"Why can't they tool up to sell to what the market wants?"
Colt doesn't have the money, for that or for advertising.
Most people don't realise that Colt, as a split corporate entity, is just not the Colt it used to be.
Back in the early 90s, when the biggest crash struck, they let a bundle of people go. They had little operating capital, none for an ad budget or marketing campaigns, almost none for product development.
People I'd been dealing with there were suddenly gone. It became hard to even get a phone call answered, much less returned.
It's been a very slow process, but Colt has been steadily coming back, with both personnel and manufacturing capability.
I was talking to a contact there yesterday, and with the new CNC machines acquired recently, there are both new options available and a more hopeful look for QC. They open the door to more flexibility.
There were many factors that led to where Colt is now, not the least of which was decades of Colt Corporate Arrogance on the part of senior management.
Since he stepped in, General Keys has accomplished quite a bit with what he inherited.
Until recently, Colt was still using antiquated machinery & processess, almost entirely because they had to. No money for upgrades.
About five years ago, serious money was spent on upgraded CNC machinery for the Defense side, since that's where the worldwide contracts were coming from.
On the Manufacturing (civilian) side, it was limping along.
Investment money has been problematical for quite some time. When it's limited, hard decisions have to be made about where it goes, and that obviously includes which areas will produce the biggest return.
Of the two greatest names in American handgunnery, Colt and S&W, Colt was hampered by a basic DA revolver design that required expensive hand-fitting and specialized service people. By the mid-90s, that design was simply pricing itself out of the market. Colt had begun to build more modern (cheaper) revolver types in the late 60s, but even into the early 2000s those were also not selling well enough to keep in production, concurrent with Colt's money situation.
Smith & Wesson, on the other hand, was fortunate in that their DA revolver design dating from the late 1890s (unlike Colt's) WAS adaptable to increasingly more efficient manufacturing technology, and could be kept competitive on the market right on down till today. S&W was never crippled by strikes, has been financially viable by & large, and managed to overcome spells of managerial incompetence (such as the Clinton Agreement) to continue on with new development and new products in a strong position in today's marketplace.
Colt is coming along. I was told yesterday that the current new 1911 railgun came along about the same time as the acquisition of new CNC equipment at Colt's Manufacturing as no coincidence. On the older equipment, it couldn't be done viably. Now it can.
It remains a slow process, though. Advertising? It'll probably stay low for the immediate future.
The Colt's Manufacturing Marketing Division, at the moment & for some time now, consists entirely of one guy.
It ALL comes down to money.
They're not "that inept", they're just tight on funding.
Denis
