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I am sorry we have been slow on our updates as of late, we have just been so busy getting things in place. We are in the middle of completing the function fire test and we have learned a great deal about the service life of our parts and how they work together. It will probably take a few more weeks to complete our testing cycle for the Auto Mag. In the meantime, we are ramping up the production line to try to hit our production goal of 100 Auto Mags per month by September. (Yes, I said production in September!)

Shown below is an X-Ray of the Auto Mag we took to see the relationships and confirm the fitment of the parts.



At this time, we have usable frame castings, yet we are continuing to make improvements to reduce the handwork involved in producing finished frames on our end. We believe we will be able to increase our production rate with each new iteration of the castings we receive. Click the image below or here to see a time-lapse video of the frame machining.



Our polishers have gotten their processes and machines dialed in and have produced some of the most beautifully polished uppers I have ever seen. They are so reflective they can be used as a mirror. The iPhone picture below does not do them justice.



Our air compressor system is no longer sufficient to operate all our equipment simultaneously. We are in the process of installing a 75-horsepower system which should be up and running in a week. Once installed, this will help us increase our production.



We have currently moved one employee from part-time to full time and have hired a second full-time employee. We are always looking for more good machinists and if you know of any good candidates please send an e-mail to: rob@automag.com.

Finally, I want to thank all of you for your trust and your patience.

Patrick Henry III

I apologize for not posting in a while. We have been busy setting up the Loris factory and dealing with the hurricane damage and damaged equipment that had to be replaced.

Thought I would give you guys an update. I will do my best to keep it short. lol

The frame porosity issues have been resolved. The frame casting company has worked very hard to produce the finest AutoMag frame casting I have ever seen. We are not using a back yard casting company. These guys are some of the best in the business, firearms savvy and we were lucky to have them work us into their busy schedule.

The pistol I am firing in the video is one of our own newly produced pistols assembled in the Loris factory. It has the following features.

1. A 55 grain titanium firing pin. I was able to reproduce the inertial out of battery firing with the old original design 75 grain steel firing pin by pointing the pistol downward with a round in the chamber and dropping the bolt (bad idea on any firearm). Reproducing this out of battery firing condition supported the claims of many AutoMag owners who adamantly stated that their pistol blew up when chambering the last round in the magazine. The bolt when forward cessation of movement occurs will sometimes allow the heavier firing pin to contact a primer with enough energy to ignite a sensitive primer before the locking lugs have time to engage. This out of battery inertial firing has destroyed many AutoMag pistols over the years and explains the many original bolts we saw with sheared rear cams but good bolt locking lugs. We have NOT been able to cause any inertial primer detonations during testing just about every commercially available primer with the titanium firing pin no matter how hard and often we tried.

2. The new bolt is made from 8620 steel that is fluted and electroless nickel boron plated. The bolt has a redesigned magazine clearance cut that allows the use of a magazine with a higher elevation in the pistol which presents more cartridge case head to the bolt ring to minimize the nose diving of the bullet into the feed ramp. The stamping press is up and running and we should have the elevated magazines rolling out very soon. In the videos posted today I am using a non elevated magazine with a two piece follower that totally eliminates the follower pin bite in the follower pin slot in the magazine and helps correct some of the stacked tolerance issues of the tapered .44amp casing. The flutes on the bolt are only deep enough to lessen the surface contact area of the bolt with the bolt ring which makes the bolt glide chatter free and slick as a whistle through the bolt ring. The 8620 bolt also cures the metallurgical bolt lug failures which plagued the old original AutoMag pistols. There is now more longitudal bolt lug thickness and dovetailed cams on the rear of the bolt to resist shear forces.

3. I had observed in working with the AutoMag pistols that both old and new pistols would run fine with three or four rounds in the magazine consistently but if more rounds were inserted into the magazine the bolt would fail to lock up and or be unreliable in returning to battery. This was due to the increased pressure exerted onto the bottom of the bolt which increases in direct relation to the number of rounds in the magazine and strength of the magazine spring thereby inhibiting the rotation spring from briskly rotating the bolt into battery which caused severe bolt bounce and increased the chance of an inertial out of battery occurrence or just a simple failure of the bolt to rotate into battery. I found a way to take advantage of the magazine spring pressure to assist the lockup of the bolt by making a cut on the underside of the bolt which acts as a cam interacting with the top round in the magazine to pressure the bolt into battery. The result of this modification was extraordinary. The bolt rotates into battery with 100% reliability with no bolt bounce regardless of the number of rounds in the magazine. As rounds are expended out of the magazine less pressure is exerted on the bottom of the bolt cam locking cut and the rotation spring is able to better deal with bolt rotation into battery and still be lightly assisted by the magazine spring pressure. Truly amazing development that has turned the pistol into a reliably functioning firearm. The pistols will fire with the new modified accelerator 240 grain rounds running from 1000fps all the way to 1450 fps out of the 8.5 inch barrel with no issues.

4. The Jesus clips are finally gone. We are now using reinforced snap rings that absolutely will not pop off. A set of snap ring pliers will be available from AutoMag Corp for those who want to be able to completely disassemble their pistols.

5. You can now remove the accelerator from the pistol without having to drive out the pressed pin from the accelerator block. You simply remove the upper from the frame and slip the accelerator out. This allows you to clean the accelerator and accelerator pocket area simply by spraying out the area with Gun Scrubber or any similar product.

6. The cocking piece now stops on the back end of the recoil tubes. In the past the forward cessation of bolt movement was by slamming into back of the barrel which caused terrible bolt bounce or would stop on the back of a cartridge casing if the casing was trimmed a little long. When the bolts were allowed to slam into the back of the barrel the bolt lugs would imprint into the back of the barrel and this further inhibited clean lockup as the bolt had to reverse motion to climb out of the imprint area. Our tolerances allows the bolt to stop in the same location every time. Your trim length is 1.296 to 1.298. This allows the pistol 1.5 thousandths lug space with zero to two thousandths headspace. Accuracy is improved and lug battering is kept to the bare minimum which extends service life.

The reason the same magazine was used over and over was to test the 17-7ph magazines ability to withstand the recoil forces exerted by the cartridges on the feed lips and the magazines ability to withstand rough handling without changes in feed lip geometry and gauge reliability degradation. This magazine has fed thousands of rounds and is finally going down hill but much later than I expected. The guy in the video loading the magazine is Chris. He has only been with us a couple of months but is showing great promise as a firearms design engineer. He is young, loves firearms and is driven to succeed. What a pleasure to work with him.

We have compiled hours of high speed video. By focusing the camera on the ejection port while firing these videos debunked the theory that cartridges were bouncing down in the magazine and were unable to be picked up by the bolt ring. The issue was caused by the bolt moving forward with the cartridge head extremely low on the bolt ring to the point the bolt ring would slide over the rim of the case and the bolt lugs would contact the case rim, move the cartridge forward and jam the pistol. You can see from the posted videos that the magazine is perfectly capable of feeding the pistol when firing rapidly. To be honest by counting frames filming at 10000 frames per second the magazine is capable of feeding the pistol at nearly 1200 rounds per minute. We also used high speed video to calculate bolt acceleration with different bullet weights, pressure curves, burn rates and accelerated bolt and barrel extension rearward velocities. You could watch the moment when the accelerator would strike the accelerator bolt lug and the bolt would take off like a rocket the moment before the barrel extension came to a stop.The high speed video was invaluable in separating myth from reality and led to the discovery of previously unknown issues.

Some of the delivery delay is entirely my fault. I simply would not sign off on what I felt was unsafe or unreliable. When you pull the trigger on any magnum pistol generating these pressures you are basically setting off a stick of dynamite (exaggerated to drive the point home) a couple of feet away from your body and on a short recoil accelerator assisted design like this you are moving considerable mass (recoiling parts) rearward at speed towards your face and you want to shoot the pistol not eat it.

In the last video you will see me strike the back of the cocking piece with my palm. That hiccup is entirely my fault. I am somewhat heavy handed and when I slammed the magazine into the pistol I did it with such force that it caused the top round in the mag to be captured in a bind between the feed lips. Quick smack of the palm got her back in action.

Also Bob Barbasiewicz wanted me to convey his best wishes to the members of the forum. We have become very good telephone buddies and he has been a great help filling in the missing history and I enjoy every minute I spend talking with him. This man doesn't get the credit he deserves in the development of the AutoMag. When Bob left AutoMag he went to work for Rocketdyne designing rocket motors for ballistic missiles and space travel. What a great guy! His mind is sharp as a tack and he is certainly one of the most intelligent engineers I have had the pleasure of knowing. We hope to work together on a gas operated AutoMag design in the future.

I would like to personally thank Bruce Stark, Larry Grossman, desertmoon, Bob Barbasiewicz and Mark Lovendale (now deceased) for their patience and encouragement throughout this undertaking. Patrick Henry has certainly done the almost impossible feat of resurrecting the AutoMag. Hats off to you Patrick but remember you still owe me quite a few chicken boxes.lol

Again I apologize for the delays and this long winded post. I have done the very best I was capable of, have no regrets, made some great friends and probably a couple of enemies but feel it is finally over and now I can move on.

Fifty of the latest version of the frames started being poured last Friday. We should receive them by the end of next week and start machining and tapping them for final assembly. As soon as we confirm these frame are correct they will start the next batch of 150. With no issues we could be assembling them over the following two weeks.

In closing...
Once we complete the first 50 we will start offering the opportunity to purchase guns in order that you have signed up. Initially we will probably only sell them in batches of 100. You will be allowed 24 hours to order if you don’t respond we will assume that you are passing.

AndyC wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:04 pm... I have all the components/dies to make ammo; I'm just waiting on the email where they ask which FFL I'm going to use (a friend's father).

EL29jm wrote:...surely over $3500 was absolutely insane for one of the new AutoMags. So I ordered one

EL29jm wrote:From what I understand, the Auto Mag Ltd. is now taking orders, and money, if you were on their waiting list, signed up. Looks like for those who are interested their wait is over to purchase one. Just some time to manufacture them. Congratulations to Andy for snagging one of the Founders Edition. Hope yours arrive soon, want to see pictures, will be a nice edition to your collection.

We made good on our promise to you... the first six (6) of the new .44 Auto Mag Founders Edition pistols are leaving the factory headed out today. We are honored that together we made it happen. We could not have done it without your trust.

It has been almost three years since we acquired the assets of Auto Mag Corp. We have worked hard and spent a great deal of time and money to make sure what we produce is mechanically far superior to the original Auto Mag but retains that same look and feel.

These first six will be followed by another 14 in the next few days and we expect by early February every one will have their new baby. They are being shipped in the order of your commitment.

Also, look for another email explaining when the Classic will be available for pre-order. We have already produced more than 200 of each part except for the barrels. We are waiting on additional barrels blanks.