Colt Defense LLC, together with its subsidiaries, is a designer, developer and manufacturer of small arms weapons systems for individual soldiers and law enforcement personnel. It is headquartered in West Hartford, Connecticut. The company traces its portfolio of products and services back to Colt's Manufacturing Company and prior to that to Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, and through those entities and its current structure, it has supplied small arms weapons systems to the United States Government and other governments throughout the world since the Mexican-American War of 1847. Colt Canada Corporation, its Canadian subsidiary, is the Canadian government’s Center of Excellence for small arms and is the Canadian military’s sole supplier of the C7 rifle and C8 carbine. The company and its subsidiaries maintain manufacturing facilities in West Hartford, Connecticut

West Hartford, Connecticut

West Hartford is a town located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town was incorporated in 1854. Prior to that date, the town was a parish of Hartford....

 and Kitchener, Ontario

Kitchener, Ontario

The City of Kitchener is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It was the Town of Berlin from 1854 until 1912 and the City of Berlin from 1912 until 1916. The city had a population of 204,668 in the Canada 2006 Census...

. It was split off from Colt's Manufacturing Company in 2002 in order to focus on the military, law enforcement and security markets. Sales to the U.S. Government (including U.S. Government sales to foreign governments) accounted for 57% of net sales in 2010 and 33% of net sales through the first three quarters of 2011, the change being a result of both reduced purchases of the M4 carbine by the U.S. military, and increasing direct sales to foreign government customers. On October 14, 2010, the company announced that the Board of Directors had appointed Gerald R. Dinkel as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, succeeding Lt. Gen. William M. Keys, USMC (ret.) who remains on the Board of Directors as Chairman.

Products

Colt was the original producer of the M16 rifle

M16 rifle

The M16 is the United States military designation for the AR-15 rifle adapted for both semi-automatic and full-automatic fire. Colt purchased the rights to the AR-15 from ArmaLite, and currently uses that designation only for semi-automatic versions of the rifle. The M16 fires the 5.56×45mm NATO...

, rights to which it purchased from designer ArmaLite

ArmaLite

ArmaLite is the name of a small arms engineering facility founded in the early 1950s, and once associated with the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation. ArmaLite was formally incorporated as a subdivision of Fairchild on October 1, 1954...

, and today offers a complete “Family of Weapons” based around the derivative M4 Carbine

M4 Carbine

The M4 carbine is a family of firearms tracing its lineage back to earlier carbine versions of the M16, all based on the original AR-15 designed by Eugene Stoner and made by ArmaLite. It is a shorter and lighter variant of the M16A2 assault rifle, with 80% parts commonality.It is a gas-operated,...

, which includes a heavy barreled rifle (HBAR®), a carbine with sliding stock (M4 & ACC-M), a personal defense weapon with folding-collapsible buttstock (SCW), a piston carbine (APC), a Commando® M4 with a 10.5 in. (26.7 cm) barrel, an infantry automatic rifle (IARTM), a submachine gun chambered for 9mm ammunition, and the 40mm M203 grenade launcher

M203 grenade launcher

The M203 is a single shot 40 mm grenade launcher designed to attach to a rifle. It uses the same rounds as the older M79 break-action grenade launcher, which utilize the High-Low Propulsion System to keep recoil forces low. Though versatile, and compatible with many rifle models, the M203 was...

.