GUNS/BARMS

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Thanks - Semi Auto .454 Casull

The Wildey survivor: a man-sized magnum semiauto pistol

In the modern era of action movies, both good and bad guys have been armed with a Desert Eagle and Dirty Harry used both the Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum and the .44 Auto Mag to good effect. Remember how difficult it was to find a Smith .44 Magnum after Dirty Harry arrived? However, for effect, no one has ever topped Paul Kersey.

harles Bronson as Paul Kersey helped rid the big city of bad guys using a Smith & Wesson double action .32 in the movie Death Wish. By Death Wish III, there were so many bad guys Kersey found it necessary to take a great step up in power as he introduced the evil ones to his "friend Wildey." Wildey was the type of friend that never lets a fellow down; Wildey was his street and alley cleaner chambered in .475 Wildey Magnum. I lost track of how many bad guys Kersey's friend eliminated. It was surely the longest-running gunfight until the recent Western movie, Open Range. Wildey Moore, owner of Wildey, says every time Death Wish III shows up on cable, he gets orders for his .475 Wildey Magnum.

Who Do You Trust?

Wildey J. Moore first introduced his Wildey Magnum autoloading pistol in the 1970s with that first example chambered in the then relatively new .45 Winchester Magnum or, as it is most commonly referred to, the .45 Win Mag. As so often happens with new gunmaking ventures, Moore found the operation consumed money faster than I can make a pepperoni pizza disappear. More money had to be raised so Wildey issued stock. Unfortunately for him, he trusted the wrong people and soon found himself with only 25 percent of the stock. Other stockholders banded together and he was forced out of the company. What the controllers did not understand was a very simple fact: Without Wildey there was no Wildey Magnum and within a year they declared bankruptcy. That was 1983 and it would take several years for Wildey to regain control of his own company.

The Really Big Bores Arrive

During those intervening years Wildey designed a new cartridge for his Wildey Magnum, the .475 WM (Wildey Magnum). The timing could not be better as this was the same time shooters were really becoming interested in very powerful big-bore cartridges such as the .454 Casull and John Linebaugh's .475 and .500 sixgun cartridges. For his .475, Wildey trimmed .284 Winchester brass back to just under 1.300" loading it with 250- and 300-grain bullets at 1,800 and 1,600 feet per second making it a true powerhouse pistol. Since the .284 Winchester has same rim size as the .45 ACP/.45 Win Mag, the original .45 Wildey Magnum was already set up to accept the new chambering.

Today Wildey, Inc. is up, running and healthy providing Wildey Magnums in the original .45 Win Mag as well as the .475 Wildey Magnum, the .44 Auto Mag, and the newest offering the .45 Wildey Magnum, which is the .475 necked down to .45 caliber. All four calibers use the same size rim (with the .44 being based on the .308 Winchester case) and are offered in barrel lengths of 8", 10", 12", 14", and 18" with the latter available as a carbine version. In addition to these options, the .45 Win Mag and .44 Auto Mag chambering are also offered in easier to carry 5", 6", and 7" versions. Make no mistake, these are not lightweight, easy-packin' pistols considering they weigh in excess of four pounds. They are also necessarily large and when I grip the Wildey the tip of my thumb just barely reaches the tip of my middle finger. This is not a problem, at least for me, as shooting the Wildey is a two-handed proposition.

Several versions of the Wildey Magnum are also offered such as the Survivor, Survivor Guardsman, Hunter, and Hunter Guardsman, as well as a long-barreled Silhouette Pistol. The Guardsman examples have triggerguards with a squared off front instead of the traditional rounded profile. All Wildey Magnums offer interchangeable barrels, interchangeable front sight blades, fully adjustable sights, and even the ability to interchange calibers. Grips are checkered walnut and at first glance I expected the recoil to be such the checkering would eat my hand alive; it does not.

Unique Features

There are several unique features found on the Wildey Magnum, which, by the way, is of all stainless steel construction polished bright, except for the matte finish found on the Hunter versions. The sighting system features a full-length ventilated barrel rib and, unlike other large caliber semi-automatics, the Wildey Magnum has a double-action trigger mechanism coupled with a hammer block, trigger block, and rebounding firing pin. If the pistol is cocked and one decides not to fire, a lever on the left side de-cocks the Wildey Magnum.

The Wildey Magnum is a gas operated, semiautomatic and here's where it really gets interesting. The Wildey pistol is able to handle all of the above cartridges in their full-house loading as well as lighter loads and still operate reliably due to the uniqueest (yes I know there is no such word, however it certainly describes the situation) feature of the Wildey Magnum. Wildey says, "the Wildey patented gas system is an air-hydraulic piston powered by the firing gases through six small holes in the barrel. This piston forces the slide rearward, initiating the cycling of the pistol."

Just forward of the receiver is a round knurled button of sorts that tapers to the front to become the same basic size as the barrel. This is the gas regulator. As Wildey says, opening or closing the gas regulator adds just the degree of "kick" the piston gives the slide. Reducing this kick slows down the slide, while increasing it forces the slide to move faster. If the slide does not move fast enough it will not reach its farthest rearward travel and does not pick up the next cartridge in the magazine. Different barrel lengths also require differing amounts of gas pressure. So in effect, with the gas regulator, each shooter is able to custom tune his Wildey Magnum to the power of the cartridge.

To regulate the gas operation, cartridges are loaded singly and directly into the chamber, this requires the magazine to be inserted as the Wildey has a magazine disconnect safety, and as each round is fired the gas regulator is adjusted until the slide stop locks the slide open. Once this is determined, a full magazine should then be fired and if any cartridges do not feed because of short recoil of the slide, the regulator is turned counterclockwise one more click.

No Brass Kickin' Here!

I found a great advantage to this system to be custom regulating. I do not like to chase brass. By setting the gas regulator at the right level and putting the empty magazine in place I could feed cartridges one at a time directly into the chamber and the brass would not extract fully even though the slide was locked open. A shake of the gun and the cartridge would drop out exactly where I wanted it to land. Then when using the magazine I could re-set the regulator so cartridges would feed and extract reliably. Very handy! In fact I could set it so almost every cartridge ejected would land in my shirt pocket. Now that is really handy!!

The Potent .45 Win Mag

The .45 Winchester Magnum finally arrived in the late 1970s after a couple years of teasing us with several announcements about its soon-to-arrive status. Shorter than either the .44 Magnum or .45 Colt, it is basically an elongated .45 ACE which is fine. However, it was handicapped at the start by only being offered with the same 230-grain Full Metal Jacket bullet as the .45 ACP. Even though factory loads were in the .44 Magnum level traveling at approximately 1,400 fps, the 230-grain FMJ was not what most people would choose as a hunting bullet.

Personally, before shooting the Wildey, I have had experience with the .45 Winchester Magnum in all three basic handgun types, revolver, semi-automatic, and single-shot. Those three were the Dan Wesson .460, the AMT AutoMag and LAR Grizzly and the Thompson/Center Contender. With proper loads and bullets it has proven to be both an accurate and sufficiently powerful cartridge for handgun hunting.

For test-firing the 10" barreled .45 Win Mag chambered Wildey Survivor, I used three factory loads I had on hand. Those loads are Black Hills 250-grain JHP with a muzzle velocity of 1,407 fps, Cor-Bon's 230-grain FMJ at 1,471 fps, and Winchester's 260-grain JHP at 1,353 fps. Accuracy was excellent with the first two in my hands, placing four shots in 1 1/2" and Winchester's load coming in just under 1". For a big-bore pistol at this stage of my life that is outstanding performance. One of the really positive attributes of the Wildey Survivor and a major factor in coming up with excellent accuracy is the fact the sights are big, bold and black, making them much easier for me to see. The Wildey Survivor can also be scoped using a Wildey base, however it requires drilling and tapping the ventilated rib. If I were to use it for hunting other than close range--50 yards or less--I would definitely scope it. In addition to the scope base, Wildey also offers loading dies, ammunition--except for the .45 Win Mag, which is readily available--and custom leather for each of the Wildey Magnums.

WILDEY, INC.

45 Angevine Road, Warren CT 06754 
 [phone], www.wildeyguns.com. 
  
 ACTION TYPE:      Double action semiauto 
 CALIBER:          .45 Win Mag (Also .44 Auto 
                   Mag, .45 Wildey Magnum, 
                   .475 Wildey Magnum) 
 CAPACITY:         6+1 
 BARREL LENGTH:    10" (tested, others available) 
 OVERALL LENGTH:   14" 
 WEIGHT:           72 ounces 
 FINISH:           Polished stainless steel 
 SIGHTS:           Adjustable rear, ramp front on 
                   ventilated ribbed barrel 
 GRIPS:            Checkered Walnut 
 PRICE:            $1,549.95

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