I am sure they will do that so they lose even more customers and damage their reputation further. :confused: I have to expect nothing less from your posts on this subject. Why don't you do some reading to understand why some of that happened.
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Keep up with the times, Colt lost the contract by less than $50 and when you add royalties to the Remington bid it was more than Colts. This is why GAO told the Army they had to rebidd and I can almost guarantee Colt will win this time.
The walmart Colts are normal 6920's and Colt won't change that.
I tell you, nothing brings the trolls out from under the bridge like Colt.
With all do respect, I have read just about everything there is to read about those times, and I also lived through them.
Colt started changing the AR 15's long before President Bush even enacted the first "Imported Assault Weapons Ban". This was when many around here were toddlers. They already had different pins, carriers, unshrouded firing pin, and a different size front pivot pin.
I also realize that during the hysteria after the first "Ban" they had to do some things to "look good" to keep the rifles on the market. Add sear block, remove bayo. lug and flash hider, and go to the half moon carrier.
Then finally came the era of the rifles being made to spec., but with the LEO /Military only warnings carved into the side.
And now............. is the best time of all, they are totally awesome rifles. Even the LEO / Military only warning is gone. Why is it that because I do know the history that I am labeled a troll??
And, it is not a far reach to think that the huge box stores will not lean on them to cheapen their product for more margins. They do that all the time. It just depends on how much Colt will need business at that time.
I respect you, can you show a little ??
Colt must of wanted to spend all that money designing and implementing these thing into a rifle that they already had developed just to screw their customers.
That statement sounds silly even when I know I was being sarcastic. Do you think that the changes were made to stay in business on account of the pressure and future legislation from the Government and Brady campaign? Seems more likely.
I don't see Walmart being a driving force in Colt's production methods. Walmart may be able to shop around to the various Chinese manufacturers for a lot of the generic crap they sell, but the branded products, like the name-brand TVs and electronics, are generally the same things sold elsewhere. It doesn't make sense that Colt would change their processes across the board specifically to cater to a single distributor, which I seriously doubt is their largest distribution channel (maybe the single largest distributor, but not accounting for the majority of their sales). Sacrificing the biggest marketing advantage they have just to shave the price down a little bit so that Walmart will keep their rifles on the shelves is absurd. It would take a massive shift, across the industry, to make such a move even remotely viable.
If Walmart wanted to sell a cheaper derivative of a Colt AR, they probably could guarantee the volume necessary for some sort of special production run. It wouldn't be a 6920, it may have some special model number only for them. Walmart does this with other things and certainly has the financial firepower to do it.
If Colt made a special model for Walmart, it doesn't compromise Colt's quality in general, it only would mean that they build something different to a specific set of commercial price parameters. Obviously, it would have zero effect on military contract versions or other versions sold through other distribution, but may add further pressure to the el cheapo end of the market.
In the context of this thread topic, this would have nothing to do with the TDP. The reason that Colt has the TDP is consistency, spare parts compatibility, and quality assurance. If you have multiple sub contractors for multiple parts, you have to have some way to assure that you will get perfect fit every time any maintenance or assembly is done, and this has to be over the lifespan of a long-lived product. That set of specs has to be a "living document" where changes can be made as new technology, materials, or processes emerge. If Colt can find a way to maintain quality and decrease their costs, that is just SOP for a responsible company.
I don't want to derail this thread on the TDP, but retailing is all about volume. The economic reality is that loyalty isn't worth as much as volume these days. You could have a very loyal customer of Colt's that has been a distributor for them for 40 years and their annual volume can be surpassed in a week by a busy Walmart store. Who has greater value as a retail outlet? What would you do if you were Colt? What would your shareholders expect you to do? Colt's shareholders would expect Colt's management to make decisions that would increase their equity value, like increasing sales volumes would do. To Colt's average shareholders, Colt's products are a commodity and the higher the volume moved, the greater the value.
This thread started ok. From there it is downright silly. Some Walmarts are selling the Colts. But, I have also been to many that are selling the DPMS, BM and Windham trash and not the 6920's.
I stopped at many Walmarts on the way from Georgia to Houston and then onto Phoenix and the story was the same.
I guess I just have enough faith in Colt that they will actually do the right thing as they have been for several years.
Of course it won't really matter because we are all going to die in about 62 days.