So we got a cool surprise: My friend Mr. Wildey is here.
This is a .45 WinMag
Wildey Survivor
And we are going to do some video on this mechanically, how it works, because it's an interesting gun;
it's gas operated, and it's just a hand cannon of a pistol; but first
I figured it'd be fun to actually take it to a quasi-practical shooting event, so I am here today at a
Backup gun match at the Pima pistol club run by my friend, Aaron, and this is a match
that's kind of well-suited to a totally impractical gun like this;
because the course of fire is typically five to maybe ten rounds per stage, and they're interesting close range stages.
It's actually a really neat match, so we're gonna go through four stages,
you'll get each little stage description and see what it's like to actually run this behemoth in a competition.
Welcome to Stage 3
The scenario, I'm calling it a 3 3 3 option drill, and the way this works is: There's a start box here,
there's this path backwards to retreat to this position of cover, and there's of course the position of cover, more or less.
So, this "Start" position is basically standing in the start box. You're facing downrange and your handgun is gonna be held at a low-ready in your weak hand.
So, weak hand only. At the signal you may engage targets in any of, or all of, the following ways:
"A": You can engage each target with one round only from the start position weak hand only okay, so one shot at each target
No more than three total.
"B" is: You can engage each target, with one round only,
strong hand while retreating; so you can be retreating strong hand shooting at each target one shot per target. That's it.
And lastly, "C": You can engage each target with one round only from behind
basically cover; but behind these barriers, basically behind this line
I'm standing on right here; and again one round at each target maximum from this position,
and you can shoot freestyle, so two hands, however you want to do it.
You could only fire three rounds from any of the three shooting positions,
and you don't have to use them all, you can obviously choose and if you think you shoot really well
weak-hand up front, then just retreat to here to fire three shots from here, that's fine, too.
[Rangemaster] Stand by!
{Timer begins}
{Ian fires and it is LOUD}
[Firearm has malfunctioned; sounds of the slide being racked to clear the jam]
[Ian] (faintly) That's not how it's supposed to work!
{Sounds of the firearm being made ready to fire}
{Another shot}
{Another failure to feed properly, more slide racking}
[Ian] This is a great gun!
[Rangemaster] Just throw it at 'em! [Ian] It's double-fed it a second time.
[Ian] Alright we'll just stop there. [RM] Pick it up and throw it!
[Ian] Yep, I think we'll just stop there.
You must engage a close target, without time to take a sight picture, and then engage the remaining threats freestyle.
So you'll start standing behind the conduit here,
your hands at the two-and-ten position; your handgun is going to be loaded in the middle of the conduit pointed safely downrange.
Just make sure you can still reach it.
At the signal, shooter will acquire their handgun, engage paper target with gun inside conduit
Shooter's line-of-sight over the top so you're gonna have your gun in the conduit, and you're gonna be looking over the conduit
So you're not gonna have a sight picture, gonna be firing kind of just point shooting
Get a look at the target and see where your hits are going to.
So
Once satisfied with your initial engagement, once you're done with the paper,
you can step back and engage the steel targets from behind the table here, and you can do that freestyle, two hands,
However you feel like.
[RM] Hot, eyes and ears
[Chatter in the background; someone giggles]
[RM] Shooter's ready, stand by
{Timer begins}
{Ian fires}
{Another shot}
{Slapping the slide back into battery}
{Another shot}
[RM] Nicely done. [Ian] Where's the giggler!?
All right, so we'll be using blue guns on this stage, in the stage 2
Scenario here is equivalent looking threats must be engaged depending on their reaction to hits.
So you'll start standing behind the barrel,
handgun loaded on the barrel pointed safely downrange, and the blue gun will be in your position of choice.
At the signal,
You'll simulate your draw with a blue gun exchange and engage each target with one hit each, so you got to get a hit on
Each before returning to re-engage any target that has not gone down with its first hit.
So very straightforward
they're set up so they're different; so they, some will go down easy some will go down hard and
even I don't know which ones yet, so we'll find out as we start shooting.
So once you get a hit on each
Then feel free to come back and clean up what's left standing and try to get the max points you can.
[RM] Shooter's ready, stand by
{Timer begins}
[Ian] Drop the Nikon!
[Ian fires]
{Another shot}
[RM] Alright! [Spectator] What do you think, you wanna re-engage?
[Ian] Nope, I'm good.
[RM] Get 'em while they're down!
An attacker has snatched your backup gun from behind,
and you must react to recover your weapon. Retreat to cover and engage the remaining threats. You will start kneeling, one or both knees
up range of barrel stack
Facing up range, hands at side blue gun on top of top barrel
Handgun loaded on table, pointed safely downrange and towards the side berm so it's not pointing this way.
All right
At signal you will kick or otherwise knock over the bottom barrel, very important the bottom barrel, recover the blue gun wherever it falls,
then move to the table
Exchange with the blue gun and engage all the targets from cover or behind the table.
Note: If the bottom barrel does not tip over shooter we'll see you a five-second penalty
[RM] Are you ready? [Ian] Yep.
[RM] Shooter's ready, stand by
{Timer begins} [Ian] He took my Wildey!
[Crowd shouting encouragement]
{Ian fires}
{Another shot}
[Crowd laugh as steel target topples over]
[Crowd chatter as Ian reloads]
{Another shot}
So
Unfortunately, I had some serious issues with malfunctioning on this thing. I did, about halfway through the match,
I took some time out and went to try and adjust the gas system and when I was test firing, it ran okay;
but then I went back to the last two stages and ended up with that same issue on every single round,
so I don't know exactly what that is, it may very well be
related to the fact that I'm using soft points that just don't feed well in pistols like this.
At any rate what I can definitely tell you is this thing has some serious
knockdown power, as like literally knocking down steel targets;
there was the one stage where those three targets were supposed to be balanced differently so they wouldn't go down and
they all just BAM
right down with this thing.
Interestingly if it weren't for the malfunctions this thing's actually not that slow to shoot. I think the compensator helps a little bit
It is wildly impractical to actually carry. One major thing
I learned about this gun by running it in a competition like this, is that this is entirely made of sharp corners
banging the back of the slide into battery, I was
expecting every time that I was gonna end up with blood on my hand.
The back of the slide is all sharp; it's all made of sharp edges, it's...
This is a pistol that's meant to be fired slowly and intermittently, not in rapid strings, so...
Still I think this is probably about the only footage you'll find out there of a Wildey Survivor in a
relatively high speed match, so, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
We'll do a little bit more serious mechanical and historical look at the Wildey coming up a little bit later,
take it apart, show you how the gas system works, interchangeable barrels, all that sort of stuff. Until then, thanks for watching.
Tune in tomorrow for another Forgotten Weapon.