Stupid Stupid Colt

Ricci Wright

So this morning I get the following email from one of my distributors: The Colt stocking dealer program requires you to have the minimum number of guns on hand by August 1st. To be considered a stocking dealer and be able to purchase Colt product after August 1st, I need to know if you want to be a stocking dealer. So if I am to be "ALLOWED" to purchase Colt firearms from my wholesale distributors after 8/1/15 I need to stock a selection of guns Colt has selected for me. My reply follows: So let me get this straight; if I want to sell their crappy guns in the future I need to buy a bunch of their crappy guns now. Let me consider this******************** umm NO. What a stupid stupid company. The same company who told Rollin White his patent for a cartridge revolver would never work. Smith and Wesson discovered the patent, bought it and for the next seventeen years Colt could only produce percussion revolvers while S&W was selling their #1 revolvers and cartridges for it. The same company who fired their entire sales force two weeks before the Shot show. The same company who sent me a single action revolver by mistake and when I tried to return it informed me that the serial number on the revolver did not exist and they never made the gun. Six months later they call wanting to know if I had any idea where the missing revolver might be. I think we can scrape by without Colt just fine thank you. Sorry about the rant. I have never responded well to ultimatums.

fishkiller41

Good on'ya!

Doc

When I had an FFL S&W refused to sell to me, talk to me, or have anything to do with me. They wanted storefront sellers ONLY.

dcs shooters

I had the same thing Doc. I was buying from a large distributer and after a while they got too big to sell to little me [xx(]
On good one opened in Orlando and a hour drive got me anything needed [:)]

ruger41

And Colt wonders why they are bankrupt.

AzAfshin

A while back my team did some consulting work with a large distributor regarding customer profitability. We found out that due to the thin profit margins on firearms, the amount of work involved in fulfilling orders from small stores (categorized as Ma and Pa stores) actually made them unprofitable, as in they lost money selling to small stores. So it's not a surprise to me to see that they are pushing minimum orders. It's either that or raising their prices to smaller stores.

1911a1-fan

not a colt fan by any means, but they do have a die hard following, in your case I would not turn down a sale, I would use a distributer like zanders and pay a bit more

Ricci Wright

This is not something the distributor is doing this is Colt. I have accounts with seven different firearms distributors and direct from some manufacturers. This is Colt's brilliant idea that making their guns harder to buy will somehow make them more desirable. I stock Colt 1911's but when you compare them to the Springfields, Kimbers, and Sig 1911's I also stock most folks will choose something besides a Colt. Unless of course they just have to have the little horsey on the slide which is why I keep a few Colts in here.

fordsix

up got the same message the bird to them,, they seem to forget the early 90's when they suspended AR sale to civilans, so they want me to order 10,000 worth of guns in a slow gun sales time