Colt was caught with its pants down.Д«y September 1955 ColtвЂ™s board of directors merged the company with Penn-Texas, a relatively new company that had acquired Pratt & Whitney, a tool-making company that also makes rifling machines for firearms manufacturers. The gun and the cartridge rapidly drew an eager following of law enforcement folks, outdoorsmen, hunters and even target shooters. 357s were hand assembled, magnificent examples of gunmaking-so much so that the first ones were registered to owners through the company. revolver-later to be called the Model 27. In the depths of The Depression S&W had brought out the. Meanwhile, archrival Smith & Wesson some 31 miles due north had continued its nurturing of civilian gun sales. Almost like a drunk attempting to sober up after a bender, Colt desperately tried to rekindle its civilian firearmsвЂ™ market-a market the company has historically only reluctantly tolerated to get it through the tough times between armed conflicts. Because of this and a gross mismanagement of revenues during the war, once again, the then-92-year-old company was staring bankruptcy in the face. Many longtime employees retired, taking the skills they had acquired with them. From the latter part of 1945 through 1947 virtually no new guns left the factory.

ThatвЂ™s hard on the bottom line and even more difficult to keep employees working. Colt went from making more than 30,000 copies of the 1911 each month in early 1945 to zero during that four-month period. And so it was similarly when the war wound down to zero in just a few months-from about April through August of 1945-demand for manufactured firearms dropped to zero as well. The ability of these companies to switch their manufacturing facilities as suddenly as if they were hit with a cattle prod, retool and start manufacturing guns is a remarkable and fascinating sidebar of American history. had to answer the call for the war effort. Remington Rand, Union Switch & Signal, Ithaca and even the Singer Sewing Machine Co. It was the same for Colt and the demand for 1911 pistols. Springfield Armory could not keep up with the demands of M1 Garand rifles, and companies like Winchester, Harrington and Richardson, International Harvester and Beretta had to be pressed into service to fill the gap. Firearms manufacturers are often the first that must instantly switch from a peacetime civilian market to a wartime military market. manufacturing operated at a feverish pace to support the efforts of the military in Europe and the Pacific. As wars end, the people may rejoice, but manufacturers-especially gun manufacturers-often weep, wring their hands and rend their clothes.

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