I know there is a stupid reason, but why is it that Colt doesn't bother to make it's parts to milspec? I have 2 pre-b Colt's that don't have the same size pins for the fire controll groups. & putting on any other upper is a pain in the rear end, as the push pin holes are not the same size. I have to order the off set screw togeather pins, that would not allow disasembly without carring a screwdriver. It also fell apart on me once, without me noticing, & when my bolt carrier began to stick, I did a stock smack to loosen it untill I became upset, & discouraged. Only to discover latter 1/2 the screw pin had fallen out, & the 2 receivers were not staying linned up enough to allow the proper function of my rifle.
Why did such an historic, & great co such as Colt do such stupid things like this. I know it has probably cost them many millions of dollars by their foolish behavior, & many poor choices as to who's team the "wear" on.

I have 2 Pre-Ban Colts as well and have the same concerns as you Searcher.

Danny

To be more PC.
To bend to the anti gun political winds.
To prevent people from converting their ARs with RDIAS.
To make you use proprietary parts that cost more for no reason.

Not only did they mess with fire control and pivot pins, they also introduced the sear block and bastardized bolt carriers.  All out of a liability concern I assume, one that the other mfgs don't seem worried about.  Even though nobody else is screwing with the design like this, Colt continues to do so to this very day (i.e. the "new" style sear block).  It's a good thing they have military contracts cause they certainly cause themselves to loose a lot of commercial business.  I am so glad mfgs like RRA and Bushmaster, as well as the rest, don't pull such idiotic crap like Colt does.

Why do they do it? Because they can.

My god, do we really have to go over this again? IT GETS OLD.

Yup!

To keep me from buying one. [:)]

Is this the same company that built some (piece of absolute crap, out of spec, unreliable, inaccurate, overpriced, rely on the name alone) 1911's?  hmmmm

It kept me from buying a COLT.

When I found this site I learned the truth about COLT, then I bought a Bushmaster.

 

Why? Because in the late 80's, after a spate of mass shootings, the clamor to ban "assault weapons" was even stronger than it is now, or was in 1994. Colt was the dominant maker of AR15's by far; most of the clone makers back then made only a small percentage of the guns Colt made, and their quality was not nearly as consistent as it is now.

Colt made these changes voluntarily to attempt to forestall even more restrictive legislation against AR15 and other semi-autos. But look at the thanks they get.

As much as I like my Colts I'll also agree they have made more poor choices then any other manufacturer!

Their Management has always been terrible.

During the 80's and 90's they would change CEO's like most folks change their socks, and would still never wind up with any that were worth a damn!

There is no AR-15 type weapon available to civilians that is Mil-Spec.  None.

Olympic Arms, SGW, and others were around then and did not become PC. Yes, Colt sold out. And if you think that Colt pacified the Anti's, by doing this, than you don't have a clue about politics. They did it to prevent lawsuits and to prevent them from being named specifically in the Bans, which by the way did not help them. We are our own worst enemies sometimes...

OH... Colt is the hero....  I really look up to Bill Ruger and Smith & Wesson for these same reasons....

[:)]

Believe what you want. It's a free country, kind of.

This is true. They were also fighting with the Labor Unions. They had to deal with strike after strike during those years.

It's amazing they survived at all.

The women of AR15.com are whinning about Colt again.....

[rolleyes]

Dirk

Unless you plan on doing a RDIAS then I don't see that it matters what size fire control parts you have. I do like the push pin lowers verse the large hole lowers, more versitile. Sear block is a waste, Colt has always done stupid things to bend for the anti's, looks like it really made a differance[>:/]. But I still like my Colt prebans, they will always be worth more than the rest, why? because it's a Colt.[;)]

Since when is relaying the facts whining? I own more Colts them any other brand and regard them highly!

That’s the problem with many at these sites, blind loyalty and cliques.

Ding,

If it's so laborious to you, DON'T READ IT OR REPLY. Good grief...

Dink,
Quit YOUR whining...

Colts alterations do not protect against lighting links. You can buy plans for Illegal LL on ebay, and according to the sellers, they are easlily home-made.
Colt however does have a government contract, which bring them in more money than any given civilian sales combined. They don't want bad press being the gov. contractor. They couldn't care less about their civilian sales because of that. You can tell by their "superior" customer service.
I don't know, I could be completely wrong though.

Lockedon,

What is LL?

Steve

A Lightning Link. It is a drop-in piece of metal that converts your AR to full auto without any other modifications. Extremely simple in design acctually.
There are a few legal transferable LL's out there for sale, but they are very expensive ($5000+)
Remember that making your own new lightning link is EXTREMELY ILLEGAL!

Beat me to the punch.

They did it to piss me off.

Olympic Arms IS SGW. None of the others have military contracts so the .gov has no leverage on them. Maybe now that some of the cloners have secured a large contracts we'll see them changing too.

Thanks for what?  The only thing their efforts prevented were conversions to full auto, not assault weapons as defined by the ban that came anyways.  Illegal conversions are still illegal, and legal conversions are still regulated and have been since 1934.  Even now, there are plenty of makers - Colt is no longer the majority of what is sold to civilians (as a whole) yet they CONTINUE the same practice, one that others do not.



No offense, but that is not saying much at all since no AR-15 is mil-spec by nature.  However, Colt continues to have the most radical departure from the semi-automatic version of the mil-spec M16, more than the others in terms of major design changes.

AND THEN...!!! they will only work with certain bolt carriers...........

I believe the latest MT6400C uses standard push pin and fire control parts.

[>:/]

I love my Colt MT6601 20"!  It shoots great and is (for some reason) the most accurate AR I have ever shot.[:D]

However, I have never changed out any parts, just shoot and clean.  That being said, they did not even chrome line the bbl or chamber! [>Q] That just seems wrong.

But I wanted a Colt, right!?[:\]

Humm let's see.....

You make the western civilization's leading military rifle. M-16 and variants.

You have contracts all over the world to supply these governments with said weapons.

You don't want people coming into this country and purchasing massive amounts of civilian AR-15s, and converting them to F/A to sell on the black market. Protects your company.

The U.S. government wants you to make it hard to get a M-16 unless you are Military/LE, so they put pressure on said company to make said rifle hard to convert.

Makes them happy and they keep buying your weapons....

And then you fight your way out of bankrupty  to then have the Demoncrats waiting with the AWB.

I think you people who want to bash the COLT AR should stop and think....

the real enemy is people like the Klintons and Dianne Phuckstein.

ALL AR manufactures have to muck up their guns in some way.... TRUE?

Searcherfortruth, I find it hard to beleive that in your almost 5,000 posts in less than a year that you haven't come accross this same exact thread at least 150 times. I guess you do forget.

Well said!  I like that my rifle is a Colt, and I like that my Les Pauls are Gibson.

I too own several Colts and also regard them highly but there seems to be a general trend here at ARcom to bash Colts once a week.

Kinda gets old....

Dirk

SteveW,

Does the W stand for woman? Sorry if I hit a raw nerve. [;D]

Dink

No offense taken and I agree that Colt continues to have the most radical departure.

To address your other point, even when the M-16 FCG is eliminated from the mix there is still no manufacturer of AR-15's that is Mil-Spec.  What's really rich is the manufacturer who infers their AR-15 product is Mil-Spec isn't even an approved military supplier !

ArmaLite tells it straight.  They state that, excluding FCG parts, there are no known incompatibilities between parts for their AR-15 product (M-15 series) and the M-16.  However, they also add that their civilian product is NOT Mil-Spec.

If the new book, Black Rifle II, is published as the draft now stands, there's gonna be be one embarrased AR manufacturer in the house !

5sub

I cut+paste this from the Colt Forum. I think CJan_NH answered this horseshit better than most.

[Quote:from CJan_NH]
Colt isn't "milspec": Past Colts have had a protruding sear block and a front takedown screw instead of a conventional front pushpin. Enough people complained and Colt changed it. Current civilian Colts have both a standard front pushpin and no protruding sear block.

-Colt ships most of their rifles with a 1/7 ROT barrel, which is far closer to "milspec" than the 1/9 ROT barrels that most other builders use. They also use 4150 steel unlike Armalite, ASA, DPMS, Eagle, Hesse, Olympic and RRA.

-The 6400c has a chrome chamber and barrel, and the HBARs have chrome chambers. According to Colt their buyers didn't want chrome in their accurized varmint rig for the sake of accuracy. Colt listened and people have been screaming ever since.

-Colt uses a metal trigger guard, not plastic. A plastic trigger guard would last about three minutes here in New England on a 30 below zero January afternoon.

-Colt uses .170 pins. Why is this such an issue? Who cares? The only aftermarket trigger company that I can think of who doesn't offer a .170 drop in match trigger kit is KAC. Colt .170 FCG parts are available everywhere-even Bushmaster sells them.

-Many civilian Colt parts have the same proof marks as military and LEO weapons. They also have the same part numbers. Colt does more QC checks during assembly than anyone else. Cripes, take a look at the troubleshooting forum. When was the last time someone with a brand new Colt had a problem like an over-torqued or cockeyed barrel, canted front sight, bent gas tube, buffer impacts with the retainer, short stroking, FTF/FTE issues, a spongy safety, or bolts cracking at the cam pin? In the past I have owned a Bushmaster, an Olympic, a DPMS, and a Rock River Arms. None of those rifles were nearly as trouble free as my three Colts. The only AR that was even close was my RRA. Of the non-Colts I've owned the RRA was the only one that I ever regretted selling.

Colts are too expensive: My new 6400c M4 carbine cost me $965 including the FFL tranfer fee. That's what, $150 more than a comparable Bushmaster? Many of the same people who complain about Colt being too expensive think nothing about spending an extra couple hundred bucks to run a Colt carrier/bolt assembly and "H" buffer in their non-Colt carbines to make them more reliable. In other words, they consider certain Colt parts superior, but Colt rifles as a whole are somehow vastly inferior. It doesn't add up.

Colt doesn't care about their customers: If Colt didn't care about civilian sales they never would have bothered to introduce the 6400c carbine. The 6400c is the closest thing to an authentic M4 that a civilian can buy in a stock postban. Aside from the foolish brake and buttstock it's damn near perfect-and we can thank the 94 crime bill for those two items.

Colt has lousy customer service: My new 6400c came with a lifetime service agreement. Who else but Olympic has anything that comes close? The only time I have ever had to deal with Colt for a warranty repair was back in 1994. One of my three-year-old A2 HBARs occasionally failed to extract. My local dealer sold me a generic extractor which made the problem worse. He boxed up the rifle and sent it to Hartford-I got it back fully repaired within seven business days. Not only did they install a new extractor for free, they sent me a spare completely free of charge.

Anyway, the diatribe above is why I prefer Colt. If I'm missing something please let me know. I realize that everyone has an opinion and I certainly respect that, but I'd really like to know where Colt is dropping the ball. Like I said, I've had my share of non-Colts with varied success. Even if I don't personally care for someone elses brand preference I've never gone out of my way to bash it. That's the key difference between me and a typical Colt basher.

Learn something new about every day here at AR15.com.  

Today I learned that Colt's lifetime warranty must be better than ArmaLite's lifetime warranty.  But I still don't know if Olympic's warranty is better than Colt and ArmaLite's warranty or just comes close to being better.

5sub

Acctualy I spend most of my time on the general boards because the topics can be about anything, & everything. I spent my 1st 3 months or so on the AR15 boards, but after I got most of my questions answerd, & answered as many as I could. I began to look around the boards & explore this place. I do come back to the AR board if I have a gun specific question, & also I look for questions I can be of help with. As to my prolific posting, it has nothing to do with weather or not I've seen a specific post over, & over. I really haven't seen Colt bashed over & over, & wasn't trying to bash them as much as understand why I can't switch parts from one of my Colt's with the other. Both pre-b's & still not interchangable.[rolleyes]
I do by the way like having the Colt on my AR's, but when I bought them both, I didn't really know who else even made AR's. If I had I would have been just as happy with a Bushy, or some other brand that had good quaility weapons, & standerdized parts.
I never said I felt Colt was inferior. Just that I was wondering "why" the parts aren't standard even among Colt's of the same general time period. I only own Colt's & my point wasn't to say they suck. On the contriare, I just hate a couple of the things like push pin problems that make a BIG problem if used under field conditions, & receiver pins that can't be interchanged.
I also know that no AR-15 is truly milspec, because it's fire controll group is different. I would think though that the parts from either could be swaped if need be, but I see Spooge5150's point about not making that an easy way to get a self built M-16.

I believe that's the best response I've ever read about Colt.

Dirk

I totally agree. CJan_NH, does deserve praise for such a well thought out post.

Actually, Colt does not make the M16 for the US gov't anymore, just the M4. FN has the M16 contract now.

I wish they still made the sidearm for our troops; not impressed with the Berreta.

Humm Let's see..    Yes I know!

As far as over the history of the M-16 to be more specific.

And Colt is very active in procurement of the M-16 to go into LE.

Ask FREEFALLE6 how many FN M-16 he sees.

Just because they have the contract doesn't mean they are suppling vast amounts to the armed forces.

I am sure Uncle Sam is going to get the most out of what is already in service. [;D]

Ummm I am sure they would trust you. [;)]

All the people that fly planes into buildings they don't!

I still would buy a Colt if I could afford one.

Uh, AR-15s, as far as I know, can be 90% 'mil-spec.' You just need as many Gov. components as legally possible.

Hell, that's my new project, an M-16A2 clone!

I meant to say liable.