Which Gunmaker has "shot themselves in the foot" the most?

[22-rimfire]

Colt has continuously shot themselves in the foot since WWII and now are one leg in the grave. Remington did it right for years, but once they were bought out (Post DuPont), things have gone down hill ever since. Remington really didn't have many firearm failures.

 

[HiBC]

IMO,Remington has made some errors along the way.Often it was a silly as choosing the wrong rifling twist.
The RSAUM's? on there own,probably great...but make them just a little smaller than WSM's? Hmmm.

The comment I want to make is about Colts SAA tooling rusting in the alley.

Technology changes. A Bridgeport and a good lathe are great hobby toys today.Sure,a gunsmith can use them. But you can't compete with the guy who has Haas,Seiki,Makino etc CNC machines. To contract work you need a Co-ordinate measuring machine,etc.
My early days in the trade,we dreamed of our own Bridgeport,lathe,grinder,and a sinker EDM the way some folks used to dream of 40 acres and a mule.Times change. Gotta have a tractor.

That older stuff was made with drill fixtures and gang drills,broaches,shapers,etc. Probably flatbelt and jack shaft machines.The tools were not fast and efficient enough to rebuild. The guys with the skills and experience got old,blind,and died.

Parts designs around a shaper or broach don't necessarily produce well from a CNC mill.

The old design must be re-engineered for modern production,or abandoned.

Perhaps MIMmakes very good parts,but MIM might not make parts that compliment a S+W K-frame or 1911 sears and hammers.

Ruger excelled at adapting the forged and machined designs to investment castings. Glock put the Plastic molding machine to work.

And,I don't know for sure,but some states might tax and bleed an enterprise to poor health,and labor contracts might finish the job. Retooling and producing new designs is capital intensive. There is risk and return.
The hostile and litigious attitude toward gun manufacturers makes for shaky ground. The EPA,OSHA,etc demand millions of $ be spent,or they fine you more.Then the Health Care debacle.
At some point,why bother?
That may be why Win,Rem,Browning diversify the brand away from guns.

 

[Slamfire]

For me the most frustrating was Colt. Colt was always behind the times. When I was shooting IPSC, which was before Springfield Armory or Kimber, Colt M1911's were the only game in town. AMT was in business, but their 1911 was so bad, shooters used to say put enough Colt parts in it and it will work The thing was, the Colt M1911's you bought over the counter, you immediate sent to a gunsmith for basic stuff. Like beveling the throat, beavertail, Bomar adjustable rear sights, magazine well ported. You could add aftermarket extended safeties and mag releases. When Kimber introduced their Custom Classic, which was tight, did not rattle, and had all the features that you paid hundreds to gunsmiths to install on a Colt, I gotta say, Colt was doomed, and Colt was oblivious.

Colt was non responsive to the Market, by the time they did something, like lower the ejection port, the need had been identified a decade before. I remember the one and only time I saw Colt at the National Matches. They had a table full of AR15's with 1:9 twist barrels. I asked why they did not have any 1:8 twist and was talked to a Colt Executive behind the table. He had a very insulting attitude and let me know how little I knew. I was told, in so many words, they knew best because they were selling so many AR's on the commercial market. He and the rest of Colt were idiots. They came to the National Matches and not one of their rifles could be used in the competition with any reasonable chance of success. The 1:9 twist barrel was fine for 69's, but would not function with 75's or 80's at 600 yards. The 69 grain bullet was outstanding out to 300 yards, but was too wind sensitive at 600 yards.

Winchester did poorly and went bust. They are a brand today. They are still behind the market. I called about a decade ago, asking why they only had five round magazines to their FN PBR rifles, because I wanted a ten round magazine to use in across the course. I wanted to use a M70 PBR with a box magazine for the mandatory reload. The idea of a ten round magazine had been submitted to high management, but not implemented. You can look now at that market, a number of bolt action rifles have taken over the precision market, and a ten round magazine is getting to be a standard. Winchester still has not done anything to offer a precision long range rifle built around the M70 action. While I love the M70, Winchester is stuck back in 1937.

 

[Sevens]

HiBC, love the post and you make numerous excellent points. I suppose to back up my frustration at Colt moving their hardware to the alley where it died, I'm simply saying that they willfully left the single action revolver market merely years before the American Cowboy love affair began in TV and movies and they missed out on the cash cow that took Ruger from a new upstart making a great little .22 pistol to a heavyweight in landscape that CORNERED the single action hogleg market. Ruger's only competition was low-buck import clones when Colt made no effort to reply to a rebirth in single action six-shooters.

I actually do understand factory floor space, trained staff, aging tooling and all of that, but it was still -- a net POOR result, and just "yet another" piece of evidence that Colt, in my opinion, has found the most and found most every possible way... to fail.

Heck, maybe this discussion shows us rather how Colt is a cat with 9 lives (more than 9) as they still exist in some form today despite history's most creative and ridiculous ways to fail.

 

[Don P]

My thought is Colt. Wanting to abandon the civilian market so they could concentrate on LE and Military business was bad enough then the strike crippled them. Can't say for sure if they could have done anything different about the strike, but 5 years is a long time for a strike.

 

[Kreyzhorse]

S&W certainly did with their PC lock fiasco. That said, Colt, the grail maker to many people, just never seems be to make a sound decision. That also said, if they made sound decisions would the demand still be there?

 

[Prof Young]

Not the worst but . . . .

I don't think it's the worst, but Beretta shot a toe or two off with the Nano.

Life is good.
Prof Young

 

[Water-Man]

Remington.

 

[anymanusa]

I'm a mid forties guy who collects military style rifles, and from my point of view, SIG takes the cake. They used to be a company with products to envy, but of the last 10 years they have bungled so many guns that I won't ever look at the the same again.

They have nothing that I want.