Colt ' s Manufacturing Company Colt ' s Manufacturing Company ( CMC , formerly Colt ' s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company ) is a United States firearm s manufacturer , whose first predecessor corporation was founded in 1836 by Samuel Colt . Colt is best known for the engineering , production , and marketing of firearms over the later half of the 19th and the 20th century . Colt ' s earliest designs played a major role in the popularization of the revolver and the shift away from earlier single - shot pistols . While Sam Colt did not invent the revolver concept , his designs resulted in the first very successful ones . The most famous Colt products include the Colt Walker , Single Action Army or Peacemaker , and the Colt Python . John Browning worked for Colt for a time , and came up with a design for a semiautomatic pistol , which debuted as the Colt M1900 pistol and eventually evolved into the Colt M1911 pistol . Though they did not develop it , for a long time Colt was primarily responsible for all AR - 15 and M16 rifle production , as well as many derivatives of those firearms . The most successful and famous of these are numerous M16 carbines , including the Colt Commando family , and the M4 carbine . In 2002 , Colt Defense was split off from Colt ' s Manufacturing Company . Colt Manufacturing Company now serves the civilian market , while Colt Defense serves the law enforcement , military , and private security markets worldwide . History . 19th century . 1830s – 1850s . Samuel Colt received a British patent on his improved design for a revolver in 1835 , and two U . S . patents in 1836 , one on February 25 ( later numbered U . S . Patent 9430X ) and another on August 29 ( ) . That same year , he founded his first corporation for its manufacture , the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson , New Jersey , Colt ' s Patent . This corporation suffered quality problems in production . Making firearms with interchangeable parts was still rather new ( it had reached commercial viability only about a decade before ) , and it was not yet easy to replicate across different factories . Interchangeability was not complete in the Paterson works , and traditional gunsmithing techniques did not fill the gap entirely there . The Colt Paterson revolver found patchy success and failure ; some worked well , while others had problems . The United States Marine Corps and United States Army reported quality problems with these earliest Colt revolvers . Production had ended at the New Jersey corporation by 1842 . Colt made another attempt at revolver production in 1846 and submitted a prototype to the US government . During the Mexican – American War ( 1846 – 1848 ) , this prototype was seen by Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker who made some suggestions to Colt about making it in a larger caliber . Having no factory or machinery to produce the pistols , Samuel Colt collaborated with the Whitney armory of Whitneyville , Connecticut . This armory was run by the family of Eli Whitney . Eli Whitney Jr ( born 1820 ) , the son of the cotton - gin - developer patriarch , was the head of the family armory and a successful arms maker and innovator of the era . Colt used a combination of renting the Whitney firm ' s facilities and subcontracting parts to the firm to continue his pursuit of revolver manufacture . Colt ' s new revolvers found favor with Texan volunteers ( the progenitors of later Texas Rangers cavalry groups ) , and they placed an order for 1 , 000 revolvers that became known as the Colt Walker , ensuring Colt ' s continuance in manufacturing revolvers . In 1848 , Colt was able to start again with a new corporation of his own . He founded the Colt ' s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in Hartford , Connecticut . Colt purchased a large tract of land beside the Connecticut River , where he built his first factory in 1848 , a larger factory called the Colt Armory in 1855 , a manor that he called Armsmear in 1856 , and employee tenement housing . He established a ten - hour day for employees , installed washing stations in the factory , mandated a one - hour lunch break , and built the Charter Oak Hall , a club where employees could enjoy games , newspapers , and discussion rooms . Colt ran his plant with a military - like discipline , he would fire workers for tardiness , sub - par work or even suggesting improvements to his designs . In an attempt to attract skilled German workers to his plant , Colt built a village near the factory away from the tenements which he named Coltsville and modeled the homes after a village in Pottsdam . In an effort to stem the flooding from the river he planted German osier s , a type of willow tree in a 2 - mile long dike . He subsequently built a factory to manufacture wicker furniture made from these trees . The 1850s were a decade of phenomenal success for the new Colt corporation . Colt was the first to widely commercialize the total use of interchangeable parts throughout a product . It was a leader in assembly line practice . It was a major innovator and training ground in manufacturing technology in this decade ( and several after ) . Soon after establishing his Hartford factory , Colt set out to establish a factory in Europe and chose London , England . He organized a large display of his firearms at the Great Exhibition of 1851 at Hyde Park , London and ingratiated himself by presenting cased engraved Colt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain ’ s Master General of the Ordnance . At one exhibit Colt disassembled ten guns and reassembled ten guns using different parts from different guns . As the world ’ s leading proponent of mass production techniques , Colt went on to deliver a lecture on the subject to the Institute of Civil Engineers in London . The membership rewarded his efforts by awarding him the Telford Gold Medal . Colt ' s presence in the British market caused years of acrimony and lawsuits among British arms makers , who doubted the validity of Colt ' s British patent and the desirability of the American system of manufacturing . It took many more years and a UK government commission before the point became universally accepted that such manufacture was possible and economical . Colt opened his London plant on the River Thames at Pimlico and began production on January 1 , 1853 . Many English people saw Colt ’ s advanced steampowered machinery as proof of America ’ s growing position as a leader in modern industrial production . On a tour of the factory , Charles Dickens was so impressed with the facilities that he recorded his favorable comments of Colt ' s revolvers in an 1852 edition of " Household Words " . Most significant , the Colt factory ’ s machines mass - produced interchangeable parts that could be easily and cheaply put together on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges by unskilled labor as opposed to England ' s top gunmakers . In 1854 the British Admiralty ordered 4 , 000 Navy Model Colt revolvers . In 1855 the British Army placed an order for 5 , 000 of these revolvers for army issue . Despite a following order later in the year for an additional 9 , 000 revolvers , Colt failed to convince the British to adopt his revolver as the issue sidearm for the army . Colt began to realize that British sales were failing to meet his expectations . Unable to justify the London factory ’ s expenses , Colt closed the London factory in 1856 . Over the next few months his workmen crated and shipped the machinery and unassembled firearms back to America . Though the U . S . was not directly involved in the Crimean War ( 1854 – 1856 ) , Colt ' s weapons were used by both sides . In 1855 Colt unveiled new state - of - the - art armories in the Hartford and London factories stocked with the latest machine tool s ( some of which were of Colt ' s devising ) , many built by Francis A . Pratt and Amos Whitney , who would found the original Pratt & Whitney toolbuilding firm a few years later . For example , the Lincoln miller debuted to industry at these armories . Colt had set up libraries and educational programs within the plants for his employees . Colt ' s armories in Hartford were seminal training grounds for several generations of toolmakers and other machinist s , who had great influence in other manufacturing efforts of the next half century . Prominent examples included F . Pratt and A . Whitney ( as mentioned above ) ; Henry Leland ( who would end up at Cadillac and Lincoln ) ; Edward Bullard Sr of the Bullard firm ; and , through Pratt & Whitney , Worcester R . Warner and Ambrose Swasey ( of Warner & Swasey ) . In 1852 an employee of Colt ' s , Rollin White , came up with the idea of having the revolver cylinder bored through to accept metallic cartridges . He took this idea to Colt who flatly rejected it and ended up firing White within a few years . Colt historian RL Wilson has described this as the major blunder of Sam Colt ' s professional life . Rollin White left Colt ' s in December 1854 and registered a patent on April 3 , 1855 in Hartford , Connecticut , as patent number 12 , 648 : " Improvement in Repeating Fire - arms " . On November 17 , 1856 White signed an agreement with Smith & Wesson for the exclusive use of his patent . The contract stipulated that White would be paid 25 cents for every revolver , but that it was up to him to defend his patent against infringement as opposed to Smith & Wesson . During the 1850s and 1860s , Rollin White had been permanently trying to keep control on his breech - loading system patent , bringing a lawsuit to any breech - loaded manufactured gun . He nevertheless obtained an advance against royalties for using his patent from Smith & Wesson , a company that not only introduced its first revolver in 1857 ( Smith & Wesson Model 1 , a rear - loader ) but also started , as of 1858 , to convert cap & ball percussion guns into rear - loaders , even with formerly Colt manufactured revolvers . But the Colt ' s company itself was prevented by American laws from infringing the Rollin White patent and all along the 1850s and 1860s continued manufacturing percussion guns . In 1860 it produced a new revolver model for the United States Army . This Colt Army Model 1860 appeared just in time for the American Civil War . 1860 – 1865 : American Civil War . The American Civil War was a boon to firearms manufacturers such as Colt ' s , and the company thrived during the conflict . Sam Colt had carefully developed contacts within the ordnance department signing the very first government contract for 25 , 000 rifles . Colt ' s Factory was described as " an industrial palace topped by a blue dome " and powered by a 250 - horsepower steam engine . During the American Civil War Colt had 1 , 500 employees who produced 150 , 000 muskets and pistols a year . In 1861 and 1863 the company sold 107 , 000 of the Colt Army Model 1860 , alone , with production reaching 200 , 500 by the end of the war in 1865 . During the war , Colt ' s was still prevented by the American laws from infringing the Rollin White ' s patent rights . Nevertheless the war made a huge fortune for the company , allowing Sam Colt to become America ' s first manufacturing tycoon , but he did not live to see the end of it . He died of rheumatic fever on January 10 , 1862 , and his close friend and firearms engineer , Elisha K . Root , took over as Colt ' s company president . On February 4 , 1864 a fire destroyed most of the factory including arms , machinery , plans , and factory records . On September 1 , 1865 Root died leaving the company in the hands of Samuel Colt ' s brother - in - law , Richard Jarvis . The company ' s Vice - president was William B . Franklin , who recently left the Army at the end of the Civil War . With the Civil War over and no new military contracts Colt ' s Manufacturing had to lay off over 800 employees . The company found itself in a precarious situation , the original revolver patents had expired and other companies could produce copies of his designs . Additionally , metallic cartridge revolvers had been gaining in popularity , but Colt could not produce any because of the Rollin White patent held by rival , Smith & Wesson . Likewise , Colt had been so protective of its own patents that other companies were unable to make revolvers similar to their design . As the Rollin White patent was nearing expiration , Colt moved toward developing a metallic cartridge revolver . 1865 – 1880s : Post – Civil War . Colt ' s first effort toward a metallic cartridge revolver was by conversion of existing percussion revolvers . The first of these conversions was patented on September 15 , 1868 by Colt engineer , F . Alexander Thuer as patent number 82258 . The Thuer conversion was made by milling off the rear of the receiver and replacing it with a breechplate containing six internal firing pins . The cartridges were loaded through the mouths of the chambers . Colt made 5000 of these but they were not well accepted . Colt found the mechanism so complex it included a spare percussion cylinder with each revolver . Colt tasked its superintendent of engineering , Charles Richards , to come up with a solution . The Richards conversion was performed on the Colt 1860 Army revolver . The caliber was . 44 Colt and the loading lever was replaced by an ejector rod . This conversion added a breechplate with a firing pin and a rear sight mounted on the breechplate . Cartridges were loaded into the cylinder one at a time via a loading gate . Colt manufactured 9000 of these revolvers between 1873 and 1878 . In 1873 , Colt performed the same conversion on the M1851 and M1861 revolvers for the US Navy in . 38 rimfire . Another of Colt ' s engineers , William Mason , improved this conversion by placing the rear sight on the hammer and , along with Richards , he was granted patents in 1871 to convert percussion revolvers into rear - loading metallic - cartridge revolvers . Those converted revolvers are identified as the " Richards - Mason conversion " . There were approximately 2100 Richards - Mason M1860 Army conversions made from 1877 to 1878 in a serial - number range 5800 to 7900 . In November 1865 , Franklin had attempted to purchase a license to the Rollin White patent from competitor Smith & Wesson . White and Smith & Wesson would take no less than $ 1 . 1 million , but Franklin and Colt ' s directors decided it was too large an investment on a patent that would expire in 1868 . In the meantime , Colt turned its attention to manufacturing goods other than firearms , such as watches , sewing machines , typewriters and bicycles . In 1868 Rollin White requested an extension to his patent , but the request was rejected . He then turned to the Congress , but the request was again rejected , this time by the Senate and on the initiative of President Ulysses Grant , in January 1870 . This lead the patent to expire , allowing competitors to develop their own breech - loading guns and metallic cartridges . Following this , on that same year of 1870 , Colt ' s bought the National Arms Company , a Brooklyn , New York company known for manufacturing derringer s and for circumventing the Rollin White patent by utilizing a unique cartridge . Colt continued to produce the . 41 Short derringer after the acquisition , as an effort to help break into the metallic - cartridge gun market , but also introduced its own three Colt Derringer Models , all of them also chambered in a . 41 rimfire unique cartridge . The last model to be in production , the third Colt Derringer , was not dropped until 1912 . The first metallic cartridge breech - loading weapons sold by Colt ' s where then those Derringers , as of 1870 , formerly conceived by the National Arms Company , but Colt ' s also started developing its own rear - loading guns and cartridges . In 1871 Colt ' s introduced its first revolver models using rear - loaded metallic cartridges : the . 41 caliber Colt House Revolver ( also known as the Cloverleaf under its four - round cylinder configuration ) and the . 22 cal Colt Open Top Pocket Model Revolver . But Colt ' s wanted a more powerful practical handgun loaded with metallic cartridges so the company put forward William Mason , who in 1871 began work on Colt ' s first . 44 caliber metallic - cartridge revolver : the Colt Model 1871 - 72 Open Top . The company registered two patents for the Open Top , one in 1871 , the other in 1872 , the same patents mentioned in the markings of Colt Single Action Army revolvers , a nowadays legendary and long produced model , improved and based on the Open Top . Production of the Open Top started in 1872 and stopped in 1873 when the Single Action Army model started to be delivered to the US Army . But the Open Top was already a completely new design . The parts , for example , would not interchange with the older percussion pistols . Mason moved the rear sight to the rear of the barrel as opposed to the hammer or the breechblock of the earlier efforts . The caliber was . 44 rimfire and it was submitted to the US Army for testing in 1872 . The Army rejected the pistol and asked for a more powerful caliber with a stronger frame . Mason redesigned the frame to incorporate a topstrap , similar to the Remington revolvers , and placed the rear sight on the rear of the frame ; he consulted with Richards on some other improvements . The first prototype of the new gun was still chambered in . 44 rimfire , but the first model was in the newest caliber known as the . 45 Colt . The revolver was chosen by the Army in 1872 , with the first order , for 8000 revolvers , shipping in the summer of 1873 : The Colt Single Action Army or " Peacemaker " , also known as the Colt Model 1873 , was born . This revolver was one of the most prevalent firearms in the American West during the end of the 19th century and Colt still produces it , in six different calibers , two finishes and three barrel lengths . In the new market of metallic cartridge rear - loading pocket revolvers , Colt ' s not only introduced its three Derringer Models ( as of 1870 ) or the Colt House and the Open Top Pocket ( the last two as of 1871 ) but also introduced in 1873 a subsequent design called its “ New Line ” revolver models , based on William Mason ' s patents . After the success of the Colt Single Action Army and Colt ' s conversion of existing percussion revolvers to Richards - Mason conversions , Mason went on to design Colt ' s first Double - action revolver , the Colt M1877 . Following this , he once again teamed up with Richards to produce a larger - framed version , the Colt M1878 Frontier . It was Colt ' s first large - frame , double - action revolver . It combined the front end of the Single Action Army revolver with a double - action , 6 - shot frame mechanism . It was available commercially in numerous calibers . The 1870s and 1880s provided sales opportunity to the Colt company via the spread of European - American society ever further westward across the continent , and the demand for firearms that it engendered in various ways . As white Americans displaced Indians from the Indian Territory , both sides were eager for firearms . On the white side , both the U . S . Army and civilians were customers of Colt . The Army carried Colt revolvers through the last of its Indian Wars . On the Indian side , Colt weapons were captured when possible , or bought from whoever was selling . Even among whites in towns where Indians had been vanquished , a thriving demand for guns existed , from the criminals to the police to self - defending civilians . Memoirs of Americans including Walter Chrysler and Jack Black speak of what it was like growing up in Western towns where most people had guns and open carry was common ( such as in Kansas and Missouri , which were considered " out West " at the time — now considered the Old West ) . 1890s . Colt finally left the " loading gate concept " for a swing - out cylinder on its revolvers with the Colt M1889 Navy revolver , which resembled the Colt M1878 and was based on another design by Mason . The model was produced for three years between 1889 and 1892 , and eclipsed by the Colt M1892 chambered in . 38 Long Colt . The M1892 was replaced by the New Service Double Action revolver in 1899 . In caliber . 45 Colt , the New Service was accepted by the U . S . Military as the Model 1909 . 45 revolver . The New Service revolver was available in other calibers such as . 38 Special and , later in the 20th century , . 45 ACP ( as the M1917 revolver ) and . 357 Magnum . Under a contract with the U . S . Army , Colt Arms built the Model 1895 ten - barrel variant of the Gatling Gun , capable of firing 800 - 900 . 30 Army rounds per minute , and used with great effect at the Battle of San Juan Hill . The M1895 Colt - Browning machine gun or " Potato Digger " was built by Colt . The Colt - Browning was one of the first gas - operated machine guns , originally invented by John Browning . It became the first automatic machine gun adopted by the United States and saw limited use by the U . S . Marine Corps at the invasion of Guantánamo Bay and by the 1st Volunteer Infantry in the Santiago campaign during the Spanish - American War . In 1901 , Elizabeth Jarvis Colt sold the company to a group of outside investors based in New York and Boston . 20th century . 1900 – 1920s . During World War I , Colt surpassed all previous production achievements . Prior to America ' s entry into the war , orders from Canada and the United Kingdom swelled the backlog of orders to three years . Colt hired 4 , 000 more workers , making a total of 10 , 000 employees — and its stock ' s price increased by 400 % . By 1918 , Colt had produced and sold 425 , 500 of the famous John Browning - designed M1911 . Because the factory could not keep up with demand for this pistol , the US Military decided to accept Colt New Service revolvers in caliber . 45 ACP , called the M1917 revolver , as a substitute weapon . Competing manufacturer Smith & Wesson made double - action revolvers in . 45 ACP , which were accepted and issued by the U . S . military under the same name . Colt produced 151 , 700 revolvers during the war as well as 13 , 000 Maxim - Vickers machine guns and 10 , 000 Browning machine guns with an additional 100 , 000 under subcontract to other companies . Since Auto Ordnance had no tooling for production , Colt acquired the license for the Thompson 1921 SMG and made 15 , 000 units in the first production year . The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression resulted in a slowing down of production for Colt . In anticipation of this , company presidents William C . Skinner and Samuel Stone implemented a diversification program similar to that done at the close of the American Civil War . Colt acquired contracts for business machines , calculators , dishwashers , motorcycles , and automobiles ; all marketed under a name other than Colt . Samuel Stone acquired a firm which manufactured plastics and renamed it " Colt rock " as well as a company that manufactured electrical products . Colt weathered the financial crises of the time by cutting the work week , reducing salaries , and keeping more employees on the payroll than they needed . These measures kept the company in business but ate up the cash surplus they had acquired during the World War I years . 1930s : Great Depression . In 1935 , after employees voted to disband a labor union , 1 , 000 workers went on strike for 13 weeks . Strikers became violent , attacking workers and detonating a bomb in front of company president Samuel M . Stone ' s house . The company set up a barracks , dining room , and recreation room for workers within the Colt Armory during the strike . On June 3 , 1935 the National Recovery Administration ruled that the company was within its rights not to deal with the union and the strike ended . In the year following the strike , the factory was hit by a hurricane and flood . Many company shipping records and historical documents were lost as a result . 1939 – 1945 : World War II . At the beginning of World War II , Colt ceased production of the Single Action Army revolver to devote more time to filling orders for the war . During the war Colt manufactured over 629 , 000 M1911A1 pistols as well as a large number of M1917 water - cooled machineguns . The company had a workforce of 15 , 000 men and women in three factories and production ran on three shifts , 24 hours a day , and won the Army - Navy rating of " E " for excellence . Colt ranked 99th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts . However , the company was losing money every year due to mismanagement , an embittered workforce that had been stretched to its limits , and manufacturing methods which were becoming obsolete . 1945 – 1950s . As the war ended and demand for military arms came to a halt , production literally ceased . Many long - time workers and engineers retired from the company and nothing was built from 1945 to 1947 . Mismanagement of funds during the war had a serious impact as the 105 - year - old firm faced possible bankruptcy . In September 1955 the board of directors voted to merge Colt with an upstart conglomerate called Penn - Texas , which had acquired Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool the same year . Also in 1955 , Colt released one of the most famous revolvers in history , the Colt Python . In 1958 Penn - Texas merged with Fairbanks - Morse to form the Fairbanks - Whitney Corporation and in 1964 the conglomerate reorganized as Colt Industries . In 1956 Colt resumed production of the Single Action Army revolver and in 1961 began making commemorative versions of their classic models . 1960s – 1970s . The 1960s were boom years for Colt with the escalation of the Vietnam War , Robert McNamara shutting down the Springfield Armory , and the U . S . Army ' s subsequent adoption of the M16 , for which Colt held the production rights and would sell over 5 million units worldwide . Colt would capitalize on this with a range of AR - 15 derivative carbines . They developed AR - 15 - based Squad Automatic Weapons , and the Colt SCAMP , an early PDW design . The Colt XM148 grenade launcher was created by Colt ' s design project engineer , gun designer Karl R . Lewis . The May 1967 " Colt ' s Ink " newsletter announced that he had won a national competition for his selection and treatment of materials in the design . The newsletter stated in part " In only 47 days , he wrote the specifications , designed the launcher , drew all the original prints , and had a working model built " . At the end of the 1970s , there was a program run by the Air Force to replace the M1911A1 . The Beretta 92S won , but this was contested by the Army . The Army ran their own trials , leading eventually to the Beretta 92F being selected as the M9 . 1980s – 1990s . The 1980s were fairly good years for Colt , but the coming end of the Cold War would change all that . Colt had long left innovation in civilian firearms to their competitors , feeling that the handgun business could survive on their traditional revolver and M1911 designs . Instead , Colt focused on the military market , where they held the primary contracts for production of rifles for the US military . This strategy dramatically failed for Colt through a series of events in the 1980s . In 1984 , the U . S . military standardized on the Beretta 92F . This was not much of a loss for Colt ' s current business , as M1911A1 production had stopped in 1945 . Meanwhile , the military rifle business was growing because the U . S . military had a major demand for more upgraded M16s , the M16A2 model had just been adopted and the Military needed hundreds of thousands of them . In 1985 , Colt ' s workers , members of the United Auto Workers went on strike for higher wages . This strike would ultimately last for five years , and was one of the longest running labor strikes in American history . With replacement workers running production , the quality of Colt ' s firearms began to decline . Dissatisfied with Colt ' s production , in 1988 the U . S . military awarded the contract for future M16 production to Fabrique Nationale . Some criticized Colt ' s range of handgun products in the late 1980s as out of touch with the demands of the market , and their once - vaunted reputation for quality had suffered during the UAW strike . Colt ' s stable of double - action revolvers and single - action pistols was seen as old - fashioned by a marketplace that was captivated by the new generation of " wondernines " - high - capacity , 9x19mm Parabellum caliber handguns , as typified by the Glock 17 . Realizing that the future of the company was at stake , labor and management agreed to end the strike in an arrangement that resulted in Colt being sold to a group of private investors , the State of Connecticut , and the UAW itself . The new Colt first attempted to address some of the demands of the market with the production in 1989 of the " Double Eagle " , a double - action pistol heavily based on the M1911 design , which was seen as an attempt to " modernize " the classic Browning design . Colt followed this up in 1992 with the " Colt All American 2000 " , which was unlike any other handgun Colt had produced before — being a polymer - framed , rotary - bolt , 9x19mm handgun with a magazine capacity of 15 rounds . It was designed by Reed Knight , with parts manufactured by outside vendors and assembled by Colt ; its execution was disastrous . Early models were plagued with inaccuracy and unreliability , and suffered from the poor publicity of a product recall . The product launch failed and production of the All American 2000 ended in 1994 . This series of events led to the company ' s Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992 . The 1990s brought the end of Cold War , which resulted in a large down turn for the entire defense industry . Colt was hit by this downturn , though it would be made worse later in the 1990s by a boycott by the shooting public in America . In 1994 , the assets of Colt were purchased by Zilkha & Co , a financial group owned by Donald Zilkha . It was speculated that Zilkha ' s financial backing of the company enabled Colt to begin winning back military contracts . In fact during the time period it won only one contract , the M4 carbine . However , the U . S . Military had been purchasing Colt Carbines for the past 30 years ( See Colt Commando ) . During a 1998 Washington Post interview , CEO Ron Stewart stated that he would favor a federal permit system with training and testing for gun ownership . This led to a massive grass - roots boycott of Colt ' s products by gun stores and US gun owners . Zilkha replaced Stewart with Steven Sliwa and focused the remainder of Colt ' s handgun design efforts into " smart gun s , " a concept favored politically , but that had little interest or support among handgun owners or Police Department s . This research never produced any meaningful results due to the limited technology at the time . Colt announced the termination of its production of double action revolvers in October 1999 . 21st century . 2002 – present . The boycott of Colt gradually faded out after William M . Keys , a retired U . S . Marine Lt . General , took the helm of the company in 2002 . Keys salvaged Colt ' s reputation and brought Colt from the brink of bankruptcy to an international leader in Defense production . In 2010 Gerald R . Dinkel replaced Keys as CEO of Colt Defense LLC , while Keys remained on the Board of Directors for Colt Defense . Colt has to compete with other companies that make M1911 - style pistols such as Kimber and AR - 15 rifles such as Bushmaster . Bushmaster has subsequently overtaken Colt in the number of AR - 15s sold on the civilian market . Colt suffered a legal defeat in court when it sued Bushmaster for trademark infringement claiming that " M4 " was a trademark that it owned . The judge ruled that since the term M4 is a generic designation that Colt does not specifically own , Colt had to pay monetary reimbursement to Bushmaster to recoup Bushmaster ' s legal fees . The M4 designation itself comes from the U . S . military designation system , whose terms are in the public domain . Colt has entered in several US contracts with mixed results . For example , Colt had an entry in the Advanced Combat Rifle ( ACR ) program of the 1980s , but along with other contestants failed to replace the M16A2 . Colt and many other makers entered the US trials for a new pistol in the 1980s , though the Beretta entry would win and become the M9 Pistol . The Colt OHWS handgun was beaten by H & K for what became the MK23 SOCOM , it was lighter than the H & K entry but lost in performance . Colt did not get to compete for the XM8 since it was not an open competition . Colt is a likely entrant in any competition for a new US service rifle . Current M16 rifles have been made primarily by FN USA since 1988 . However , Colt remains the sole source for M4 carbines for the US military . Under their license agreement with Colt , the US military could not legally award second - source production contracts for the M4 until July 1 , 2009 . Handguns . The years in brackets indicate the year when production started , not the year of the model ' s patent . Colt manufactured several military long arms under contract including the Colt Monitor and Thompson SMG . Cartridges . Contrary to popular belief , . 25 ACP and . 32 ACP were introduced by FN , not Colt .