#Colt

Colt’s Manufacturing Company (aka Colt) announced a pair of new 9mm additions to the Rail Gun lines of 1911 style pistols. One of the new handguns will be a Colt Combat Unit model, while the other will be part of the stainless steel Rail Gun inventory. The Rail Gun lines are so named due to the fact that they have an accessory rail on them.

Previously, we looked at the most common type of locking mechanism for rifles, but what about handguns? Well, today we’ll be looking at tilting-barrel locking, a method used in virtually every modern locked-breech handgun today.

Colt’s Manufacturing Company announced the introduction of an updated Delta Elite pistol. The 10mm powerhouse received a number of upgrades that may excite some shooters. These include:

The classic American M1917 revolver was a much needed answer to a very evident problem: not enough standard issue .45acp 1911 pistols to go around. Smith & Wesson and Colt both produced these revolvers at the request of the US Government, and they served in at least some capacity until Vietnam. Today however, it seems like many people are unaware that even during the era of the 1911 in US military service, the Army was still buying revolvers.

Remington’s lawsuit against Colt Defense, LLC, Fabrique Nationale Herstal USA, and the federal government has been dismissed by Senior Judge Nancy B. Firestone of the US Court of Federal Claims. The sealed lawsuit, which contested the award of a mega-million dollar contract to the two defendant companies, was filed on November 24th, of 2015. Although no judgment has been published yet, you can read the Order of Dismissal here.

Colt’s Manufacturing Co., LLC, announced at the 2016 National Rifle Association Annual meeting that they would be introducing new semi automatic reproductions of their previous military AR-15 and CAR-15 offerings to the civilian market. According to representatives, the company hopes to release 1500 each of every model of AR-15 made during the Vietnam era (which I assume means 600 series rifles only). If the company lives up to this promise, it means the chance to own everything from the first Colt AR-15, the classic 601, to the rare 605 carbine that was the first rifle in the series of short Colts that eventually led to today’s M4 Carbine. Hopefully, all variants through the special low profile 656 sniper will be made available, although I cannot confirm what variants will actually be produced. When I asked Colt’s representative, he simply said “we plan to make everything”.

Remington Arms Co. has just won a major court victory against the United States Government, regarding a 212 million dollar contract given to FN and Colt for the procurement of M4 Carbines.

I don’t usually read The Daily Mail for its authentic and informative stories about the world, but some pretty interesting stuff does sometimes come out of it. Such as this story about a British parish council chairman in Suffolk who amassed over five hundred firearms in his house. We a story earlier back about an American in California who had thousands of firearms confiscated from him when he died, and in a similar case, this British gentleman passed away before any legal ramifications could be had for him. Comparing gun ownership in Britain to the U.S., that’s alot of firearms! Apparently most of them were illegally owned, but I’ve got a hunch that there might be more to the story than this. This might be a long stretch, but I’m willing to hedge a small bet, that the overwhelming majority of these “firearms” were actually deactivated. Although the problem is that I can’t see any evidence to support this in the pictures, and it doesn’t say so throughout the article. What makes me say this, is that the guy has over five hundred firearms, but apparently not a single round of live ammunition. The report claims that there were “200,000” rounds of ammunition also found, but in all the pictures of this “ammunition”, they either show just bullets without shells, or shells without bullets/powder/primers. Knowing English gun laws are extremely strict, I wouldn’t put it past the police to simply say these were firearms, because maybe they had been deactivated in the 1990s or so, but hadn’t followed any of the additional deactivation laws. For more information on this, see my article on the London Proof House. But essentially, Britain has passed a number of deactivated firearms laws, and with each law, the deactivated firearm has to be brought up to standard, by filling the barrel with lead, or slotting the chamber, or any other such method. Maybe this guy had all these deactivated guns, and just got tired of following each new law, and thus simply didn’t. Because I can’t see how even illegally, one has a huge amount of firearm

In 2014, Colt announced a new variant of its CM901 line of convertible 7.62×51/5.56×45 AR-pattern rifles, the CK901. Designed for orders coming from the Middle East and other areas where AKs are plentiful, the CK901 feeds from existing surplus AK magazines, while – in the paraphrased words of the Colt representative I spoke to – “introducing that market to the AR platform without disturbing what they’re used to”.

Sciens Capital Management, the hedge fund managers that own Colt Defense, LLC, have failed to meet the January 8 deadline for funding the famous gunmaker’s exit from bakruptcy. The Wall Street Journal reports:

In October, I traveled out to see my co-writer Alex C. to collect data on the weights of different long guns and some of their components. Over that weekend, I weighed 58 rifles and submachine guns, and numerous magazines, bolts, bolt carriers, and other miscellaneous items. The purpose of this was not only to collate a general list of the weights of different weapons, but to be able to enhance the accuracy of a previous spreadsheet I’d produced showing the loaded “combat” weights of different rifles; that being available at this link.

Colt’s exit from bankruptcy has hit a snag: The owners of the company, Sciens Capital Management have defaulted on a $15 million funding commitment to Colt Defense LLC, as part of the company’s exit from bankruptcy. The private equity company agreed to pay the money to help Colt meet its commitments to its lenders, but failed to actually provide the money within the deadline.  Nasdaq.com reports:

I have to hand it to the seller, they found a niche that they could exploit. In this case, a GunBroker seller was offering fully trademarked 80% Colt lower receivers. The receivers are marked in the old “A1” style using older logos.

We are all at least passingly familiar with the Battle of the Bulge. A smaller part of that battle was the Siege of Bastogne which took place December 20th to December 27th, 1944. The ultimate goal of Nazi Germany in this particular battle was to reach a harbor in Antwerp, and the Germans hoped to fight through the Allied ranks before they could be reinforced. This was not a small battle by any means but included more than 54,000 Germans laying siege to the small village of Bastogne where approximately 22,800 Allied soldiers were attempting to stand their ground. (It is well worth noting that Bastogne was and is a small village; today their population lingers around 15,000 residents.)

The Colt MARC 901 rifle is a bit of a different take on the .308 AR concept, but is it really necessary? Given Colt’s track record recently I am a bit skeptical, after all they are the company that brought us the All American 2000, the Colt Z40, and the Colt Double Eagle. Confidence inducing right? Even though Colt has a spotty track record with introducing new platforms I was hopeful.