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Dan Coonan first designed his pistol in graduate school as a drafting project: a 1911 pistol chambered for the .357 Magnum cartridge. No easy feat, designing a self-loading pistol magazine to cycle a big rimmed revolver cartridge! This was in 1977, and he went about creating a business to manufacture them a few years later with the first guns available in 1983. The company lasted until 1998, and then a new firm (Coonan Inc) was reformed in 2009 and lasted again until 2019.
The Coonan .357 Magnum Automatic is essentially just a 1911 pistol stretched for the new cartridge, but there are a number of more subtle design changes made to improve its reliability, accuracy, and manufacturability. An external extractor was used, and shortly after production began the barrel link was replaced by a fixed cam (like the High Power). Today the guns are out of production (total production was something like 10,000 examples), but have a reputation for excellent accuracy and reliability, belying the difficulty of their core design.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle 36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
At Forgotten Weapons I think the most interesting guns out there are the most obscure ones. I try to search out experimental and prototype weapons and show you how they work, in addition to more conventional guns that you may not have heard of before. You’re much more likely to find a video on the Cei Rigotti or Webley-Fosbery here than an AR or Glock. So, do you want to learn about something new today? Then stick around!