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Charles Bronson Gun

boykinlp

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Last weekend, while flipping through the channels, I stopped on the movie "Death Wish 3" for a while. I had watched it years ago. Even though it was terrible acting, even for a movie like this, I enjoyed looking at the real star...........the .475 Wildey Magnum.:cool: That thing is a beast! Anybody here have one or ever shoot one? I have never even seen one in person. Pretty Cool!!!!
 
The synopsis for that movie ALWAYS says "Charles Bronson gets a mail order gun to even the playing field with thugs in the Bronx."

MAIL ORDER!!??
_______________________
I don't have Alzheimer's- My wife had me tested.
 
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Don't know if I'll ever get all that smoke out of my monitor! :D
 
I worked with a guy in the eighties who had one. He bought it because of this movie. There wasn't a indoor range locally that would let him shoot it and back then it was a buck a round.
 
Didn't Clint Eastwood use a Wildey in "Sudden Impact?"

AMT .44 Automag. http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Sudden_Impact

600px-DH4AutoMag-6.jpg
 
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I was in a LGS several years ago when a man took delivery of several on-line purchases. A 4" and around 8" 500 S&W's, a 44 Auto Mag and a 475 Wildey. The store had just got in a New England Firearms single shot 500 S&W rifle so he took that also. I don't know if ammo came with guns but there were about 200 rounds for each caliber. I found it to be a pleasure to help carry stuff to his car! Ivan
 
I read up on the Wildey on Wiki and it seems there weren't too awfully many made due to one type of problem or another but they sure did look like a cool gun. The price alone though would keep me from owning one. The 44 auto-mag Eastwood used was always intriguing to me too. There again price would have kept me away.
 
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I know I saw the original Death Wish, in the theater when it first came out. IIRC He used a 32 Smith & Wesson presentation piece that was given to him by a client. No mention was made regarding how he got it back to NY, I don't think, but then all that would have been pretty boring, even to me.

I'm pretty sure I've at least seen bits and pieces of the other two, but don't remember anything about them.
 
... No mention was made regarding how he got it back to NY, I don't think, but then all that would have been pretty boring, even to me...
The original movie was made in 1974, long before metal detectors and x-ray machines were commonly used to screen people and luggage in airports. I think he just stuck the boxed revolver in his suitcase or even his carry-on.

Of course this was just a movie, but I think it reflected the reality of airline security at the time, which does seem pretty loose by today's standards.
 
The original movie was made in 1974, long before metal detectors and x-ray machines were commonly used to screen people and luggage in airports. I think he just stuck the boxed revolver in his suitcase or even his carry-on.

Of course this was just a movie, but I think it reflected the reality of airline security at the time, which does seem pretty loose by today's standards.

That would be my guess, but I suspect even then he SHOULD have had it transfered to a FFL in his state, then filled out the 4473 and whatever paperwork and other hoops NY/NYC would have required. (That was also the era of highjacking to Cuba, and B.D. Cooper, so it may have been against the rules if not the law, to carry a handgun on an airplane then too.)

Of course even then that would have taken six months to six years.
 
That would be my guess, but I suspect even then he SHOULD have had it transfered to a FFL in his state, then filled out the 4473 and whatever paperwork and other hoops NY/NYC would have required. (That was also the era of highjacking to Cuba, and B.D. Cooper, so it may have been against the rules if not the law, to carry a handgun on an airplane then too.)

Of course even then that would have taken six months to six years.
Oh, heavens to Betsy, yes! Mr. Kersey did not observe the process of the law, to put it mildly!

But then, that is the point of the whole movie, isn't it?
 
The original movie was made in 1974, long before metal detectors and x-ray machines were commonly used to screen people and luggage in airports. I think he just stuck the boxed revolver in his suitcase or even his carry-on.

Of course this was just a movie, but I think it reflected the reality of airline security at the time, which does seem pretty loose by today's standards.

IIRC, the character Aimes Jainchill, (portrayed by Stuart Margolin, who also played "Angel" Martin on The Rockford Files) who gifted the gun to Kersey, asked him if he was checking a particular suitcase, and when he said yes, he deposited a gift-wrapped package into that suitcase...telling Kersey it was a little gift, to thank him for his work.

At that point, Kersey had no inkling of what was contained in the gift-wrapped box, and didn't discover that it held a gun until he was back home. Obviously, jumping through all of the bureaucratic hoops would have made it easier for the police to have suspected Kersey more quickly as the "Vigilante".

Tim
 
I saw a .475 Wildey once at a gun show about 5-6 years ago. The guy had a couple of pics of Bronson with the same model gun (the one he was selling was exactly like the one in the film) and it was huge. The Wildey is actually from what I have been told a great hunting handgun but never heard of anyone actually doing so. I think it was hopeful that the movie was going to do for it what Dirty Harry did for the Smith & Wesson Model 29. It really didn't do anything for it. I think the guy was asking something like $1,000 if I recall. I do remember the thing making a Desert Eagle look small though.
 

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