For instance, who makes their BCG's?

Who makes their barrels?

I am assuming they get contracted out. Am I wrong?

They have the ability to make all of their own parts.  However they do contract out some parts.

Who makes their BCG's?

Colt will never tell you what parts come from where.

Kinda like apple haha

Look here for lower receiver information.

That list is out of date.  And honestly it doesn't matter who makes what for who.  All that matters is if the company that's got their name on the side stands behind their product or not.

According to the parts in red and those in black in Brownells Catelogue the Colt parts are not US made.

I wouldn't be surprised if CMT isn't supplying some parts to them. According to CMT they make 10,000 FCGs a month for AR-15s and M-16s, they gotta be going somewhere.



"...Continental Machine & Tool, has been a major producer of component
parts for military and consumer AR-15 manufacturers since the Vietnam
War. It's highly unlikely that anyone who has fired any U.S.-label AR-15
rifle in the last 30 years was using a gun that did not contain
CMT-made parts. For the last dozen years, in fact, it has manufactured
about 80 percent of all parts for U.S. AR manufacturers––up to 10,000
triggers and hammers a month for AR-15s and M16s..."

Beat me to it.
We know that they don't make their upper receivers, FSB's and FCG's.  They don't have pony on them.

You have to think at best all Colt does is finish some given parts, then assemble them

I know they do their own barrels in house.

Dream on

That just means that Brownells hasn't yet verified that those parts are made in the US, doesn't mean they're not.

I thought E.R. Shaw and Green Mountain made barrels for Colt?

lol, um...... NO

ER Shaw makes barrels for BMC.  AFAIK, Colt makes their own barrels.

Uhm...

They might not have ponies on them, but Colt uppers come with a stamped or raised "C" in the forging - particularly in the case of raised "C"s, it means that they're forged specifically for Colt - shipped to them as a raw forging (a solid block of aluminum in the general shape of an upper receiver) and machined in Hartford.  

That being said, some recent Colts *have* had Green Mountain barrels - they can be identified by the stamped "G" on the chamber end under the handguards.  

Colt has the capacity to manufacture most if not all of their components in-house, but like any sensible company, if and when they are at their production capacity they will subcontract - subcontracted parts are still OEM parts, however - built, tested, and QA/QC approved to their standards.  

You cannot go to Green Mountain and just order a Colt 6920 barrel without the rollmarks.  You still have to get them through Colt.  I don't know what makes people believe that just because a company is an OEM subcontractor means that the parts they do (or sometimes contractually can) sell to you are the same as what they provide to a given manufacturer.  

Another example of this is FNMI barrels - just because they're made in Columbia, SC doesn't mean they're the same thing that gets installed in an M16.  It just means that they happen to be made in Columbia, SC, to whatever specs were provided to FNMI by the contracting company.  If I had enough money, I could contract FNMI to build me hammer forged barrels and have the chamber reamed the exact size and shape as a Yorkie turd - but I could probably sell them just on the basis of "made by FN."  

~Augee

Could parts come from Colt Canada? those would be non USA parts.

Just for fun, I would like to show up at the range with a rifle chambered in 7.62 Yorkie Turd

Well i did buy a made by FN 20" Nato 5.56 upper (limited edition) from PSA that was decsribed as thee closest spec' ed to the current issued m16's as legally possible. Nothing wrong with that..

You most likely bought an upper build by FNMI that is the closest guess PSA could get to what the spec of the current issue M16 is - hence the "legally possible," because it would be in violation of FNMI's contract to build M16s for the government for them to use proprietary information belonging to Colt contained in the TDP for the M16A2/3/4 for commercial gain - i.e. the barrel specs, and sell them to PSA.    

While you may, and probably will consider this to be splitting hairs - in the question of OEM suppliers versus in-house manufacturing, it's an important point.  

You can sit there with ten, fifty, or a hundred Colt M16 barrels and mic out every part with a set of calipers and copy them and read the published relevant MIL-SPECs and MIL-STDs that they're required to meet - but you still have to guess at the tolerances and acceptance / rejection criteria that Colt uses to meet them - they could (I'm not implying that they do) have a "special recipie" that you might have no idea about.  Also, this depends highly on the diligence and attention to detail of whomever is checking the dimensions and specs - they could skip / miss a critical step or dimension.  

In other words - what you have is a PSA barrel that happens to have been manufactured by FNMI.  Just like a Green Mountain Colt barrel is a Colt barrel that happens to be manufactured by Green Mountain.  What you do not have is an FNMI M16 barrel.

Which is not to imply that either PSA or Green Mountain barrels are bad - but don't fool yourself into thinking that just because they're made by the same company, that they're the same thing.  

~Augee

Is this also the reason that Colt themselves had/s to built their semi-auto rifles a little different than the USGI versions?  (no bayo lug, FCG pin, web/sear block, BC .. etc) while they contracting with the government?

I still think my 14.5" SOCOM is the same one as an M4A1.

You may be right but at the time PSA knew very little technical wise and were still learning as they were starting up. I think this may have been a batch offered up by FN without PSA putting in any technical specs. It seems PSA would take what ever surplus that was offered by FN at the time.

No.  Colt changes / changed those things in order to comply with civilian / commercial requirements.  

They are more than welcome to use their own intellectual property (IP) for whatever purpose suits them, including commercial sales.  FNMI and most likely Remington cannot because the information is the intellectual property of Colt, they are simply license producing to supplement production.  

Colt is still contracting with and for the government - there are active contracts for M4 and M4A1 Carbines, as well as for (ironically) FNH M240s and M249s that they are busy filling.  The award of a contract to Remington for more M4 Carbines, far from being a bad thing for Colt is probably a good thing for them - it means that they're probably selling rifles faster than they can make them - thus the need for supplemental production.  Colt still profits from every Remington M4 that will be built as the government owes them a royalty fee in exchange for use of the TDP - meaning Colt sits back and collects while someone else buys the raw materials, manufactures, assembles, and takes all the financial risk associated with setting up a new production line for their product.  Colt loses no money if Remington fails - but if they succeed, they get a share of the profits.  The minor sales boost that Remington will get for being able to advertise themselves as "government M4 contractor" will be minimal compared to the percentage per unit that Colt will receive, especially since Remington will most likely *not* be authorized to produce a commercial version of the 6921 as a result, and probably would not bother to even if they could.    

~Augee

While I may have talked up the difficulty in re-creating an identical barrel without the TDP to illustrate a point - it's not inordinately difficult to come up with a "recipie" for a 20" government profile barrel.  Give me set of digital calipers and fifteen minutes and I can get you one.    

It's not that hard to take external dimensions, make them out of the right barrel steel with the right twist rate, and chamber for 5.56 NATO.    

Or, of course, they could be factory rejects that didn't meet the TDP if they're surplus - it would "technically" be as close to "spec" as legally allowable.  Just food for thought.  

Understand, I'm not knocking PSA barrels - I've never tried one, nor am I knocking any other barrels that FNMI is the OEM for - only pointing out that there is still a difference and "manufactured by the same company" =/= "the same thing."  

~Augee

You are very knowleble and i always enjoy reading your replies Augee.... Thxs...