USA – A story broke recently that has a lot of people talking about Colt’s decision to stop selling the long rifle AR-15, but its not for the reason some people think.
According to a email from RSR Group a distribution carrier for Colt firearms. Colt notified them of their intentions to not carry Colt Long guns for the retail market and to focus more on law-enforcement and military demand.
This reason is for low demand of the long rifle and more demand of the hand guns in the U.S. market according to Colt. Colt claims that their AR-15 sales are the lowest they have seen and, “The whole basis for our reorganization was consumer feedback.”
“What’s true today is that the MSR market is much more price-driven,” Spitale said. “We’ve seen a pretty sharp decline in rifle sales, given our price points, resulting in significant inventory build-up held by our distributors.”
Colt actually only has a small retail market and most of its sales comes from government sales, police, and international.
What Colt is refocusing on is the high demand for conceal carry handguns that are rising in popularity in the U.S.
“We’re going to focus on the products that our consumers are asking for. We’ve expanded our 1911s and our revolver line, and that market has been very positive for us,” Spitale said.
The biggest question is and one that not all news chains are posting is will the AR-15 be produced again and Colt says,“It’s not forever. It’s to say that, at this moment, we’re listening to consumers and putting our resources where they’re most valued.”
