I guess this is as good a place as any to
DISCUSS this ( I emphasized the word discuss here 'cause I don't want to have to deal with any attacks or insults between forum members or towards vendors over this).........
What Old Doc has said is correct and adds to what I posted. Except.........I don't think AWA bought ASM. I know a lot of the history about ASM through the period that Dave Anderson was having them make parts for his AFF "conversions", then ASM started building those conversions and selling them to CVA, Cimarron and others........Of course there were also issues with ASM and their quailty control at EMF eventually adding to or leading to Walt there going to the Pietta and them AWA using ASM to produce their line of SAA Clones. The way I understand it was AWA had the Colt Copyright infringemant issues (as metioned by myself and Old Doc above) and then made the unfortunate decision to sell the Lightning Magazine Rifle. The rest is history, so to speak!
Kudos really should go out to Boyd Davis at EMF for his YEARS of modifications to the ASM clone in order to make it more "Colt like". If it wasn't for ASM's poor quality control (I have been told that MANY, MANY pistols did not meet inspection at EMF and were purportedly remarked and sold to other companies) we could have still had a source for inexpensive parts that were 100% interchangeable with Colts