AWA 357, How good is it?

[Bernie Link]

I picked up an American Western Arms (Longhorn) 357 mag. single action only revolver at a gun show last weekend. It's kind of like a Uberti cowboy gun. I understand they are no longer made because of an issue with the Colt company. I don't know anything about the gun and would appreciate any feedback on it. Thanks, Bernie

[DPris]

The AWA story is long & interesting, but in a nutshell the company sold Colt clones with parts manufactured by the long defunct Armi San Marco in Italy and assembled at the AWA facility in Florida.

They offered two basic lines- the high-end Peacekeeper and the lesser-grade Longhorn.
The Longhorn got less expensive grips, a lower grade of finish, etc.

Quality varied greatly from gun to gun.
When they put a good one together, it could be a decent gun.
When they didn't, it wasn't.

Parts are generally not interchangeable with Colts & not available anywhere.
Some might be adapted.

I have a stack of papers that are copies of Colt's filing against AWA.
The company was plagued by three different ownership iterations, and between the Colt lawsuit & mismanagement by the third ownership group, AWA finally sold off its dregs to their former "gunsmith", Russell Simpson, who tried to keep it going with a different product line from other sources, but failed.
Denis

[denster]

AWA Made some great single actions. Both the peacekeeper and longhorn came standard with an action job from the factory. The peacekeeper was finished like and as well as any Colt the longhorn was nicely finished but not with the same degree as the peacekeeper. The only drawbacks either had was the hammer spring was too light for some brand of primers and with some the barrel needed turned to bring the sights to shoot to point of aim just like many Colts.
Parts are available from VTI but a better source is E.M.F. as the parts are the same as the Great Western II single action which is made by Pietta and from whom AWA purchased the raw parts and finished them here in the U.S.
I have several, both peacekeepers and longhorns, and shoot them a lot. The longhorns are a bargain as the peacekeepers have escalated considerably in price.

[Bernie Link]

Thanks Denis, I put 50 rounds of 38s through it yesterday & it's a fun shooter. Almost no recoil but it's a heavy gun, got to be about 2.5 lbs, and I was shooting 38s. Thanks again, Bernie

[DPris]

No- I knew people at AWA.
AWA did NOT buy parts from Pietta for the Peacekeeper & Longhorn.

AWA bought Armi San Marco & that's where they got their unassembled guns from till AWA ran ASM into the ground & the third ownership followed.

AWA parts were problematical, and their guns could be too.
Quality was inconsistent.

I had one here that wouldn't rotate the cylinder if the muzzle was pointed up.
Bubbles had two we custom ordered that were bad on arrival. By then AWA was scavenging parts from new guns to repair older guns sent in for repair, and Tom Sargis (well-known SA gunsmith) could salvage one hammer but couldn't get parts to correct other issues. Nothing was available from ASM & nothing from other makers fit.
We had to donate those two guns to the SASS Museum, they were so bad.
Took a sizable loss on 'em.

The last iteration of AWA under Simpson did source his stuff elsewhere, since ASM was dead by then.
I THINK those may have been Pietta.

The Peacekeeper & Longhorn were BOTH ASM.
You MAY be able to adapt some parts from other brands, but those two models were not Pietta.


If you can get ASM parts from VTI that will FIT, consider yourself lucky.
Denis

[denster]

As I said I have several currently and have had others pass on to new owners and never had a bad one.
VTI does not sell ASM parts for AWA they sell Pietta parts for AWA. E.M.F. is a better source because they always have the parts in stock and at a lesser cost.
The parts fit perfectly with only the usual required minimal hand fitting on bolt or hand.
A single action that will not cock when it is pointed upward has a broken hand spring. If that is a reflection on quality then Colts are junk also.
Since parts are readily available and always have been makes me wonder if you have any clue as to what you are talking about.

[DPris]

VTI has an "ASM" parts menu, which is what I referred to.
If some Pietta parts now fit, great.
When we were getting AWA guns in here there was no other source.

If you got several good ones, you were lucky.
Many buyers of older AWA guns didn't.
As I said- quality was variable.

I knew one of the owners, their marketing guy, and one of the guys in the back room at AWA.
Denis

[denster]

Fair enough I like them you don't.

[DPris]

Not a matter of liking or disliking them, it's a matter of answering the original post & supplying info in doing it.

I was introduced to AWA by its original founding owner at SHOT years ago & dealt with two of the ownership groups that followed.

I had several AWA products through here.
I saw the company's decline.

On the parts, it was roughly a couple months before we got the two disastrous custom ordered plated & engraved Peacekeapers that Bubbles had intended to use as her CAS guns that we got a parts catalog from AWA.


Only a couple months later, when we NEEDED to order parts for Sargis to fix what AWA screwed up, we found AWA had no spare parts to be ordered.
I was told by that backroom guy privately that they were scavenging parts from new unassembled guns coming in from ASM to repair customer guns coming in.

Sargis was unable to find anything else that could fit, AWA was unable to provide a new replacement hammer or anything else.

That company was doomed from the point where its founder let it go.
The third ownership/management group was extremely deceptive about what was going on, and after they drove ASM into the ground, it wasn't long after that the dregs were sold to Simpson who limped along with products from other sources.

This is not liking or disliking, this is several years of dealing direct with those people through three different owners, right from the beginning.

AWA bought ASM specifically as an owned-subsidiary to use as sourcing for the Peacekeeper and the Longhorn.

If any of the parts from the ASM section at VTI now fit Peacekeepers & Longhorns, great.
Bernie- I hope you got a good one.
Denster- I don't care whether you like them or not.
Denis

[denster]

And I was merely correcting your misleading information.

[DPris]

I gave no misleading information.
Denis

[Bernie Link]

Great information from you both. Mine works great & I enjoy shooting it. Hopefully I'll never need parts for it. Thanks to both of you guys. I'm amazed at the knowledge on this site. Thanks again, Bernie

[44caliberkid]

I had the Peacemaker in 44-40. Beautifully finished, a real looker, but the arm that advances the cylinder was filed down too short. It would advance the cylinder empty, but once you loaded it, adding the weight of ammunition, it would slip past the notch and not advance the cylinder. Installed and fitted a new one from VTI, then sold it.

[Ibmikey]

I purchased a pair of the Peacekeepers way back when the original owner bought ASM and was finishing/ assembling the pistols here. The two I had were great firearms but that was at my transition point of using Colt’s for cowboy shooting. I also bought an AWA Lightning in .45 cal and ordered a limited edition of 500 engraved Lightning with my SASS badge number as the serial (38 Special) , matching two nickel Colt SAA’s. The Lightning’s are beautifully crafted and the Limited One has excellent wood and hard chrome engraved receiver. The company died a loud and painful death, the Peacekeepers were traded but the Lightning’s are still looking new and providing lots of shooting fun.
The write ups of the day mentioned the purchase of ASM for pistol sourcing quite often.

[DPris]

The Lightning was another debacle for AWA.
They had such problems with those that they had to call in Eldon Penner to help build 'em. Their "gunsmith" had no clue.
Penner could tell you some stories.
Met him at SHOT, discussed his involvement with AWA on the Lightnings, he did not have a high opinion of the operation.

And I was one of those doing the write-ups of the day.
Denis

[Ibmikey]

D pris, My Lightning’s are anything but a “debacle”, I have used both in Cowboy Matches without difficulty and greatly increased speed. I keep the last 4” of a deer antler to shove the cartridges in through the loading gate to save my fingernails but once loaded the little rifles operate like a fine tuned piece of machinery. Bought a Taurus Lightning copy and it would not fire three rounds without a malfunction.
My experience, others may disagree. The engraved AWA was beautifully manufactured from end to end, I would post photos but am unable on this forum.

[DPris]

Ib,
AWA had such severe problems in getting those guns together well enough to function, as I said, that they had to call in Eldon Penner. Google him, he's pretty much "Mr. Lightning".

Many were returned by customers as being non-functional, and it was Penner who saved the program, briefly.
Had it not been for him, you would not be singing the praises of your rifles.

Toward the end of the Globberman ownership/management group, a visitor to the operation thought the sight of the company president assembling a Lightning rifle was a positive thing & wrote about it enthusiastically.
"Looky there- even the company PRESIDENT is a hands-on kinda guy!"

By then, with personnel turnover & lack of competent people to work on what was going out, the sight of a New York lawyer with zero gun experience working on a problematic product was most emphatically NOT a good thing.

Penner was able to fix the Lightning, but by then it was too late for that ownership & they sold what was left of the operation to their in-house "gunsmith", and moved on, leaving lawsuits pending not just with Colt, but elsewhere in Florida.

The Globberman consortium was a New York-based investor group.
They also, when they acquired AWA, bought COWS, the leather & costumery company, from its owner, Sebastian Ramirez.

Globberman was the AWA guy, another partner was going to be the COWS guy, since he had experience in the New York garment industry.
The COWS guy had, as did Globberman, extensive plans.
He was excited, he was experienced, he was knowledgeable, he was willing to listen to those of us who knew more about the CAS market specifically than he did, and he was forced out of his position and their investor group well before he could even get his feet on the ground.
COWS eventually reverted to Sebastian when the Globberman Group let AWA go & left town.

AWA DID manage to get nice Lightnings out.
But the program lost money & was never a successful line for AWA.

You mention the Taurus version, funny.
At that one SHOT SHOW I was standing at the Taurus booth looking the new rifle over & just casually asked the guy standing next to me what he thought of it, since he was looking at one too.

Turned out to be Eldon Penner, I'd never met him before.
The subject of AWA came up & he spent the next 20 minutes telling me about his involvement with AWA & what he'd had to do to save their Lightning.

While we were talking, a friend of his came up, laughing, and told Penner he'd been approaching the Taurus booth, noticed Penner talking to me, and right then heard a guy standing nearby tell a colleague "Oh oh, there's Eldon, let's get outa here!", and hurriedly walked off in the opposite direction.
Looking at his name badge, it was Russel Simpson, AWA's "gunsmith" & final owner.
Penner got a kick out of that.

There were so many behind-the-scenes shenanigans at AWA that, truly, a book should have been written.
The lies, deceptions, and mis-management were astounding.
Denis

[Ibmikey]

Denis, Yes you should write all you know about the company and conversations, I wish I had taken that time when talking with Interarms about the FI Mod D ( Star DK with US frame) so many years past. All that information gathered. Is just now memory and I hope when I discuss the pistols I have not forgotten too much.
For all the problems you discuss the fact remains that I have a beautiful engraved Lightning that is accurate and really fun to shoot and .38 special allows a large variety of ammo to be shot. Mike