U.S. Army Dumps Colt for Remington M4's

[Uncle Malice]

Wow... I'm not sure how I feel about this. Remington isn't really known for their M4/AR's... I can't understand why they wouldn't go with another company known for their battle tested weapons.


Remington confirms US Army M4/M4A1 contract award


http://militarytimes.com/blogs/gears...ontract-award/

Any thoughts?

[the rifleer]

probably $.

[Skadoosh]

Colt will still receive 5% royalties for every M4 produced by any other company until 2050, so they probably dont much give a hoot.

[Palmetto-Pride]

Another thread has already been started on this......http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=486123

[Uncle Malice]

Thanks Palmetto-Pride. I checked over the active threads and didn't see it.

I guess this one can be closed or merged.

[Chris_B]

Big-picture wise, isn't it true that the US military will be moving to another platform in the foreseeable future?

If that is so, Colt may be looking to the next thing instead of trying to continue on with yesterday's news. Could be a good overall situation for Colt

[semi_problomatic]

The army dropped their next xm search when colt lowered the price of the M4's in response to the army's xm search.

So big picture wise I think colt is about to be hurting. That name they've been riding on may not carry them too much further.

[Chris_B]

While that's as may be, how does that stop Colt, moving forward? The US military will not use the M16/M4 platform forever

While I can't argue that Colt needs to hit a couple home runs again, I don't see the logic behind Colt staying with a design that's going to fall behind the curve, either. let's say Colt continued to make M4s. How does that help them for the future? Eventually, and not so far away, the M4 will be supplanted. When that happens, their past manufacture of M4s won't mean squat...just like right now, really

[Fishing_Cabin]

I think it will be a good move for Colt in the long run. They need to focus on 2 things in order to survive, at least in my view. The first is they need to research and invent the next rifle/carbine platform that the military adopts, and I dont mean just an improvement on the M16 system. Second, they need to expand the civilian side, and produce more firearms for civilian sales each year. If they do this, everything will continue to go well.

Just my thoughts.

[droptrd]

die hard colt fans and mil-spec fanboi's will be throwing up defensive posts left and right.

[Jim Watson]

I think it looks bad for Colt.
They will not easily convert men and machines from making a tightly spec'ed infantry rifle to, say, Python revolvers.

[tahunua001]

there is already another thread discussing this topic, it is actually 2 merged threads.

[Jim Watson]

OK, whereat?

[RT]

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=486123

[TMD]

Have no fear Colt fanboys, Wal-Mart came to the rescue and is hawking your pretty black rifles at a discount.

[James K]

The Army has to go with the bidder who can meet the specifications, can do the job, and has the lowest price. I doubt anyone could argue that Remington would be unable to make the M4 carbine, so the bidder would be selected on price.

Jim

[Slamfire]

I consider the royality payment to Colt obscene and an example of how the Army took the path of least resistance in giving away my tax money.

But they kept Colt happy, so I guess that is what really counts.

[Crow Hunter]

I would reserve any comments about this until they are ACTUALLY producing the guns.

Sabre Defence and Bushmaster both won contract awards in the past. Neither of them were capable of producing the rifles to the TDP specification at the cost they quoted.

When the production lines are actually set up and running and DOD inspectors sign off on their suitability, then I will be impressed.

Any company is CAPABLE of building rifles at or better than the quality of Colts. However, most companies CHOOSE not to.

Unless you have the economies of scale that Colt has, it will be difficult to produce their quality level at their price point.

Find the addresses of the companies and take a look at the aerial view of their factories, you might be surprised how small some of them are and how large Colt is.

Cerberus probably has the resources to do it, but that doesn't mean that they will sell that to civilians.

Colt is in a "unique" position in that civilian/LEO sales are such a small part of their overall business plan that it is cheaper/easier for them to just divert a little of their "normal" production and change out a few parts rather than buying and keeping up with civilian grade components and the quality systems needed to prevent them from getting mixed into DOD weapons and potentially having to reject whole shipments of weapons.

Most of the other companies are organized completely backwards to this. They are primarily civilian producers that may or may not make "LEO" models. They build to a civilian price point for civilian users and for their "special" customers, they have "special" runs.

Based on Cerberus's organization and Remington's current "LEO" policies on their 870P/700P/etc vs their Express lines, I wouldn't count on getting "Tier 1" quality ARs from DPMS/Bushmaster/Remington at your local Wal-Mart.

With our luck, this will wind up changing Colt's business model too and all us lowly civilians will get is crap.

[saltydog452]

Slightly off center, but has Colt successfully marketed an original in-house idea?

Just curious,

salty

[semi_problomatic]

Colt's been paying armalite royalties for years. That is where the name AR comes from.

I don't think colt chose to have the contract ended. And I haven't heard of anything new from them... While the SCAR, ACR, ETC are already out. Colt dropped their prices before to keep the military contract. I don't think their R&D is set up like their QC is. But I'm not really "in the know" with colt...or anybody really...

[Crow Hunter]

Slightly off center, but has Colt successfully marketed an original in-house idea?

Just curious,

salty

As a corollary.

How many "original in-house ideas" do you know of, especially in the last several decades? (Even the SCAR is just an extruded aluminum FNC with a AR-18 piston and a multi-lugged bolt head instead of a 2 lug, you should look at their guts. They are almost identical.)

Almost every single idea out there is merely a variation/improvement on another idea or a recombination of several other ideas into a new form.

Colt just recently demonstrated a new piston design that they have come up with that is fairly slick. They came up with some pretty interesting heat sink ideas for their IAR submission. They also recently developed the CM-901.

Colt's been paying armalite royalties for years.

I don't think that is right. I thought that Armalite sold the rights to Colt and Colt improved the design and then sold the design to the government. That is why FN, Hydramatic, etc manufactured them. The government could move the contract to whomsoever it pleased. It wouldn't make a difference anyway now, the patent rights have long since expired for the original Armalite design. But the copyrights haven't. (That is why only Colt can use AR-15 on it's rifles.)

The M4 is a different animal though. Colt developed it back in the early '90s and they owned the TDP. If the government wanted M4s, they had to buy them from Colt. (There was even a big lawsuit by FN because they wanted to manufacture them, they lost)

But as part of the last contract, after X number of years, Colt relinquished the rights to the TDP to the government (last year sometime I think) and no longer had single source rights to it. Now the DOD can give the TDP to anyone that can make the rifles.

The question is, can they actually make them for the price they are quoting to the quality standards in the contract?

[tirod]

I can't understand why they wouldn't go with another company known for their battle tested weapons.

Which was the sentiment when Armalite got a contract in 1962. Fortunately, different companies do get contracts, and I didn't have to carry a flintlock from Springfield Armory with issue possibles bag because it was the only battle tested maker.

There's been a LOT of restructuring lately, people fired, etc. Someone has made decisions and made them stick, which hopefully presages an improvement in Remingtons consumer products, too.

[treeprof]

Colt didn't give up rights to the M4. They just expanded the Govt's license to the M16 with an M4 addendum:

http://www.defensereview.com/colt-de...-rights-to-m4/

[Sinlessorrow]

Colt still owns the TDP, the Army jut has the ability to contract others to make the rifles.

The reason Remington won is $$$ at $678.10 per rifle it was a no brainer, and since they have to follow colts tdp they have to give 5% for each rifle made.

The quality of M4A1's will stay the same due to government inspectors.

The M4 is also here to stay, at least until the next big advancement comes out. Like caseless ammunition or lasers.

Face it the IC will go no where. No rifles currently being made offer any advantages over a new M4A1. So why spend billions on new rifles, training, manuals, and spare parts when what we have is just as good as the rest.

One day the M4 will be replaced but it will be a huge leap in technology like caseless ammunition.

[semi_problomatic]

Wait...no rifles better than M4's?? Are you serious?? By who's standards and testing?? M4 placed last...dead last...in a stoppages test conducted by the military. With the M16 being 2nd biggest loser...