What killed the Automag?

G

GaryED50

New member
Hey guys

Everything I've read and seen says the Automag was a pretty neat auto pistol. Was it just stupidity on the part of its creators? or just a bad marketing era for a new magnum offering?
AutoMagpistol11_zps973d2fc4.jpg

What do you guys think?

Gary
 
..... it just cost to much,,,,,

In the 1970's (I think?) there was a gun shop in North Charleston, SC that had a few Automag pistols on display. I was excited to just be able to look and hold a couple of them. Very heavy compared to the revolvers that I was familiar with. The building the ammunition did not scare me as much as to the price of getting all the stuff needed and the cost of the pistol itself. Beautiful buy it just cost to much for me just starting out in world....... I did finally get a Desert Eagle 44 which I love...

Lemmon from rural South Carolina......
 
High cost and terrible reliability for the most part. The company was plagued by poor management. I also recall something about a lawsuit.

Anyhow, ownership passed between several companies. High Standard still produces some of their designs.
 
IIRC, the bolt was held in by two fairly small rods. I recall wondering what would happen if they broke or came loose somehow. I don't know that any ever did, but the thing reminded me of the old Infallible pistol and I never quite wanted to take a chance of having my face re-arranged, even though that might have been an improvement.

Jim
 
Auto Mag ammunition

If I remember correctly the Auto Mag brass could be made from 308/30-06/243 ect stock by cutting to length and reaming the case mouth. I have made 30 and 357 Herriet?? brass out of 30-30 brass... Not like buying it from company like Starline. I do believe the ammunition could be purchased by venders but you paid through the nose for it......

Lemmon from Rural South Carolina....Retired and enjoying the good life.
 
One of the weirdest gun incidents I ever experienced was with an Automag. A friend was shooting his when it jammed. The round from the magazine would not go in the chamber. We checked the usual things (cartridge, chamber, etc., and saw nothing wrong. Then I looked through the barrel and it was blocked. Thinking he had a stuck bullet, I used a cleaning rod to see if the obstruction would come out, and it did. It was the case of the last round he fired, and it was in the chamber backward! That accounted for the fact that the chamber appeared to be empty.

As best we could analyze the "problem", the gun fired, then the recoil caused it to catch up with the ejected case, which then somehow entered the chamber base first.

Had anyone told me that could happen, I would have been very skeptical, and I would not be too offended if some folks think I am drawing the long bow here, but it really did happen!

Jim
 
At the risk of straying, I certainly don't find it too hard to believe. We recently had a thread where folks described odd occurrences and one poster's just took the cake - he ended up with a stovepipe in his pistol... but with a piece of Blazer aluminum that his shooting buddy was running. He was running brass in his own pistol. I -still- chuckle at that one.
 
Homely Looks!;) I could have bought a really nice one from a friend but even at his very reasonable price couldn't justify the cost.
 
Probably the fact that Dirty Harry didn't use one in the movie.

Also, being a semi auto, you don't have the flexibility of shooting low power ammo for plinking and people who reload their ammo like guns where the empty cases stay in the chambers until they are ready to reload.
 
44 Auto Mag

I had a TDE in the 70's , bought it used and it was $700 . That was a lot of money back then . As a Shooter it was awkward . The grip was like a 2x4 . I really had a problem with it . It was a major job getting the 7th round into the magazine . I had difficulty chambering the first round into the chamber . I literally had to brace the gun against my leg and pull the bolt back . It was not easy.
Brass was never a problem because it can be easily made from 06 or similar cases. However it was mostly once fired because the brass really flew and you could never recover them all.
I never had function problems and it performed flawlessly and it was very accurate. It never seemed to out do my Model 29 and when a friend offered me more than I paid for it I jumped on it . I never missed it .
 
I don’t recall ever seeing one in any shop I visited during the 70s and 80s. Viewed and handled a used one in the 90s I believe and the hand fit or no fit was a joke. My trigger finger wouldn’t reach the trigger at all. :confused:
 
Gary, when I returned from a Government all expense paid tour of Viet Nam in early 1970, I recall seeing an ad for the Automag for the first time. It was in Guns & Ammo and the list price was just over $200.00 IIRC. It doesn't seem like much now, but it was significant money for a pistol at the time. Never saw one in a shop back then, but seems to me they were taking deposits, and I considered one. Before I pursued it any further, I began to hear reports that Automag was having a problem in actually producing and delivering guns to customers. I didn't hear of problems with the guns themselves, just with actually getting tham into customer's hands. I don't recall personally see an Automag until some years later. It seemed kind of like the situation that was to occur later with the Bren Ten.........ymmv
 
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AMT seems to have been something of a hard luck company, probably a company founded and run by someone who was a gifted designer and idea man but not a good manager and businessman. My AMT Hardballer is one of my treasures, others have reported problems with them, like with the AMT Backup.
In the case of the Automag, it was one of those "Oh Wow!" things that everyone gushes over-the old "They Oughta Make!" syndrome, then when somebody does-nobody buys it. And it doesn't help when you can't deliver.
 
run by someone who was a gifted designer
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They weren't even that, since many of their guns were just copies of others, which is what caused them to go bankrupt when sued by Ruger

They made a couple of Ruger copies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMT_Lightning_25/22

As is alluded to in the nomenclature, the Lightning 25/22 is functionally a clone of the Ruger 10/22 with the substitution of a larger 25-round magazine instead of the 10-round magazine used by Ruger.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMT_Lightning_pistol

The pistol was an unlicensed low-cost clone of the Ruger Mark II pistol and, along with the AMT Lightning 25/22 rifle, prompted a successful trademark infringement lawsuit from Ruger that helped bankrupt the company.
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To some of us who grew up in a certain time and watched all the Dirty Harry movies, it was an iconic pistol.

Still...I never actually considered owning one until 10-15 years ago. And I actually had the opportunity (very briefly) to buy a .357 AutoMag at a gun show back in 2001-2002.

Yeah, it wasn't a .44, but it was only about $1000. Should have jumped on it, but didn't. have never seen another for anywhere near that price.

I'm sure there is a lesson in there somewhere... :)
 
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