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it's a coonan. never heard of it or have seen it before. it seems a few guys who has been around are aware of them and they seem to have a bit of a cult following. im drinking the kool aid myself right now. it's like a mash up of a couple of guns I want. but also had the price tag of multiple guns i want.

I'm not attracted to the grizzly or the desert eagle in .357 but this one really looks like my kinda hand cannon. even throws a mean flame when it shoots. looks like it's built like a tank and should be at 42oz empty.

www.coonaninc.com

Back in the mid to late 80's the Coonan was very well received in the shooting world ... having a rimmed cartridge it had a very tight seal in the chamber and the velocity from the .357 ammo was a fair bit higher than from a comparable revolver ... it also functioned very well and the example we had at our gun club was very popular. It only had the one mag though ... otherwise I and a few others may well have bought it ... but the ability to get spare mags was not easy back then.

The owner of the club was the guy who brought it back in to the U.K. and it was one of the first over here ... we had a good number of serious shooters back then at the club ... many on the international competition circuit and all of us liked it ... Bob Dunkerly shot with us back then ( former world Pratical Pistol Champion ) and he could shoot some very tight groups with it ... it had exceptional accuracy, as good as my 9mm Sig P210 and the club's 6 inch .357 Python ... and from later shooting a Desert Eagle the ergonomics on the Coonan were much better and so were the groups ... it is a great handling piece ...

The company started to get into financial trouble and was wound up IIRC ... and these became rare pistols ... the next time I saw one was in South Africa ... almost perfect for over there as it could handle personal defense just as good as wild-life defense ... and the guy who had one had enough mags to make it work in both roles ...

Again IIRC one querk was the mag was a real hard one to load ... very tough spring for the last rounds and fiddly because of the rim on the case ... a pin for the mag follower was really needed ... but the pistol was a great bit of gunsmithing ... more or less custom quality because of the small operation. Well worth getting one if they have started doing them again ... perhaps the only .357 Magnum semi auto which is worth it IMO ... as a one gun pistol for a hunter/self defense requirement it is a great choice ... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />


Dan Coonan has been, of late making FAL receivers. He started doing some gunsmith/manufacture work for FAC back in the 90's and 2000's when his own company had taken a bit of a hit.

Coonan does good work. His FAL receivers are about on par with Imbel or DSA. His .357 auto was well thought of back in the 80's when it was introduced.


[color:"red"]Hey man! There's a beverage involved here...


JYD#92[/color]