Magnum Auto Pistols

The link took me to Wildey's site, which I had not visited in a long time. From what it looks like, neither has Wildey!

One thing I did notice, that I never caught before was a HUGE mistake. Or, I think its a mistake, depending on how they mean it.

In a couple of places they describe the trigger of the Wildey as "just like the 1911". It is not. It is a DA/SA type trigger. Whoever did final proof of that copy missed it, and not just in one place.

Had the Wildey out last weekend, although I only shot one mag. I picked up a spare magazine a while back, and wanted to test it. It worked.

Also I learned (which either I hadn't before, or had forgotten) that the Wildey also has a magazine disconnector.

The Wildey is a combination of features not found elsewhere. Some of them make sense to me, others, I have no idea why they did it, only that they did.

Gas operated: not recoil. And the system is shooter adjustable without any tools. Unique to the Wildey, as far as I know. And, unlike the Desert Eagle's gas system, the Wildey systemis not difficult to fully clean.

ADJ sights: big plus, this is NOT a CCW type handgun (as intended)

DA/SA trigger: Found on lots of combat/defensive handguns. Not sure what advantage it gives the Wildey.

Safety: The Wildey safety is in the traditional 1911 location, but there is no cocked and locked. Safety lever sweeps down, and decocks the gun. Very much like a SIG P22- series gun

Magazine: Much easier to load rounds into than some of the other magnums, but a little awkward to get into the gun, due to the heel clip type magazine catch. Just like a .22 sport pistol, but a bit bigger. This is NOT a gun where a speed reload (like a 1911 or other combat designs) is easily done.

And there is a magazine disconnect.

Truly a unique beast. I rather like mine. It is a very ....solid.. feeling gun. :D

 
I own a new production Coonan, the first one imported to Norway of the new run. I love it. I might actually love it more than my Desert Eagle, I haven´t decided.

My D.E hot a nice new rear sight by LPA, and because I have a 10 inch MRI barrel, and a 6 inch IWI barrel, the front sights are not the same elevation so I´m replacing both soon with angle cut match sight together with a trigger job. From what I was told, you can get the trigger weight down to 3 lbs fairly easily. The D.E is underappreciated IMO, I use mine for competition :)

Ok, so I have a 3rd Auto mag incoming, a NiB LAR Mk1 in 45wm, and I found a funny thing on gunaction, a 460 Rowland conversion! I didn´t know that existed... Does the standard 1911 Rowland kit fit, or do I need a whole lot of custom work to make it fit? The Rowland-LAR I found used standard 1911 mags so I assume some sort of plug is inserted into the grip...
 
wow!! that wildey is something else. learn something new everyday. very cool and unique gun you got there.

I was reading on "the firearms blog", wildey has went out of business in august of 2009
 
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The Wildey is a cool gun, having some really good features, and some that just make me shake my head and wonder...why???

The adjustable gas system is great, and easy to use. The sights are very good, and fully adjustable. Both are major plusses compared to the Desert Eagle. While I don't do it, you could run a Wildey on low power cast bullet loads. Unlike the Desert Eagle, not only can you adjust the gun to run on light loads, you CAN clean the gas system completely IF it clogs. (you can actually take it apart and clean it, something you CANNOT do on a Desert Eagle.

Now the things that make me shake my head are, first, the Wildey is DA/SA. The safety drops the hammer. Its a reasonable system, and the Wildey executes it well, but I have to wonder why the designer choose to do it that way, on a gun that is obviously far out of the CCW or duty class size.

It may have been done to give shooters the fastest practical first shot, without having to have the gun carried "cocked and locked", but other than that, I can see no justification for it on a gun that size and caliber, as the intended use is NOT combat shooting.

And, another confusing feature is the magazine catch. The Wildey uses a heel type mag catch. Understandable in a sporting pistol, very positive and uber reliable. But it is directly at odds with the DA trigger, in terms of conventional use. Older European service autos often have a heel type release, but that has mostly fallen out of favor for a combat gun, all newer designs use the pushbutton style, in some variation.

SO, the Wildey has a DA/SA trigger, and it has a heel type mag release. An unusual combination, but not unheard of. My Browning BDA 45 has the same kind of set up. (the Browning BDA45 is the Sig Sauer P220, imported and marked by Browning. Its the early pattern gun now called the "European" model)

The worst feature of the Wildey, for me, is the feel of the grip. A little shorter (but not much) front to back than the Desert Eagle, the Wildey grip is a little bit "thicker" side to side, and in my hands, feels very "round". The slick wood grips don't help in this regard. It is no impediment to using it, just not as good a "feel" in my hands as I think it could be. Your feeling might be different.

The LAR Grizzly feels better to me. It is a bit of a stretch, true, but with the rubber grips the Grizzly's stretched 1911 grip frame locks solidly into my hand (size 9 glove). I've had two Grizzlies, one in .44 Mag, which I didn't much like, and which didn't run very well, and my current one in .45 Win Mag with some kind of fancy chrome finish which added several hundred to the asking price of the gun. It works well, shoots great.

LAR made several different conversion kits, the Grizzly could be set up to shoot .45Win Mag, .45ACP, .44 Mag, 10mm, .357 GWM (Grizzly Win Mag), .357 Magnum, and .38 Special, depending on what you got. LAR dropped production of the Grizzly some time ago, and since I have only heard of the .460 Rowland fairly recently, I doubt the conversion kit for it was made by LAR. I might be wrong about that, its just a guess. I don't know anything about that specific conversion kit. Sorry.

(you can see my Grizzly post # 13)
 
I looked through all of the pages and makes me hate not buying a Desert Eagle when I had the chance. A store had them, if I recall correctly for $800 for a .44 and $700 for a .357 but I didn't buy either. I'd like to have one in .44 with a 14 inch barrel and scope. I think it'd be a good deer gun.
 
I totally agree on the grip shapes of the Wildey and The Grizzly. The Griz is a very comfortable shape in my hand, although I did remove the Pachmayers and put on a nice set of cherry grips I found on e-bay.

The grip on the Wildey has some really sharp edges on the back that cut into the web of your hand if you shoot more than a couple of mags at a time. Almost every time I have tried to fire it in double-action, it has failed to fire. Sometimes even after a second trigger squeeze. It always fires on the single action mode.
 
Too tired from loading the last 1200 9mm last night to go to my safe to dig my .44 Auto Mag out for a photo but this post did remind me that once I get rested I have a baggie of range brass that I need to cut down and ream out once I get some relaxed reloading done.
 
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