I think you don’t see much colt anymore because they were matched by other manufacturers in quality but they never dropped their prices. I had an acquaintance with a side hobby/job of putting together rifles for people who wanted to source their own parts and make ‘frankenstein’ ar rifle platforms. I can’t remember exactly now (it’s been over a decade), but a high quality gun would cost you a little over a grand, and colts would start at one-and-a-half grand. Cheap ones were as low as $300 or $400.

That’s just ridiculous for most people buying a gun. The choice is often dictated by pricing, and the name didn’t do enough to counter the price for the people who would care about names, and the quality wasn’t better than cheaper guns for the people who cared about quality. Colt just willed itself off into the sunset.