Heh... I have very UNFOND memories about the Colt AA 2000...
It was almost the cause of me getting fired from my job as associate editor of American Rifleman magazine.
Back when they first came out, Colt was really struggling.
Colt sent us an AA, hoping that we would write a glowing article about it. We got some pressure from the "higher ups" to write a glowing article about it. We got some pressure from the advertising agency to write a glowing article about it.
Normally that doesn't work at Rifleman.... BUT... someone took pity on the company, someone liked the gun, and someone else was apparently friends with one of the co-designers, so it was pretty much preordained that the gun was going to be highly placed in the magazine.
Problem was, the pistol that Colt sent us to test was an absolute, 100% Grade A piece of worthless $$^()&*$(#&#&^ crap on a cracker )$(*)^#(*#(*
[email protected])$#() waste of *($(**&# metal!
The one that came through was shooting TWENTYFIVE INCH groups at 25 yards!
It went back to the factory, where we were told that the barrel and the frame were improperly cut.
It came back.
This one cut groups down to about 12 inches at 25 yards.
Back it went again.
Some more tweeking.
Back it came.
This time it actually fired half-way crappily decent groups. I forget exactly what they were, but they were the groups that got published in the range report in Rifleman. Certainly nothing to write home about.
There were also a lot of other problems with all three iterations of the gun.
Trigger problems. Feeding problems. Sight problems. Magazine catch problems.
I thought for certain that, as was our practice, the gun would be returned to Colt with a "try us again when you work the problems out."
Imagine how shocked I was when I found out that we were not only going to run a semi-glowing article about the gun, but that we were going to put it on the cover!
I made my feelings very clear in our monthly editorial staff meeting, and actually got into something of a shouting match with one of the other editors. I lost, of course. I was new boy on the totem pole.
So, stupid idealistic me, not giving a rat's rectum about the politics involved, I dashed off a 2-page memo that absolutely SAVAGED the gun and the decision to put the gun in the magazine.
End result? The editor and/or publisher was so pissed at me that I was almost fired.
In the long run, though, I was pretty much vindicated. The AA 2000 was an absolute disaster for Colt, and almost pushed them into bankruptcy. What I heard later from a Colt employee was that the early production guns weren't a lot better than the gun that we got at Rifleman, and Colt took an absolute bath on trying to make them right, and never did succede 100%.
Long way of saying don't buy the damned thing.