1911 in . . . 44 mag . . . really!

P

Prof Young

New member
Was at range last week. They'd just gotten in a 1911 chambered in 44 mag for one of their customers. Thing was huge! Mags were huge! Model or brand name was "Grizzly" or something. Range boss said it was a 2 grand gun. Yipes.

Anyone out there have one? Anyone out there have shooting experience with one?

Life is good.
Prof Young
 
I'm familiar with them, and shot the .45 Win. Mag version owned by an acquaintance. Owner considered factory ammo, in whatever caliber he was shooting, to be the starting point for his super heavy reloads. Whew! Never had the desire to purchase one for myself.
 
If you check out the old "The Shadow" movie with Alec Baldwin, he wielded a pair of Grizzlies that had been modified to look more like an oversized 1911 would appear in the '30s.
I'm not familiar with The Shadow, but he called his guns something like Silver Heat, and the movie guns were either plated or brightly polished stainless.
 
1911 in . . . 44 mag . . . really!
Click to expand...

Really, really!! :D

I used to have one, blued, 6.5" barrel. The Wiki article gets it mostly right, except that mag capacity in .44 Magnum is 6 (six) rounds, not 7, due to the slope needed to prevent rimlock. In .45Win Mag, magazines hold 7 rnds.

It is a high quality 1911A1 on steroids. Stretched and strengthened, though there are some 1911A1 parts that will interchange, many will not.

In standard configuration, compared to the .44 Mag Desert Eagle (which I also have), the LAR Grizzly comes off superior in all but two aspects. And those are magazine capacity (.44 DE holds 8 in the mag) and recoil.

The Grizzly is about a pound lighter than the Desert Eagle, so there is a slight difference in the recoil. :rolleyes: BOTH have a felt recoil significantly LESS than .44 Mag revolvers, due to their weight, and grip shape.

Compared to the .44 DE, the Grizzly is lighter has a 6.5" barrel compared to the DE 6", has the excellent 1911A1 trigger, and a thumb safety one can actually reach (and on the frame where it belongs, not on the slide, and working in the "proper" manner, down for off, the opposite of the DE).

Pachmayr grips were standard, providing a superior grip than the stock DE, and the slightly smaller grip frame size makes the gun feel solidly "locked" into my hands, better than the DE (and also better than the actual 1911A1, for ME).

The Grizzly also came with excellent fully adjustable sights (Millet??) standard. The DE does not. Millet sights are an aftermarket option for the DE.

And, being recoil operated, the Grizzly has NO issues shooting cast bullets. The DE (due to its unique gas system) should NOT be fired using cast bullets.

I haven't had a .44Mag Grizzly for some years, I traded mine for a .45Win Mag Grizzly.:D I had occasional feed issues with the .44, have not had them with the .45, and it holds one more round.

Accuracy is on a par with any high end well put together 1911A1, (will put 5 shots in one ragged hole at 25yds, if you're up to it) and long range accuracy is excellent. Regularly ring the 200yd gong on the rifle range, if you're a good enough shot.

I have Auto Mags, Desert Eagles, a Wildey (.45WM), the Grizzly, and a Coonan (.357mag). If you want big bore magnum performance in a semi auto pistol, the Grizzly was (is) the most practical overall.

LAR stopped making the Grizzly some time ago (Wiki says 1999), which I always felt was a poor decision. According to what I remember from the time, LAR made a corporate decision to drop the Grizzly and concentrate on their .50 BMG rifle instead.

My last range outing with my Grizzly was to meet and compare it with a fellow who had an Automag IV .45 Win mag. After firing a single magazine through the Grizzly, he asked if I would be willing to trade, or sell, mine. I smilingly, declined. :D
 
I have one experience with the 50AE version. I was at a range trip sponsored by a major gun rights organization. We had the opportunity to shoot all kinds of thingees. Fun. One was the 50AE 1911. I didn't shoot it as I was recovering from a broken wrist at the time. Anyway, one fellow did. The empty casing bounced on the side partition of the lane and beaned me in forehead which truly stung and left a bump.

I've shot the 44 mag Desert Eagles. Not a problem but it was a bit of a jammer.
 
LAR Grizzlys are cool, I've often considered getting one in .50AE. I had a an Automag V in .50AE and it was a beast, kind of miss it.
 
Would love to have ALL of the Automag series,
and a LAR Grizzly selection as well :D

Can't go wrong there, but you'd better be a reloader!!
 


Found this pic of my .45 WinMag Grizzly, in the old thread "Do Dinosaurs still roam the Earth". (search "dino", you'll find it, I am tech challenged and never learned how to do a link :o))

The thread is 5 pages, a couple years old, but is a good discussion about magnum semiautos, and contains pics from several TFL members collections.

The .44 Mag Grizzly I had looked the same, but blued, not hard chromed.
 
> I've shot the 44 mag Desert Eagles. Not a problem but it was a bit of a jammer.

The .44 DEs are sensitive to the brand of ammo you use. And they're finicky about reloads as well. I'm guessing it has to do with the pressure curve of the powder. Anything will work in a revolver as long as it pushes the bullet out of the barrel; autos aren't as flexible.

The usual "not enough oomph" problem with a friend's .44 was failure to eject; most commonly stovepiping, sometimes with the empty case wedged or pushed back into the chamber.

IMI and Winchester "white box" functioned flawlessly, but it wouldn't run at all on several supposedly premium brands of ammunition.
 
Desert Eagles are very specialized pistols. Not only do they need to be fed the right stuff, they also need to be held the right way, or they don't function well.

Many people seem to think that magnum class semi auto pistols are just "bigger" versions of regular service pistols. They're not.

The makers of the DE recommend certain specific brands of ammo. IF your DE doesn't run on them, it has a problem. If you shoot something else, and the DE doesn't run right, it doesn't have a problem, YOU have a problem.

Put another way, if the maker says to run their car on 92 octane premium, and you put bio-diesel in the tank and it messes up, who's at fault when it doesn't run right?

You are.
 
The first Auto Mag I ever saw was in Guns & Ammo. Ads in the early 70s featured a life size picture of the gun on stiff paper, perforated so you could punch out the gun and hold it!

The usual ad slogan was "Strap a rifle on your hip!" They claimed 1600fps with a 240gr bullet!

It took me until 1983 to both find one for sale AND be able to come up with the required money.

At that point, my education really began. In the long run, I learned that Spock was right, and that sometimes, the wanting of a thing is more fulfilling than the having of the thing.

Turns out a number of things in life are like that.....;)

I had a .44 Mag LAR Grizzly. The gun was outstanding in many ways, but, it only held 6 rounds in the mag, vs. 8 for the Desert Eagle. And, my specimen had an erratic feeding issue, that I never did track down and fix, I wound up trading the .44 and some cash for the chrome .45 I have now, and half a dozen boxes of "factory" ammo. While making the deal, I examined the ammo, and ONE box was factory, the rest were reloads. When I pointed this out, the dealer admitted that he had never checked, and had been told it was all factory ammo when he took the gun in. In fairness, he dropped the additional cash he was asking for, by half.

While I wasn't unhappy with the .44 Grizzly, I wanted one in the original caliber. In .44 caliber, I have the .44 AMP, 6.5" & 8", and in .44Mag, a Desert Eagle 6", a S&W M29-2 6.5", a Ruger Super Blackhawk 7.5" and a Contender barrel, 10".

I enjoy them all, their similarities, and their differences. And, if you think a .44 Mag from a revolver is something, try shooting it from a Contender!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top