Standard Catalog of Colt Firearms. Rick Sapp

and unlimited possibilities, and backward to the 20th and 19th centuries to a record of remarkable achievement, innovative approaches to shooting problems, continuing innovation and, ultimately, strong brand identification and customer loyalty.

      Since Samuel Colt opened his Hartford Armory, Colt’s (hereinafter referred to simply as Colt) has always operated with the kind of double vision that many companies attempt and few actually achieve. More than 150 years ago, the boy genius Sam Colt realized that a successful and long-lasting American firearms company would need to serve both the military and the civilian marketplace.

      Thus, Colt produced arms for every market segment. It built deringers and pocket pistols for personal protection and the famous Single Action Army or “Peacemaker” for military and civilian use. Its management set the stage for a century of innovation by dozens of manufacturers worldwide when it agreed to produce John M. Browning’s 1911 automatic pistol and proceeded to manufacture the Gatling gun and the Thompson submachine gun. In the modern era it co-designed the remarkable M16, the staple of U.S. military small arms for almost half a century.

      Today, Colt has two principal divisions: its commercial or civilian division (Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC) and its defense contracting division, which encompasses law enforcement, military and private security support (Colt Defense LLC). This sectional approach to the multiple markets that Colt serves is the sign of a nimble and diversified company that is both flexible enough to tackle the challenges of the century ahead … and respectful of its legacy as well.

      “I believe the Colt vision now is to reestablish our presence as a significant player in the commercial handgun market,” says Mark Roberts, Director of Sales and Marketing for the commercial division. Roberts, who worked on the manufacturing side for six years before moving to marketing, has a well-rounded view of Colt’s progress since 1998. He is personally vested in the manufacturer’s success.

      During the 1990s, Colt as well as most other U.S. firearms manufacturers, found itself facing an increasingly hostile battery of attorneys who represented a small minority of the American public. Supported by numerous well-funded non-profit – and often tax-exempt – organizations such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence or even anti-hunting organizations such as Defenders of Wildlife and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, these attorneys were evidently tasked to “go after the gun industry.” In an era when one could receive hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars in damages for spilling one’s own coffee in one’s own lap inside one’s own vehicle, the injury was significant in time and resources.

      The barrage of anti-gun lawsuits, which culminated (but did not, unfortunately, end) in 1999, forced Colt (and others) to re-evaluate their commercial product lines. Suddenly, another factor was added to the administrative overhead in addition to reliability, marketability, research and testing: additional staff lawyers.

      Larry Keane, Senior Vice President and General Counsel to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, estimates lawsuits from municipalities alone cost the industry $225 million. Those costs are on-going. Insurance became a massive burden: not only were policy increases substantial, but deductibles skyrocketed and exclusions compounded – if a manufacturer could find insurance at all. There were less resources for wage increases and new product research. Overall, there was less money for capital investments and both buildings and equipment suffered. According to Keane, “1999 is the year that the entire industry, including Colt’s, was almost destroyed.”

      Primarily as a result of the turbulence in the civilian marketplace, Colt dropped its tiny six-shot Mustang in 1999; dropped its small double-action .380 ACP Pony the following year; and let the 9mm Pocket Nine go in 2001. Other models, fully functional and serviceable guns, fell out of Colt’s catalog. Colt, and the industry as a whole, cautiously felt its way forward, but there was a realization that Colt’s brand equity, name and legacy – all built carefully over 150 years – made it a special target for anti-gun activists, specialists in appeasement and pacifists of all stripes.

      Fortunately, although Colt and other firearms manufacturers briefly went into what Roberts refers to as “something of a hunker down” mode, the damage was not permanent. Life, indeed, has gone on because of simple need and customer demand from both civilians and the military. The international requirement for quality firearms has, if anything, increased, but at Colt the vision had to be renewed. And that could not happen overnight.

      Looking at the firearms marketplace, Colt management understands that the world is now a highly competitive and highly integrated place, and that the 21st century already is filled with great gun makers from many nations. Competitive contract bids for new or old designs may be received from almost any corner of the earth.

      “A lot of guns are being made now that are very comparable to Colt’s,” Roberts reflects, accepting the fact that all of Colt’s original patents – on guns like the redoubtable 1911, for instance – expired long ago. “So it has been up to us to redefine our vision, our product lines and our quality standards, to insist that, at every level, they become the best in this business.”

      The results of nearly a decade of thoughtful planning have left Colt – at least on the commercial side – as more of a “niche marketer” than they were in the generation of the World War II veterans. For long-term profitability, it is much more important for a company to carefully study the market before launching a new product line than it was even a dozen years ago. A new firearms concept may now cost millions of dollars and take years of study, and even then may go nowhere … or may be immensely profitable. So production of guns to match every shooting opportunity is not, at present, in the new vision. Shotguns for sporting clays; hunting rifles for big game; new deringers for self-defense – none of these appears to be in Colt’s immediate future.

      These days, looking at a more dangerous and quixotic international playground than perhaps ever before in Colt’s or America’s history, Colt has accepted its role as a niche player on the commercial side and as a robust contractor to the U.S. government (and to other, friendly governments as well) on the defense side. Consequently, the majority of Colt’s internal resources and external public relations and lobbying efforts are targeted to meet defense-contracting opportunities.

      Still, Colt has a commercial handgun capacity with both legacy and product that remain in high demand. According to Roberts, “Colt’s Manufacturing has not defined its niche as bells and whistles, guns with seven sorts of whiz-bang features and any ‘gun of the week’ syndrome. We believe that at this time, our niche is the basic, mil-spec single-stack .45 and some offshoots of that trusted firearm. We are also committed to maintain a very strong presence in the single-action community with our Model P, the classic Colt Peacemaker. These directions are intended for the Colt purist, the person who likes guns with the refinement, aesthetics and quality they had 40 and 50 years ago.” To promote the brand, Colt’s continuing task is therefore to maintain a competitive competence in price, quality and distinctiveness.

      So, according to Mark Roberts, Colt’s commitment to the civilian market remains solid, even if it may not carry as extensive a product line as it once did. For example, the Hartford manufacturer went through a major “commemorative era” from the 1960s to the 1980s wherein dozens of special guns were produced in the “Lawman Series”: the 3,000 guns designated the 1967 Bat Masterson Frontier Scout, or the 250 .45 automatics in the 1979 Ohio President’s Special Edition. Colt has made a decision to move beyond that market, perhaps finding that the resources invested in building and marketing a few hundred specialized guns, even one for which the pattern was well-established, could not be recouped in profitability and that the dozens of commemoratives produced may, in effect, have softened the brand when the guns did not hold their initial commemorative values.

      “Although the manufacturing process is continually changing, we, like other companies that manufacture intricate mechanical instruments continue to look for ways to build excellent, durable parts at less expense,” Mark Roberts says. “Basically though, we still operate the way we did a generation ago, with high quality forged steel and machined bar stock, and making very limited use of MIM (metal injection molded) parts. I believe that most people would be truly astonished at the amount of hand finishing and team evaluation that our quality inspectors