If they made them the same they would cost $4000. Think of the labor in bluing!! Theyre kinda like a super x model one, the days of a fully machined and hand fit gun are long gone. No matter if they wanted to the beancounters would figure out a way to mess it up
No you just need to make them in Taiwan or in Eastern Europe with lots of quality control and not push them out the door like Taurus does! LOL I do not know arms inport laws but I know I could contract them out and bring a fantastic product to market at a profit for well under $1200!!! It would take me longer than I care too invest to put together the numbers for fun. LOL
It is not that hard to make a great product this simple at a profit with modern manufacturing, design and infrastructure. The real problem is when you are trying to do it with too much dead weight and old factories and old machinery and old designs and old materials! There is a sweet spot in terms of company size, manpower, plant size, design and machinery age for every situation. Quality control and waste management from top to bottom is so important. If you design in precision from top to bottom and make the right choices in management, design, logistics, machinery investment and sound outsourcing it is like winning the loto in terms of everything coming together and the momentum from each step building on the last.
Company culture is also important and often times the culture at a company can make or break a company short term and long-term.
Colt could not compete in the price point war that is AR-15's! So since they messed that up long ago and let the competition in the door and almost rolled out the red carpet for them it was sad but a wise move for them to get out. Colt has a history of messing up a sure thing. Kind of like a person that seems to always date toxic men or women over and over and over again.
It is hard to get money at times to reinvent yourself until you have reinvented yourself! LOL.....Investors want a sure thing and not taking the right risks at the right time almost always works out badly. It takes what could have been a fantastic opportunity or design and turns each decision into a liability usually producing a polished turd or turning everything you touch from gold to lead! People start to doubt themselves and that leads to more bad decisions! Machinery get's older and that drives up production cost and drives down fit and finish.
Colt has decided to create exclusivity with pricing let's see what the market says? I do not think people will have a problem at all with the price if they compare well to the originals. If they get them 85% of the way there they will sell like hot cakes. Given manufacturing technology and materials they might just be better than the originals only time will tell!
I would love to see Colt get back on it's feet. I have not forgiven them yet for the terrible job they did with the Ultra Light Arms fiasco! It was a classic case of Colt having "Golden Opportunity" to print money and them burning it down like matchsticks!!! So I am prepared for the worst but I am hoping for the best!
Having been in the domestic automotive world I have seen fantastic opportunities and designs ran into the ground by corporate culture, bean counter's, internal politics and squeezing suppliers regularly for cost reduction with out validation of redesigns!
I have seen a design change to save $.03 per vehicle turn around and bit a company in the rear to the tune of hundreds of millions of $$$$ in recalls and that again in court settlements! It only takes one minor cost saving mistake to destroy a company! MBA's, Shareholders, Hedge Fund Managers only think about about quarterly and annual profits and that sort of thinking is what holds back so many companies!