Auto Mag Pistol

The short-recoil operated Auto Mag pistol featured a rotary bolt with six locking lugs located at the front similar to the M16/AR-15 rifle. The Auto Mag is a modest weight pistol designed to give handgun owners .44 Magnum power in a semi-automatic pistol. The .44 Auto Mag was designed to shoot .429-inch, 240-grain bullets at about the same velocity as the .44 Magnum revolver.[2]

In 1970, Auto Mag Corporation president Harry Sanford opened a factory in Pasadena, California. The first pistol was shipped on August 8, 1971, and the factory declared bankruptcy on May 3, 1972, after making fewer than 3,000 pistols. The company opened and closed several times from 1973 through 1982 under several different names: TDE (Trade Deed Estates), OMC, Thomas Oil Company, High Standard, and AMT (Arcadia Machine & Tool).[3][4]

An additional 6,000 pistols were produced and sold during this period for a total of about 9,000.[3] Sanford continued to sell spare parts until his death in 1996.[5] His son Walter continued to sell the remaining parts online through automagparts.com. Production guns were made in .44 AMP. Experimental pistols were made in .45 ACP, .30 AMP, .357 AMP and .41 JMP.[4] Changing calibers usually required only exchanging the barrel – the frame, magazine and bolt could be used with all calibers except .45 ACP.[6]

Auto Mag Corporation was short-lived for several reasons. The design team, headed by Mark Lovendale, took the AutoMag pistol from an unreliable experimental machined chrome-moly steel prototype designed by Harry Sanford and Max Gera[7] and created a more production oriented and marginally reliable stainless steel version. The Lovendale design team was convinced the Auto Mag pistol was not ready for production and needed more changes to improve reliability and could not be produced at a profit. The design team believed that even with a correct finished design, the wholesale price of the pistol had to be greatly increased or the company would go bankrupt. The design team was unable to convince Sanford, and they all resigned. The pistol was then produced by the remaining staff, and put into production. Unfortunately the expensive manufacturing processes and materials, function unreliability and need for many parts to be produced by sub-contractors made the gun unprofitable resulting in bankruptcy of the original company.[2]

Under-pricing of the Auto Mag pistol made ultimate success impossible. One analysis claimed that the Auto Mag Corporation lost more than $1,000 on each pistol; each pistol sold wholesale for around $170. The pistols originally retailed for $217.50 in the 1970s. Used Auto Mag pistols now sell for much more.[8]

In August 2015 Walter Sanford sold all the assets of the company including the name, trademark, and all rights to AutoMag Ltd. Corp., a South Carolina-based corporation. Auto Mag is currently producing the first 77 Founders' Edition pistols with an 8.5" barrel, selling for $3,995 each. Classic Edition pistols with a 6.5" barrel are planned to sell for $3,495 each.[9]

• Mack Bolan of The Executioner book series carried a .44 Auto Mag he named "Big Thunder" in his war against the Mafia.
• In 1983, the Auto Mag was featured in the fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact. Clint Eastwood's character Harry Callahan uses his .44 Auto Mag to kill Mick after Harry loses his Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver in a fist fight.[11] Fans of the movie tried to buy the gun even though it had gone out of production.[12]
• Warlord hero Travis Morgan recovers a .44 Auto Mag from his downed Blackbird and carries it for most of his adventure in Skartaris.[13]
• In A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane, private detective Patrick Kenzie uses an Auto Mag as his sidearm.[14]
• A character named Hiromi from the Cat's Eye anime employs an AutoMag in the second series episode "The Hunter Wore a Badge".
• Richard Camellion of Joseph Rosenberger's Death Merchant book series carried two customized long-barreled .357 Auto Mags on most of his missions for the CIA.[15]
• Beverly Hills Cop II features a .44 Auto Mag as a plot point, stating that the rounds for it are too expensive to manufacture, so someone must be modifying .308 rifle casings to reload for the AutoMag.[16]
• The playable operators Nomad and Kaid in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege use the Auto Mag Pistol (as the ".44 Mag Semi-Auto") as their secondary weapon. The weapon comes with a 3x magnification scope pre-attached for longer-range engagements.
• The gun can be found in the game Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony.
• The protagonist Lincoln Clay can find and obtain this gun and use it in the game Mafia III. It is referred to as the "Clipper .44" in-game and is a highly effective high-caliber handgun in-game. The player can find it in certain locations, obtain it as a favor for giving the Irish mob neighborhoods as territory, or bought at a high price later in the game.
• In Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, a rare Auto Mag with a telescopic sight can be used by the player. The gun appears as the "Krivosk-XS" and has also been patched into Uncharted 4: A Thief's End multiplayer.
• The weapon is featured in Resident Evil 7 as the "44 Mag."
• In Resident Evil Village, the weapon can be acquired as an unlockable in the Duke's shop after completing the game in New Game+ mode, and it stands out as the weapon with the highest damage in the game when fully upgraded.
• In The Outer Worlds, the weapon can be found with gold, engraved plating and is named the Auto-Mag Pistol.

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• Official website