Confusing the names is very easy to do, especially if you aren't very familiar with them or have a picture handy to see the obvious differences.
the thread I linked to has pictures of both and you can clearly see the differences.
The LAR Grizzly is a bit unique among the magnum autos, a lot of the parts are said to interchange with 1911A1 parts (some clearly will not), and, from what I've heard, is the only one that went out of production due to the corporation deciding to drop production to use their resources on other items, and not because of poor sales or some other reason.
The companies that produced Auto Mags all went under due to combinations of mismanagement, difficult and expensive production, low public acceptance at the time, and I even heard one went under due to employee embezzelement (though I have nothing other than a rumor of that). And the fact that no major US ammo company produced ammo didn't help at all.
Wildey went away, I don't know exactly why, Coonan also went away, but came back a few years ago, though I think the virus shut them down again. Don't know if its for good, or not.
Which leaves us with only the Desert Eagle in current production, and sadly, in many ways the DE is the worst of the lot. Not a matter of anything wrong with them, more a matter of not enough of the right things being "right".
Or, right enough to make me happy. In particular, the grip is horrid. To be fair, my experience is all with the old originals, now called the Mark I, so the new guns might be a little better in some ways, I haven't tried them. I have had 5 Mark Is, and still have two, one .357 and one .44 Mag.
The Auto Mag never stayed in production long enough for them to get all the bugs out, and some of the design absolutely should have been done differently for ease of manufacture and durability. I hope the reborn version does better. From the article I can see some improvements have been made. Sadly, I cannot at this time justify the price of a new one. To get the first one I got, I took out a loan, it cost more than the car I was driving at the time (83). I could, perhaps, do that again, but now I'm retired, on a fixed and rather small income, and I just don't have the passion I once did, since I do have 3.
If I had never had an Auto Mag, I'd be all over getting one of the new ones, but today, I can't do it. IF you've never had one, think you might want one, and have the scratch, DO IT! you might find a wonderful thing, or you might not like it, but if you get one, you will know, and not have to spend the rest of your life wondering.
A couple of tips, if you do get one, NEVER drop a round into the chamber and let the bolt slam shut on it.
Don't let the bolt slam shut on an empty chamber.
And cocking the gun is TOUGH, best to cock the hammer, firmly hold the cocking ears and push the frame forward, smartly. It gets a little easier with practice, but its never easy, and not everyone can do it. My wife, for example did try a few times, and physically could not do it.
It's not a gun for everyone. Its not even a gun for every experienced shooter. Someone once described them as being like a motorcycle that would do 180mph, but couldn't do less than 60...
When Coonan reappeared on the market a few years back, their ads included a phrase I thought both true and accurate. They said..
"If you're looking for your first pistol, this ISN'T it!"
Goes double for the Auto Mag.
