Colt All American 2000 Pistol

promac

promac

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I bought one of these pistols lately.......it was an impulsive buy and reasonably priced. That and the polymer receiver kind of made it look a little like a Glock. :rolleyes: Anyway, after the fact, I thought I'd do a little research on the pistol and found this, relating to a safety issue. Does anyone know what the safety issue is about?

The All American 2000 pistol was designed by the Reed Knight, Jr. and Eugene Stoner (of M16 fame), at the time both working at Knight's Armament Co. The design of the Knight's Model 2000 pistol has been purchased by Colt in attempt to bring to the market a more or less up-to-date 9mm design, suitable for police use. However, the pistol, as brought to the market in 1991, was plagued by serious reliability and safety issues, combined with very heavy and creepy double action only trigger. Two types of Model 2000 pistol were made, with polymer or aluminium frames, and neither sold well. As a result of poor sales, and in the view of coming bankruptcy, Colt discontinued the All American 2000 in 1993, so the initially advertised .40 and .45 caliber versions never came up.
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colt_aa2000.jpg
 
Laughing...

Never mind the safety issue, what about the UGLY issue?
Colt spent a ton of money on developing this junk and sold very few. If I recall correctly, Colt submitted this hunk of junk for the US Army trials/competition to replace the venerable 1911. Of course they lost that contract. Beretta won it with the 92F.
 
:redface: Actually, the picture doesn't do it any justice - I figured you couldn't go wrong with a Colt - but oh well............... someone had to rescue the poor bastard! :rolleyes:
 
The Colt All American 2000 pistols had a few features that were well ahead of their time, including a very good grip angle and grip size, a well-balanced weight over the hand, and a double-action striker-firing system. Unfortunately, the reliability and the heavy trigger pull outweighed the benefits to these guns. As a military-proposal sidearm, the AA2000 was severely lacking, and rightly so it lost out to Beretta in the Joint Combat Pistol Trials of the late 1980s. However, Colt did learn the value of their bread-and-butter 1911s through the failures of these pistols, and subsequently managed to produce a superior line of 1911 guns before bankruptcy forced a suspension of production in the early 1990s.

Your Colt AA2000 is actually a pleasant gun to shoot, however the internal safety mechanisms associated with the striker systems were found to be weak and often did not properly engage, allowing a gun that was dropped or handled roughly to discharge. Our suggestion would be to make certain that you only load the gun when you intend to fire, and do not carry a loaded cartridge in the chamber if you are not intending to discharge that round down range. That means no rounds in the chamber in a holster, and no rounds in the chamber if the gun is set down for any reason. Always clear the action between firing sessions.

Beyond that, the AA2000 is a unique piece of firearms history, and a firearm that is not often seen on ranges. I suspect you will have a great many curious bystanders asking "What do you have there?" if and when you take it to the range!
 
It was a POS that is why it went no were. Neat collector piece, but that is about it. I bought one when they first came out, it was and piece of crap, my friends Norinco Tokarev copy is a better gun.
 
It tanked for a reason. And you only have to look at the pic of it to see why. :p

That said, if it strikes your fancy/floats your boat or you are a Colt collector that's the only reason you need to own it, though.

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NAA.
 
Are you going to shoot it?

If you are going to shoot it, I'd be very interested in hearing your range report.
 
Harrier.45 - thanks for the information - I was worried about more serious issues like case separation/failure, out-of-battery firing and such. However, its hard to imagine a double-action only handgun firing if dropped or jarred.

I don't think it looks too bad. If accuracy sucks, at least I can blame the gun and not myself! :p

Wendell - Yeah, I'll shoot it with my 50BMG if it doesn't make decent groups! :p Seriously though, a range report shouldn't be a problem.
 
promac said:
Harrier.45 - thanks for the information - I was worried about more serious issues like case separation/failure, out-of-battery firing and such. However, its hard to imagine a double-action only handgun firing if dropped or jarred.

I don't think it looks too bad. If accuracy sucks, at least I can blame the gun and not myself! :p

Wendell - Yeah, I'll shoot it with my 50BMG if it doesn't make decent groups! :p Seriously though, a range report shouldn't be a problem.
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There were reports of out-of-battery firing on guns that had not been properly cleaned or maintained, where the slide did bind upon closure and the firing pin did release with the trigger pulled. However these issues were primarily seen in the very first runs of these pistols, and were corrected on later models.

As for case separation/failure, these issues are always questionable as to whether the fault is that of the gun, or of flawed brass casings themselves.

Contrary to the many nay-sayers on this thread, the AA2000 was a respectable shooter, but far ahead of its time in appearance and materials of production. Again, an interesting addition to any collection, and an equally interesting gun to shoot. Just not an award-winner when it came to acceptance in the shooting markets.
 
I agree with Harrier. I recall shooting a couple of these back in the late 80s or early 90s, and they worked well, better then the Taurus Beretta clones that everyone was buying at the time. Plastic pistols just don't do much for me, so I passed even though it was a Colt (which usually gets it a place in the safe, just "because"), same reason I got rid of the Glocks I had. FWIW - dan
 
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