Читать книгу Standard Catalog of Colt Firearms онлайн

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Still, Colt has a commercial handgun capacity with both legacy and product that remain in high demand. According to Roberts, “Colt’s Manufacturing has not defined its niche as bells and whistles, guns with seven sorts of whiz-bang features and any ‘gun of the week’ syndrome. We believe that at this time, our niche is the basic, mil-spec single-stack .45 and some offshoots of that trusted firearm. We are also committed to maintain a very strong presence in the single-action community with our Model P, the classic Colt Peacemaker. These directions are intended for the Colt purist, the person who likes guns with the refinement, aesthetics and quality they had 40 and 50 years ago.” To promote the brand, Colt’s continuing task is therefore to maintain a competitive competence in price, quality and distinctiveness.

So, according to Mark Roberts, Colt’s commitment to the civilian market remains solid, even if it may not carry as extensive a product line as it once did. For example, the Hartford manufacturer went through a major “commemorative era” from the 1960s to the 1980s wherein dozens of special guns were produced in the “Lawman Series”: the 3,000 guns designated the 1967 Bat Masterson Frontier Scout, or the 250 .45 automatics in the 1979 Ohio President’s Special Edition. Colt has made a decision to move beyond that market, perhaps finding that the resources invested in building and marketing a few hundred specialized guns, even one for which the pattern was well-established, could not be recouped in profitability and that the dozens of commemoratives produced may, in effect, have softened the brand when the guns did not hold their initial commemorative values.