[Steelharp]

This is from Cindy, guys:

Mike,
Sorry, this is so late, please submit the following to The Forum.

1911 Forum,

Please visit our web-site periodically, www.colt.com. The web-site will keep
you informed on the current products, services and latest statements. The
best information is right from the horses mouth.

Thank you,
Cindy
Colt's Customer Service

 

[Nalapombu]

Their website has not changed in at least 6 ot 8 months.

Nala

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Actually, their site has several changes including a letter about 9/11 and a successful evaluation of their facilities. More over, some of their dead links have been fixed. Everything I clicked on actually came up.

I still find it rather amusing that as a representative of Colts, Cindy does not actually communicate to this list directly and has no last name. How many of you have ever dealt with a company representative involved in a for-profit organization that sells products to the public who did not have a last name?

Early on, the reported claim supposedly from Cindy was that she didn't give out an email because Colts' system would be swamped and that everybody is really busy there anyway and they would not be able to address emails. I found the logic to be rather stupid given that you can email Colts anytime you want through their website.

 

[ScottsGT]

Hey, I even heard back from Mark. According to him, he was just too busy to stay on the Colt forum at work.He did have a few gripes about Colt not advertising, and no money to do so. But he is still alive an well.

 

[Army Chief]

Double Naught Spy is correct; to argue that Cindy prefers to operate through an intermediary to protect her e-mail information is foolish. Any user of this board can, at his or her discretion, block their e-mail address from viewing by the general membership simply by deselecting one option in their user profile. I suspect, rather, that our gal Cindy prefers to avoid being overrun here with questions that Colt may have no easy answers for. That I can certainly understand.

Further, while I agree that the Colt web site should be the very best source of current information, I think that it leaves much to be desired. Having a fair amount of experience in such matters, I can say with some confidence that, given a five minute conversation with someone in the know, and 15-20 minutes per week to devote to coding updates, any number of us here could probably do a better job that what we're seeing now. In fact, most would probably be delighted to do so -- I would.

Look, I am a self-admitted Colt loyalist, but even I can see that Hartford's present marketing and PR efforts fall short in virtually every aspect of consequence. We don't really need any new reasons to believe, but a bit of progress in this area would certainly go a long way toward restoring our collective enthusiasm.

Chuck

[This message has been edited by StormMaster (edited 11-29-2001).]

 

[paul84043]

Hi all,
I have been to Colts page many times over the past years, it sucked then, it sucks now, they give you no real information about the guns, only the very basics, their pictures suck, the layout of the website stinks, you think they could employ a decent web page designer. I emailed them several times asking for more in-depth info on a particular question...no answer. I finally gave up and went to another manufacturer that was willing to talk to me.
I don't know what's been up with Colt over the past ten years, it's like they are hiding thier heads in the sand refusing to acknowledge that they have problems, that the quality of thier product has bottomed out, and they choose to do nothing about it. It's wierd. They should have stuck to thier line of revolvers, those were the only guns they were making that were any good. Oh well, my Python and Anaconda are now collectors items.

 

[CastleBravo]

The Colt website sucks, period. If it sucks a little less, then whoop de do! My amateur for-fun website has better gun pics than www.colt.com does.

 

[Howardk]

Try clicking on custom guns. Unbelievable!!! They are actually charging $25 for an estimate on a gun--with the only options being engraving, barrel length and grips. I must be doing something wrong.

 

[Army Chief]

My amateur for-fun website has better gun pics ...

Yes CastleBravo, it most certainly does. I've spent a fair amount of time there over the past year or so, and have been meaning to compliment you on the effort. The 1911 and 10mm stuff is first rate, and your links alone are about 10x as useful as anything I've ever gotten out of my S2 shop. Well done.

Anyway, I've done semi-professional site development since 1998 (i.e. Stormbirds, Sabre Design Group), and I think I know what it takes to make an attractive, usable site. Colt looks like they almost got off to a decent start, and then just left everything unfinished.

The internet is both an information source and a visual medium. Colt.com offers little of either where their product line is concerned. As noted above, model descriptions (where available) are quite minimalistic, and there are NO truly useful photos to be found anywhere on the site. This is, to be direct and to the point, utterly inexcusable.

The real tragedy here is that I've every confidence that Colt would see commercial sales soar if they put a tenth of the effort into their site that Kimber and Springfield have put into theirs. How is it that no one in Hartford can seem to figure this out? Business is business, and this one defies all logic.

Chuck

[This message has been edited by StormMaster (edited 11-29-2001).]

 

[jpwright]

Quite some time ago, I read that the management of Colt would like to get out of the gun business. That was, in fact, a long time before they drastically reduced their product line, and a long time before the liability suits the anti-gunners have been trying.

They haven't ditched their guns entirely, but they seem well on their way. And in the meantime, I doubt they have much enthusiasm - borrowing StormMaster's word - for firearms, and if they don't have it, they can't infect us with it.

------------------
If God didn't want us to own guns, why did He make the 1911?

 

[shane45-1911]

Originally posted by StormMaster:

The real tragedy here is that I've every confidence that Colt would see commercial sales soar if they put a tenth of the effort into their site that Kimber and Springfield have put into theirs. How is it that no one in Hartford can seem to figure this out? Business is business, and this one defies all logic.

Chuck

Well put Chuck - you summed it up nicely.

 

[Mute]

While Colt continues to make good pistols, they have been plagued for the better part of nearly two decades by poor management. I haven't seen any hint of change in that one aspect. If they continue making decisions the way they have been, they won't need to quit making guns they'll drive themselves out of business.

It seems like they don't even care what public perceptions exist right now about the company. I really hope that they get their act together.

 

[Park_Ranger]

you guys are talking about how bad their site is, but i would bet that the person who runs the web site is also the system administrator, which also means he or she takes care of the entire network of computers, the c&c machines and every other computerize machinery that have at colt, i would bet it takes a lot of effort to juggle all those things. also, if this rep from colt doesn't want to post here directly you can't blame her, imagine how long a thread here would get if see commented on it directly, she'd be here 24/7 just to keep up with all the questions/comments you guys have. if colt is having money problems they probably can't afford to have someone post here every day. i don't want to start a flame war, but most of you guys are against colt in the first place for going along with a government that your country elected. it's nice to be an individual and say if the government ever tried to take my guns away they would never even get close, but a corporation is bound by laws. you want to change the gun laws, you guys have gotta elect the right people, unfortunatly the states has only got 2 parties to elect, but its YOUR system, YOU are the people who can change it. if you wonder why a vast majority of people in your country support anti-gun laws, i'll tell you from my perspective in canada, the US is viewed as distasteful in the fact that i love firearms, i think everyone should be able to own them, but there is no reason for anyone to own a automatic weapon, if they arn't part of a government agency. you guys might say you are worried that a swat team is gonna come crashing through your door, and you need an automatic weapon to protect yourself. but swat is only gonna break down your door if you do something wrong. even the chances of more than two people breaking into your house is something rare, and a pistol will protect you all the same. i don't want you guys to get the wrong idea, i'm all for gun culture, and some of the gun laws in canada annoy me to no extent. if you wanta fire auto weapons, just go join the army, your national guard. me being in the reserves in canada gives me the ability of firing auto weapons. but when in civilian life are you gonna need to do a room clearing?
hmmm i think we can classify this as a RANT.

 

[James]

I don't think you can get a good idea of what our swat is going to do from Canadian TV.

There is more to the debate of automatic weapons than just wanting to fire them.

Also, I don't think we are ready to adopt gun control Canadian style as of yet.

Thanks for the thought though.

 

[CastleBravo]

StormMaster,

Thanks for the compliments. That reminds me, I'm about due to make an update this weekend... for the Colt folks, that means you check everything for errors and dead links and add new material.

------------------
CastleBravo
The Pit: http://www.geocities.com/mr_motorhead/index.html

 

[mavrick]

Park Ranger,

While I appreciate your contribution to the forum, I strongly disagree with you. Maybe if you were an American citizen, you'd better understand the problem. It's not just automatic firearms, the "fight" is for our rights and freedoms. Those rights granted to us by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. I too don't want to start a flame war, but it seems to me, from your comments, you are truly missing that point. In my mind, what we "fighting" for is not just our right to bear arms, we are fighting to preserve all the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. I might also add that those freedoms are granted us by the supreme law of our land, and are not thankfully not based mere opinions. I respectfully don't give a hoot in regard to what you think I need or don't need. As James pointed out, there is much much more to the "class 3" debate than what your seeing on Canadian TV. You know, if your comments truly do reflect the opinions of most Canadians, then I am not surprised that your gun laws are so draconian. Anyway, thanks again for posting. All the best

mavrick

 

[jpwright]

...there is no reason for anyone to own a automatic weapon, if they arn't part of a government agency.

I happen to agree with you, Park_Ranger. Some highly respected gun gurus also think auto fire is dangerously inefficient.

But that's not the point. Our Constitution is designed to make sure that our freedoms are not subject to someone else's approval. That's what Benjamin Franklin was talking about when he said "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

The Second Amendment says we Americans have the right to keep and bear arms. It doesn't say anything about getting everyone's approval of the arms first.

------------------
If God didn't want us to own guns, why did He make the 1911?

 

[Gun Nut]

Originally posted by Park_Ranger:
...but most of you guys are against colt in the first place for going along with a government that your country elected. it's nice to be an individual and say if the government ever tried to take my guns away they would never even get close, but a corporation is bound by laws. you want to change the gun laws, you guys have gotta elect the right people, unfortunatly the states has only got 2 parties to elect, but its YOUR system, YOU are the people who can change it. if you wonder why a vast majority of people in your country support anti-gun laws, i'll tell you from my perspective in canada, the US is viewed as distasteful in the fact that i love firearms, i think everyone should be able to own them, but there is no reason for anyone to own a automatic weapon, if they arn't part of a government agency...

Park Ranger,

That is why you are a Canadian Citizen and not a US Citizen. Pretty much, we have told royalty to go jump in the lake and drown. Our country was founded on the basis of fundamental human freedoms.

The constitution is a restriction on Government, not on people. The founding fathers rightfully saw a Federalized Government and a Standing Army a threat to individual liberty. Liberty is viewed as more important than feeling safe, because if you are not free, you aren't safe anyway.

Certainly for the sole reason that the Government *DOES* own weapons of mass destruction, rockets, missiles, howitzers, tanks, automatic weapons, that its citizenry *MUST* have that same access to those weapons.

If the government can not trust its people, then the people shall not trust its government. We are supposed to be one in the same. These are fundamental issues about human rights, presumption of innocence, property ownership, self determination, etc. There should not be a privledged ruling class.

The same applies to everything. If it can be said I can't have an automatic weapon, then it can be said I can't own X car, or X house, or X computer, or X property for whatever X reason, or be of X color or X religion. The minute that a certain class of people can say you can't have X or be X because we say so, that is the moment you are subjegated and have lost your self determination and the persuit of life and liberty.

Yet that is exactly what is supposed to make this country so great, and that is the exact reason why all the other "socialized" countries of the world pay more taxes and have a lower standard of living.

So, you may not agree with it because you answer to the English Monarchy, but at least if you are going to talk about the U.S., its laws, and your opinion that you think we should or shouldn't do here, at least have a foundation of its history...

[This message has been edited by Gun Nut (edited 12-03-2001).]

 

[Double Naught Spy]

I hate to say it, but Colts seems like it is going the way of Apple. Good product, innovative at one time, blind as a bat management, loss of market share, overtaking by competition they didn't even know existed at one time.

And then there is Cindy who only communicates to us via the psychic friends network. There is nothing like a company representative who won't interact directly with the public to really give the impression that the company is solid and going strong.

 

[Marbo]

Ya know, it's probably not Cindy's job to surf the internet and answer peoples questions. I'm sure she has better things to do. If you want to communicate with Cindy, call Colt. Pretty simple.