Including pictures of bolt and carrier manufacturing and front sight base installation.
http://www.gunsandammo.com/2012/07/03/behind-the-scenes-at-colt-making-the-nations-favorite-rifle/
Very Cool! Thanks for the link.
“Next stop on the tour…well this here is our room where we ding up the finishes to make people :cray:.” 
Those are some awesome photos, thanks for sharing.
How old is that? Those look like 6520 (A2 upper, LW carbine barrel) uppers… which are discontinued right?
Cool to gain some insight bout how my rifle was made.
Note that the FSB install is done after barrel installation with a station carry handle to ensure that the FSB is ture. Very cool.
Yeah, that jig setup is a big advantage for getting consistent alignment. As a point of reference, I have seen several complaints lately about zeroing brand-new PSA builds. Some of them could not be zeroed at all because windage adjustment was way out of range! These were sent back to PSA to have the FSB adjusted. Funny thing is, PSA claimed that “in range” for windage was up to 13 clicks to either side!
In contrast, when I mounted a brand-new Colt factory carry handle that I picked up recently to my 6920, without making a single click adjustment, it was precisely zeroed with windage adjustment centered, and elevation knob was two clicks from bottom, with the front sight post flush! And when I mounted a brand-new ACOG to this same rifle, I was amazed to find that it was just 2 clicks off zero right out of the box! Trijicon stated that they get the ACOG NSNs roughly near zero by zeroing them on an M4A1 at the factory.
So thaaaaaaats where my dents came from!
Thanks for sharing this.
Pure speculation on my part,but I’d assume PSA is using the “in range” as a default statement.
For example,in my reading I noted that MIL-C-71186(AR) states in 3.4.6 Accuracy and Testing “rear sight centrally located in the slot for windage within plus or minus twelve clicks.”
That said I’d certainly hope PSA typically can do better than minimum standard acceptance in practice.
My father and I had the same results when first zeroing the carry handles on our 6920s and then when both added Aimpoints to them. IIRC, I needed one click of the windage knob on my T1.
We both had the same experience with our BCM rifles, too. Mine required exactly one click of windage on the carry handle.
At first I couldn’t believe how many nicks and dings were on my SP6920 when I picked it up. I was almost ready to tell my FFL to box it back up and send it right back, but I did the paperwork on it anyway. Then I examined a few off-the-shelf ones at other shops and found out that mine was no anomaly. Colt obviously doesn’t need to care about the ones being sold to the government, but us consumers would really like to buy new firearms without any cosmetic blemishes on them.
“A series of 10 rounds fired from each carbine at a range of 91.4 meters shall be within the extreme spread and targeting area (heavy outline) specified in Figure I” with “rear sight centrally located in the slot for windage within plus or minus twelve clicks.”
The width of the heavy outline shown in Figure 1 is 16 inches so theoretically the carbine could have the max 12 clicks and still be 8 inches away from the center of the target and still be within spec. You have to factor in the max 5" 10-shot group but you get the idea. The M4 has goofy click values I’m too lazy to look up but they’re between .5 MOA and 1MOA so even going large that’s 12 clicks allowable plus the 8 (give or take) to get to center.
Very recently, 03JUL12. that’s the .mil side of the house by the auto lowers in some of the pictures and the article, I’m sure Colt will sell a military any combination they order.
We toured Colt back in May, and since we couldn’t take the pictures you see here I didn’t feel the need to post about. They gave us a coin, t-shirt, and one of the used buttons used to rifle the barrels, it is still sharp after 200 passes.
All the ARs are made on the military side then sold to Colt’s civilian side for distribution. They can currently make 700 rifles a day and are working to get that up to 900. They also make the entire 240B and M249 barrels.
Hmm I swear some expert on the interweb told me that Colt doesn’t produce any of their own parts. Obviously the G&A article is a hoax.
On a more serious note, I would like to get my mitts on a couple of those 6520 uppers.
I was under the exact opposite impression. I was told that Colt either does make or has the ability to make all parts in-house. This includes everything down to the smallest pin and spring.
Colt kinda makes you re-think the BCM “blem” components, huh?
I heard this somewhere
It’s not a fashion show.
This is incorrect. Colt does care about how the guns are built and following the TDP. It is the GOVT that DOESN’T care about Fit and Finish (as they realize that there are more important things to be concerned about).
As I said in the other Colt thread, Colt builds War Horses, not show ponies.
C4