You will find brand loyalty in AR-15's, as much as in trucks and cars. The differences are a bit more profound among the rifles however. There are many in the AR-15 game that will all but call your mother a whore if you suggest anything other than a Colt! While Colt builds a hell of a weapon, I disagree. Here is why:
1.) Bushmaster produces 39 different models of AR-15's in 5 different calibers, (.223, .22 LR, 9 MM, 6.8 MM, .450 Bushmaster). A .50 Browning is coming, and in fact is listed in their newest catalog. That number increases to a much larger one when you include all of the different cataloged upper and lower combinations they offer.
2.) Price. Bushmaster's are priced far lower than Colt's for the same configured rifle.
3.) Customer service. I have yet to read about a problem with a Bushmaster rifle that wasn't resolved in a timely fashion at low, (if any), cost to the customer. Colt has had a "buyer be damned" attitude for years. Before anyone asks, I have no personal experience with Bushmaster customer service on repairs, simply because I've never had any of the 5 that I own fail.
4.) Availability. If you can't find Bushmaster rifles and pistols at your local dealer, you need to find a new one. Bushmaster products are everywhere. If a dealer is out of stock on a certain model, it can usually be restocked in 72 hours or less. Try that with Colt. Chances are you'll be on Social Security before one turns up after you order it.
As far as Colt's "Tier 1" status, it in itself means nothing to 99.999% of AR-15 owners and shooters. Bushmaster rifles are in service in our government, as well as countless law enforcement agencies, and dozens of foreign countries. If they work for them in the applications they are used for, they'll work equally well for whatever any citizen may have in mind. People over play Colt in this capacity. It has been mentioned about percentages of failures of Bushmaster's vs. Colt's in a lot of these "carbine courses", that require owners to "push their weapons". This in itself means nothing. How many people buy a rifle to intentionally abuse it to see "if it can hold up"? Firing any weapon until the barrel heats up enough to blister skin is abuse. Would anyone buy a $65,000.00 Corvette, then race it until it fails, just to see if, "it can take it"? Besides, if an individual buys any AR-15 for self defense, and is required to use it in that capacity to save life and limb, he or she isn't going to find themselves shooting magazine full after magazine full. Even police weapons aren't subjected to such over use. In the North Hollywood Bank Of America shootout, police discharged in the neighborhood of 850 rounds. Divide that number by the amount of police weapons that were fired and you'll find most didn't fire over a box of ammo in the 1.5 hour standoff. Such "Rambo tactics" prove little to nothing about weapon quality. The owner care, cleaning, and lubrication given to a weapon will contribute far more to it's reliability than any particular brand name will. All of this isn't saying Colt is "bad" by any stretch of the imagination. No more than it makes a Chevy "bad" if someone chooses a Ford instead. In terms of what I have outlined, having a coiled snake stamped on the side of your AR-15 represents as good of a weapon, at a better value, than having the same gun with a prancing pony stamped in the same place. Bill T.
