Soldiers reportedly complained that the M4 was prone to malfunction in the dusty environments encountered in the field in Afghanistan and Iraq. military, but in 2013 lost its contract with the government to supply the successor to the M16, the M4 carbine, because of reliability issues. Colt has long been a key supplier to the U.S. The company's origins date to an 1836 patent granted to Samuel Colt for his firearm design. Hours after the statement was released, the Department of Defense announced that it had awarded Colt a $41.9 million contract to manufacture rifles for sales to militaries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Oceania and the Caribbean. Veilleux said the decision to halt manufacture of the AR-15 for the civilian market came because "high-volume contracts" from the military and law enforcement were "absorbing all of Colt's manufacturing capacity for rifles." "If they think a company like Colt is disrespecting their identity or giving in to the other side, Colt's likely going to see serious damage to its other firearms brands too." "We've seen in the past that when gun manufacturers are viewed to have given in to gun-safety advocates, gun owners will boycott them and really hurt their business," he said. They point out that the weapon, along with similar rifles made by Colt's competitors, has been used frequently in mass shootings.Īdam Winkler, a gun policy expert at the UCLA School of Law, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying the company needs to tread lightly to keep from antagonizing its customers. military's M16 - which was standard issue for American ground forces for decades - has come under particular pressure in recent years from gun control advocates.
#Colt sp1 history serial#
Colt website dates the serial to 1964, and the serial implies this is the 2,750th ever made. The AR-15, a semi-automatic version of the U.S. Description 4/22/20 - This is a fantastic example of a very early and desirable Colt SP1 that predates the Vietnam War. "Given this level of manufacturing capacity, we believe there is adequate supply for modern sporting rifles for the foreseeable future." "The fact of the matter is that over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity," Colt Defense LLC president and CEO Dennis Veilleux said in a statement Thursday. said it was suspending production of its version of the AR-15 for the civilian market.įirearms manufacturer Colt says it is suspending production of its popular AR-15 semi-automatic assault-style rifle for the civilian market, saying it will concentrate instead on fulfilling contracts from the military and law enforcement.
On Thursday, Connecticut-based Colt's Manufacturing Co. Three variations of the AR-15 rifle are displayed at the California Department of Justice in Sacramento, Calif., in a 2012 photo.
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