms and that doesn't include the myriad Italian imports. Your uninformed and pessimistic opinion doesn't seem to be congruent with reality.
 
The current news is Colt Mfg is out of bankruptcy. It's got ~600 employees, with a plan to increase its headcount another 100 employees over the next 5 years (by 2022). It's staying in Hartford, Connecticut, and intends to survive. I even saw a dealer selling one the new Colt Cobras on Gunbroker.

(ref. http://www.courant.com/business/hc-colts-expansion-20170324-story.html)
 
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No, Colt does not have 600 employees, Colt won't be adding another 100, and they just had another round of layoffs.
Its survival is doubtful.
Denis
 
DPris said:
Again- revolvers are still selling quite well.
May be a joke to you, but it's far from a joke to the manufacturers.
If they WERE a joke, they wouldn't still be cranking them out.

We're agreed that the Cobra isn't going to save Colt, but I don't know why you seem to have such an antipathy to revolvers in general.

Ruger continues to introduce new revolver models & the wheelguns are an important part of overall sustained sales.
Denis
Click to expand...

I don't have antipathy towards revolvers, I like them quite a bit. However in 15-20 years most guys who buy revolvers for the most part will be taking dirt naps. This isn't nice to hear but revolver guys tend to be quite a bit older than the average new shooter/first time gun buyer. This does not bode well for the continued marketability of wheel guns.

I can suggest an L framed size gun as a first center fire, and have until I'm blue in the face and 99.9% of first time buyers will ignore that advice and buy an auto pistol. If you don't believe me try it for yourself some time.

I don't even give advice to new shooters anymore on what equipment might be worth their time. They won't listen, so I don't bother.
 
Coal Dragger said:
I don't have antipathy towards revolvers, I like them quite a bit. However in 15-20 years most guys who buy revolvers for the most part will be taking dirt naps. This isn't nice to hear but revolver guys tend to be quite a bit older than the average new shooter/first time gun buyer. This does not bode well for the continued marketability of wheel guns.

I can suggest an L framed size gun as a first center fire, and have until I'm blue in the face and 99.9% of first time buyers will ignore that advice and buy an auto pistol. If you don't believe me try it for yourself some time.

I don't even give advice to new shooters anymore on what equipment might be worth their time. They won't listen, so I don't bother.
Click to expand...


Interesting.
I just looked and I have twice as many revolvers than autoloaders.
Im 49 so, god willing, Ill be still shoveling dirt in 15 years.
My son tends to lean the same way, so another generation of revolver enthusiasts will be around.
SW sure sells alot of wheelguns.
;)
heyjoe said:
rock and roll actually is just about dead at the present time
Click to expand...

Funny.
For the last 4 years the largest outdoor music festival in the US (Coachella) has been headlined by the same rock bands I saw three decades ago.
:)
Rock and roll will never die.
 
heyjoe said:
rock and roll actually is just about dead at the present time
Click to expand...
Not if you visit my neck of the woods.

My point is that people were saying that rock was dead way back in the late 60's and early 70's, and with enormous conviction. Here we are in 2017 and it is still hanging on and people who grew up listening to it still spend money on it in different and new media formats.

I'm 36 and mostly listen to music that was written decades before I was born, and some modern day stuff too. I also happen to have a primary interest in revolvers over any other gun type, and started out shooting handguns with revolvers. I realize I may not be the norm, and I certainly don't represent the younger generation, but even if a lot of the interest in revolvers fades with subsequent generations, it will carry on for many years to come. I suspect you will see revolver production all the way up to the day that hand held rail and gauss firearms hit the market.

Even then, the collectors and shooters will keep the market going for awhile, and the remaining revolvers in the marketplace will draw collector and shooter interest. Production may slow and fade away, but there is no substantial evidence that it is going to cease any time soon.

We luddites are a persistent lot, and hard to kill off.
 
Coal Dragger said:
I work in a unionized industry and belong to a union. I don't always agree with the stances of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, but I'm glad they represent me given how abusive the Railroads are towards their employees.

I'm good at following the 300+ pages of rules we operate under, and keep a low profile and do my job staying out of trouble. I've seen plenty of good employees out here get harassed over the dumbest most minor stuff by company officials with an axe to grind, or some flavor of the month enforcement. I've never seen a company that utilized hit teams of company officers who's sole goal and mission is to fire people to make an example out of them.

These same clowns will preach safety and then balk at implementing improvements when they cost money. It's cheaper to settle lawsuits and blame crews I guess.
Click to expand...

20 years as a Letter Carrier with the USPS and they do the same exact thing. Stupidvisors that haven't fired someone don't get promoted.
 
DPris said:
CD,
Your point is obscure.
Of course revolvers are not the only thing Smith & Ruger depends on for sales revenue.
I was addressing the statement about revolvers being a joke.
Far from it & they're still selling quite well.
Denis
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And will continue to grow with the firearms market overall and not going away anytime soon.

Not the only one, but an increasing segment is women. A small to medium frame revolver is not unpoplular, even though some of them add a pistol later on. Women are an increasing a part of the firearms market as a whole.

Then there are the trail gun crowd where arguably the revolver is going to be the choice of many.
 
RPZ, there are certain roles where a revolver will always be one of the best tools for the job.

Hunting and wilderness carry will be two of them. And they'll always be a no-nonsense tool for people that struggle with racking slides and more complicated manual-of-arms to put into action.
 
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Coal Dragger and cannibul, I guess that management attitude is everywhere. As a big city PD Patrol Sergeant, I worked for a police Lieutenant who liked having people fired, and was quite proud of it. Two good friends were Letter Carriers, and their opinion of USPS Supervisors was consistent with cannibal's........

PS, I'm in the 25%, bought a new revolver a few months ago;)
 
Hopefully Colt will continue to be an independent American firearms manufacturer.

As for the other:

Hey Hey My My
Rock and Roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye
Hey Hey My My

My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
It's better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey

Out of the blue and into the black
They give you this but you pay for that
And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black

The king is gone but he's not forgotten
(Johnny Rotten, Johnny Rotten)
This is the story of Johnny Rotten
(Johnny Rotten, Rotten Johnny)
It's better to burn out than it is to rust
The king is gone but he's not forgotten

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll will never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye
Hey hey, my my
 
Companies get stuck in their ways, and can't innovate because the established bureaucracies squelch new ideas. Microsoft has spent tens of billions of dollars over the past decade and a half trying to break into the smart phone market but failed because some higher up kept insisting that it had to run on Windows. Tesla is the leader in electric cars, not GM, Ford, VW, Honda etc.

This phenomenon is even more pronounced in the firearms market. Colt has 100+ year old tooling for making revolvers and 1911's, they are not going to make anything which would cut into those sales. Colt wants to cling to the past, notwithstanding that there has been no police department or volume purchase of anything like what they offer (revolvers and 1911s) in at least a generation.

Gaston Glock figured out how to economically mass produce a reliable accurate polymer pistol because he was not hamstrung by old equipment and thinking about what a handgun should be. S&W, Sig, Ruger, Canik and nearly everyone else took the hint and copied it, just like Samsung copied the iPhone. Colt still thinks people want a modern single action army for $2k, when its competitors offer a product superior in every respect (except nostalgia) for 75% less. It is really shocking Colt is still in business at all.
 
Colt does not have 100-year-old equipment for revolvers & 1911s.
Dunno where you got that.
They've spent over ten million dollars on new CNC & related processes in the past 15 years.

And it's not a matter of Colt thinking people want an SAA for $2000.
It's a matter of buyers being unable to GET SAAs for $1500 that they DO want, because Colt won't produce enough of 'em.
Denis
 
Colt sold most of the old equipment for scrap as I understand it a number of years ago. I believe it was after the '94 bankruptcy (or was in 1992?).
 
They've dumped old as they acquired new, no specific timeline.
Denis
 
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