What's wrong with Colt?

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jsalcedo

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Found this on the AR 15 forum apparently from a Colt LEO dealer

OK, Got good news and bad news.

The Good News is the first order of 6450s are at my supplier and will be shipping to me Monday.

The Bad News is Colt has completely effed us. First they have raised prices about $100 on every Colt LE model and they have charged the distributors that price difference and those distributors are charging the dealers (like me) that price difference. This means I will be losing money on every 6450 that arrives in the order coming to me.

Also Colt has retroactively enforced the letterhead requirement. This means I need to have a police letterhead for every individual rifle ordered BEFORE it will be shipped out. For those people who are NOT buying one for "duty use" WITH a letterhead authorization they WILL NOT be shipping a rifle. And IF they did they will not deliver at the quoted price when I placed the order.

Also Colt is no longer offering rifles at "quoted prices" but at "current prices" at time of delivery. What this means is that if I place an order for a police officer WITH a letterhead and Colt quotes $1,100 for the rifle, when it is ready to ship (and current delivery estimates are 9 months) I would be charged the "current" price at that future date. This means if Colt decided to raise the price to $1,600 in that 9 month period that is what I would have to pay.

I have been advised by my Colt distributors that Colt is seeking to go agency direct and cut out LE distributors and LE dealers completely and this should be a very effective way of doing it.

Once I receive delivery of the inbound 6450s I will no longer be getting anymore Colt rifles. I have cancelled ALL pending orders.

Here is where we stand:

1. For police officers who DID supply a letterhead and are willing to pay the current price increase, as well as any future increase Colt may decide to do, I will resubmit individual LE orders under the new terms.

2. For ANYONE who wishes to substitute a Bushmaster rifle I will place orders for those rifles.

3. For ANYONE who wishes to cancel your order that will be done more or less anyway. We simply are not gonna cash checks or run the cards. Money Orders WILL BE RETURNED. Checks will be destroyed, if anyone wishes to send a SASE we can return the uncashed check. A small handfull of checks were cashed and refund checks for the same amount will be issued in those cases.

I am extremely sorry that Colt has chosen this course of action. I hope everyone understands this is beyond my control and contrary to my wishes. I'm only glad the bulk of the order was covered out of my pocket so that everyone who paid with a credit card won't be looking at a non refundable loss of 4%. I only wish I could say the same for myself. This deal is gonna cost me a loss of a few thousand bucks (and I don't mean lost profits). Also I will have effectively alienated a large part of my local LE customer base who couldn't get letterheads and were depending upon me to produce rifles.

I'm gonna start going through the paperwork when the 6450s arrive, hopefully some time next week.

In the meantime if you want to substitute a Bushmaster model please email me so I can get the substitution order arranged.

After this fiasco is resolved as much as it can be I will be selling Bushmasters as my primary LE product. I don't think I want ANYTHING to do with Colt in the future. I have never seen a company try so hard to put LE dealers out of business.
 
Colt is now begging to go out of business.

What are they thinking?

FN has or will soon have all of the Military business now.
 
Somewhere in Colt's heiarchy there's got to be a person whos either brilliant, or a complete ass-clown.
FN has/had the contract for military rifles
Bushmaster and now Rock River Arms picked up a huge number of agency rifles.
Colt cut production and discontinued many of its handguns.
They don't make ammo, components, or accessories (no money in ammo anyway).
Overseas markets?
You would think the spanking that S&W got over their LEO only fiasco would serve a hard lesson.
Stinks because Colt does build a nice EBR, but their competetors build a better rifle for a lower price. Remember how bad it was for GM and Chrysler in the 70's - 80's??? They rode the name, while building sub-standard cars and collectivly got their asses kicked by the Japanese car builders.
Too bad, many of my favorite firearms are marked with a rampant colt.
 
I went to buy a new production Peacemaker in .45 colt blue, color case hardened frame, pretty standard. The price was $1600 :what:

The clerk pointed me to an Uberti in the exact configuaration with 45 colt and 45 acp cylinders, with better fit and trigger for $339

I'm sure the Colt will hold more value, but I buy guns to shoot not as an investment.

I think Colt has a drunk monkey at the helm.
 
Colt hasn't done that in a long, long time.
Click to expand...

Yep thats for sure, they spend no money advertising, invest nothing in machine tools and not only sell every gun they make, but have backorders up the ying yang...must be a dummy at the helm. :)


I went to buy a new production Peacemaker in .45 colt blue, color case hardened frame, pretty standard. The price was $1600
Click to expand...

Guess ya need a new dealer...I have a brand new 39-40 up for auction right now with a buy it now of $1249, and they are harder to get and get a bit higher premium that 45LCs..

Ive yet to see a Uberti with a better fit than a Colt......


WildbutheyifyacantbashcoltorsomeonewhatgoodisthedayAlaska
 
I can tell you around here (Hartford area) steel has gone up over 50% in the last 6-8 months, copper is up, fuel oil went crazy and gas prices are incredible too.

I can't even trust the numbers in my computer because things are changing so fast. Now whenever I do a quote I have to spend the extra time EVERY time to check all current prices and make sure I'm up to snuff on MY prices. I could take a hit if I don't.

It all gets passed on to the customer...

:(
 
When dealing with Colt, always remember this:

1. Colt is partially owned by the (very) anti-gun State of Connecticut.
The ONLY reason Connecticut bought in was because of demands of the union , (which was largely responsible for Colt's bankruptcy to start with) to save their jobs

2. The Union has some ownership share.

3. Colt is managing to (barely) hang on with the financing they do have.
They don't HAVE the money to buy advertising and new machinery.
Yes, it'd be a very smart decision to advertise, but when the choice is an ad in a gun magazine, OR meeting the payroll, your choices are limited.

4. Colt has to take at least some direction and ORDERS from the various people who own pieces of the company.

If the (very) anti-gun State of Connecticut doesn't want evil military and police weapons sold to "civilians", Colt has little option but to obey the owners.
 
"the (very) anti-gun State of Connecticut"

We're workimg on it, noone, I believe, hated to see Dodd get back in there more than I and I have even less love for Lieberman. I also worked against Edith Prague, my local anti-gun state rep but to no avail. We'll be trying again.

We still have a baby AWB, I can't buy an AK or a few others but I know they are around, all you have to do is break the law.

We do have Rep. Bob Simmons(R), he was against the AWB extension.


280
 
Ive yet to see a Uberti with a better fit than a Colt......
Click to expand...

Then look harder, Wild, because they are easy to find.

I have 2 Ubertis, a Colt SAA, and have handled many more of each..

The Ubertis are just plain better fit, have much better triggers, and as good a finish as the Colts.

My Colt has a 6 pound trigger. The Ubertis are less than 5.

It is true that Colt is usually backed up in terms of production, but somehow you are misconstruing this as a positive business attribute. They can't keep up with demand because they don't understand the market.

I love Colt firearms, but the company has been a mess for a long time. The impressive thing about the management of Colt is that they can run a company that badly and still remain in business.
 
Ive yet to see a Uberti with a better fit than a Colt...
Click to expand...

I've looked at several current production Cold Single Action Army pistols in the past few months. Without exception, they exhibited poor fit, poor finish, and extremely poor triggers. I've looked at Ubertis that were equally mediocre and less mediocre, but essentially, the only difference is the price tag.

Colt seems to have every excuse in the book for failing to meet the needs of American shooters. It sounds a lot like the Democratic (sic) party, in fact.
 
Beaks my Heart that there doing this kind of stuff becuse i want a few more colts yet like a python and maybe a anaconda . with they would bring back some classics like the trooper etc etc
 
Then look harder, Wild, because they are easy to find.
Click to expand...

OK listen everyone is entitled to their opinion, but give me a bit of credit here...over the last year I have personally sold or handled over 150 Colt SAAs from various generations. We have tuned many new ones for CAS. New production Colts are the finest SAAs ever produced, bar none. The fit and finsih of a new Colt, and the smoothness of their action FAR EXCEEDS that of any clone. How many SAAs you played with? One? Ive got 15 in the safe right now....and two in the back that we can "play with"

There was a tijme in the 80s when colt QC sucked....guess what...I am getting as much as $2,000 for unturned 80s colts despite QC flaws....whats a Uberti from the 80s worth?

It is true that Colt is usually backed up in terms of production, but somehow you are misconstruing this as a positive business attribute. They can't keep up with demand because they don't understand the market.
Click to expand...

They understand the market quite well..build a better product...check out the Colt Gunsites....the new SAAs....these guns are US made finely crafted firearms...if they arent jumpin on the polymer bandwagon, hey so what...they sell EVERY gun they make and then some...Glock cant say that.....

WildsameoldthreadAlaska
 
I've looked at several current production Cold Single Action Army pistols in the past few months. Without exception, they exhibited poor fit, poor finish, and extremely poor triggers
Click to expand...

Well Wolfie Im calling you out on that one my friend, because I havent seen one yet and I have seen more than "several".

Of course, I havent cocked all of them (ya buy before ya cock, and I find it hard to beleive a gun shop would allow a prospective customer to cock one since collectors demand them to be unturned), but I have been lucky enough to have cocked at least 25 and I was darn happy with em all...

WildsaaguyAlaska
 
Wild,

I think if I took a dog turd and put a rampant pony on it, you would tell me it doesn't stink.

ya buy before ya cock, and I find it hard to beleive a gun shop would allow a prospective customer to cock one since collectors demand them to be unturned
Click to expand...

Really. How many your customers are buying new Colt SAA's for the purpose of keeping them un-turned collectibles? The only guns I have ever seen where shop owners didnt want someone to turn the cylinder was guns that were already collectable.

I am not trying to say Colt's are crap. If they were, I wouldn't have bought one. But I don't think the $1000 difference in price between them and a Uberti is worth much more than the logo on the side of the gun.
 
Well Wolfie Im calling you out on that one my friend...
Click to expand...

[SHUDDER] Dawn? Seconds? Twenty-five paces? All that untidy old-time stuff? [/SHUDDER]

Seriously: I'm not a Single Action Army sort of guy, so for all I could tell you with absolute certainty, there's supposed to be a rough edge where the grip frame meets the frame, and single action triggers are supposed to be creepy and break at five-plus pounds. Maybe they're supposed to have visible tool marks, but nobody ever told me—or knowing me, I was probably just too busy relieving myself of snide remarks to pay attention to such fundamentals of single action excellence.
 
No gun dealer with thousands of dollars tied up in a brand is ever gonna bad mouth that brand regardless of how bad it is in reality. That said:

Fact is - IMO - modern Colt's are way over priced based on what you get. The reasons for this are many. They're made in the US and labor costs because of the union are outrageous. There's still a mystique to the Colt name and as one person mentioned that's worth a premium. Colt is partially owned by a Union and a State - both entities that care little for manufacturing efficiency (they care about the money that goes in their pockets - states figure they can just take it - union's don't really understand business - they think all professional business people do is sit up in their offices and dream up ways to screw the union while they're drinking $10lb coffee and screwing their secretaries).

If ya wanna pay Colt's prices and wait forever to get one - more power to ya - but not everyone is profligate with his/her money or as patient as others.

Even if they don't go belly up they haven't made anything I'd spend my money on in well over 30 years and I don't see that changing anytime in the future.

Personally - I hope Colt goes bankrupt if for no other reason than to put a few thousand union scum out of work and to screw over CT!
 
sigh,,,

Now I'm going to have to go shopping around and check out a few Colts and Ubertis. Any others I should look at while I'm at it?

:)

yea, screw Connecticut, them guys suck,,,

:D
 
I never could stand the M16s I saw in the service -- beat to hell, faded parkerizing, etc.

Then I bought a Bushmaster AR15. For the first time, I was tremendously impressed with the AR series.

What does a Colt do/have that a Bushmaster doesn't? I'm not being snotty, I'm actually curious.
 
ahhhh guys havent we had this same thread several times?? :confused:

Wild defends Colt...

Others slam Colt...

I am eating a sandwhich and watching horror movies barely clothed..

same thread different day.. :barf:

My .02 peso's

Gonna break it down for ya economically... :cool:

If you think Colt is hosing us, then buy a Bushy...They seem to like our money better than Colt does anyway... :eek:

My gun dude will not even order a Colt 6450 or whatever it is, for anyone that isnt an LEO...Ar15's are not my thing so it doesnt matter to me that much...To several customers that it DID matter to, they bought Bushy's...Simple economics at work...

Colt isnt thinking this through...I hope that someone will get a "bug" in there ear about the amount of money that they are losing to Bushy and others...If not, then there company will die the death it deserves..

See?? isnt it pretty simple?? :D
 
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