Back in January, seemingly out of nowhere, Colt Optics emerged and within a couple of months they’d launched their first commercial products and announced that their 1-6 LPVO had been selected by the Canadian Army. TFB had the opportunity to sit down to talk to Colt Optics’ CEO Matt Van Haaren about the ethos of the new company and its aims for the future.

Colt Optics is the latest arm of the ever-growing Colt-CZ Group which includes firearms and ammunition manufacturing, mounts and accessories and now optics. Colt Optics was set up back in 2024 and Matt Van Haaren, formerly CEO of EOTech, has assembled an experienced team: “we put together a great team of industry veterans, and our intent is to build out a broad product portfolio, obviously more riflescopes, red dots, other electro-optics, enablers and devices”

Colt-CZ Group is looking to offer a system of systems approach where they can offer military customers a rifle, an optic, mounts and accessories – everything they might need. This played a key role in the selection of Colt Optic’s 1-6 LPVO for the Canadian Army’s new rifle, the CMAR. “The lead up to the CMAR program worked out perfectly, we had plenty of run-up time to develop a solution with Colt Canada, make sure it worked well within the integrated system and deliver prototypes for evaluation.” Van Haaren explained, “we’re focused on professional use; the products’ reliability, usability and durability are the key performance factors we focus on to ensure that any military or law enforcement user could pick it up and run with it.”

Colt Optics are based out of Michigan, USA, where they have their HQ, research and development facility and manufacturing base, but Van Haaren noted that for military contracts they have a localised focus too; as more and more countries want components or whole weapon systems built locally, as such the 1-6 LPVO for the CMAR will be assembled at Colt Canada’s facility: “we’ll absolutely be building products in our state-of-the-art facility in Michigan, but we’re going to be building products in allied nations all over the world.”

“We’re focused on professional use; the products’ reliability, usability and durability are the key performance factors we focus on to ensure that any military or law enforcement user could pick it up and run with it.” But Van Haaren was keen to emphasize that “while we definitely have a professional user focus, MIL/LE, the commercial market is very important to us as well” Colt Optics proved this, coming out of the gate with some interesting initial commercial products. You won’t have to wait long to see Colt Optics’ new VMR line, with initial 1-8X, 3-18X, and 4.5-27X offerings, on shelves, as Van Haaren explained they’ll be available in just a few weeks: “we’ve got products shipping out to distributors this week and they should be on the shelves pretty quickly” This is part of Colt Optic’s strategy to avoid keeping customers waiting: “we want to align the marketing launch, the actual first shipments, and products being on the shelf within a relatively short period of time” Van Haaren continued, “sometimes you see, in the market, an announcement and then, maybe you see products on the shelves 9, 12 months later or longer, we’re working hard to shorten that time period.”

We may see more announcements about future products later this year with Van Haaren noting that “we have had a little bit of success landing a government contract just as we’re starting to release commercial products but we’re working on other optics and plan to release more products soon”. While Van Haaren couldn’t comment on timelines, future Colt Optics products to look out for are a 1X red dot sight and magnifier pairing and he noted that a 1-6 LPVO, like the one that won the Canadian Army tender, “is a significant consideration” and something the market will be looking for.

One burning question myself, and fellow TFB writer Daniel Y, had in mind was: ‘with the current retro boom, will we see the return of the iconic Colt 4X carry handle scope?’ Van Haaren’s response was “never say never!” “It’s currently not in the plans, we have a lot of respect for the Colt brand and the legacy of the brand, and we’ll certainly look to develop optics that integrate with Colt firearms”, he teased, “maybe a modern interpretation or something like that but right now we’re focused on the core product portfolio”

For now Colt Optics’ focus is on the present, not the past, with Van Haaren adding: “we’re just excited to get products in people’s hands.”

Find out more about Colt Optics at coltoptics.com.