AMT's On Duty Pistol that never went on duty.

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Miami_JBT

Miami_JBT

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Big Bend of FL, originally from Miami.
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Arcadia Machine & Tool, a company made famous by the hit 1980s sci-fi action/horror film, Terminator made a number of guns other than the seven inch all stainless Hardballer 1911.

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AMT was founded in 1977 in Irwindale, California and made their claim to fame with developing a number of guns in stainless steel like the movie famous Hardballer above.

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But by the late 80s, AMT knew that their little pocket pistols and hand cannons wouldn't keep them out of the poor house. The Law Enforcement Market was ripe for conquest and AMT saw a chance to enter the market and they did so with the On Duty Pistol. A double stack DA/SA and DAO 9mm and .40 S&W chambered duty size handgun.

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The pushed it in the gun rags and in sales ads.

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But the gun was a flop. Made from 1991 to 1994, the On Duty was plagued with issues. Small production numbers, lack of quality control, and a high price for a handgun that was competing against other brands like GLOCK, SIG Sauer, Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Heckler & Koch, and others. The MSRP for the On Duty was $700 and that hurt it, especially since AMT had a bad reputation of bad quality. Their other handguns were looked down upon due to most not working correctly out of the box. About the only quality part of that gun that was good across the board was the magazines. Why? Because they were made by Mec-Gar of Italy.

Anyways, here are some better photos of the On Duty. Enjoy.

Check out the high end photos of the gun over at New Wave Firearms.
 
I'd still love to have an Automag II, III, IV & V in the collection. Passed on a V a few years back (OK, maybe more than a few...) for $1,100. I had the money and should have snagged it, they're more rare than I realized at the time.

I had a little back up .22 for awhile. It was fun, but never very reliable and quite heavy for a "pocket gun".
 
Had a few of the Back-Up .380s as they were affordable and certainly concealable, especially for a kid going to college at the time. But the triggers on them were pretty dreadful and the sights were virtually nonexistent. Reliability was just so-so on all of them. The last one I sold at a gun show to give me enough money to buy a new Colt Mustang.
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I still have a .380 back up.

It’s only for nostalgia purposes, there is absolutely zero about it that isn’t better handled by other .380’s in my safe.

Stay safe.
 
I have two AMT backup 380's, an AMT backup 22lr, and an AMT Hardballer 45.

I haven't had any issues with any of them up to this point. They've all worked great. Perhaps previous owners debugged them somehow before I got hold of them.
 
That On-Duty looks like a Ruger P95 and a SIG hooked up...

I carried an AMT DAO BackUp .380 for some years, it was all I had. The slide cracked in half below the ejection port. A trip back to AMT got me a new slide, and a trip to the gun show got rid of it for good. Oddly enough, like Bannockburn, I wound up with a Colt's Government .380 stainless... a far better pistol. I carried that for almost 8 years.
 
Wow forgot about that one. My early AMT .45 Back Up works great once I cleaned a few things up. My son purloined it as his BUG on the leg to back up his Colt lightweight Officers .45 acp. Carried legally IWB , for those special places like Portland visits. Also have a 6" barreled AMT Irwindale .22 magnum Automag that shoots like a lazer when fed ammo it likes to feed. I had a 7" AMT stainless 1911 that fed ball well usually, but absolutely wouldn't feed the flying ashtrays I wanted to shoot. Only HP it fed in 90 s was the Blacktalon Winchester. My friend that substantially paid me more than I was into it kept Black Talon in it :)
 
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jmr40

A friend of mine also had a used Hardballer and believe me it would be hard pressed just to feed hardball on a regular basis. I worked on it for him and I was amazed by how there was little, if any, hand fitting of parts that I encountered. It's as if the "assembler" went over to the parts bin, grabbed a hand full and then just kind of placed them in the gun. Notice I did not say "fit them in the gun" because I saw no real evidence that anything was ever fit by hand with this particular gun. Needless to say reliability was for the most part non existent as was any sort of accuracy.
 
I had one of those AMT Backup II pistols. Very interesting to take apart and I am sure had an interesting story if I knew it. I found part of a tooth under the internal hammer. Not sure if it was human or animal, didn't really want to know. It did not like HP ammo at all so I resorted to firing FMJ or plugged rounds through it. Worked fine for what it was and was not the lemon gun of AMT legend. Eventually I sold it as part of my long offloading of 380 pistols.
 
bannockburn said:
jmr40

A friend of mine also had a used Hardballer and believe me it would be hard pressed just to feed hardball on a regular basis. I worked on it for him and I was amazed by how there was little, if any, hand fitting of parts that I encountered. It's as if the "assembler" went over to the parts bin, grabbed a hand full and then just kind of placed them in the gun. Notice I did not say "fit them in the gun" because I saw no real evidence that anything was ever fit by hand with this particular gun. Needless to say reliability was for the most part non existent as was any sort of accuracy.
Click to expand...
I had a Longslide Hardballer back in the 80s, my first centerfire pistol. Was in flight school at Altus OK and a guy was worried about qualifying once he got back to home station because he'd never fired a gun; long gun or handgun.

We went out to an isolated area (easy to do in OK) and I taught him firearms safety and showed him all the features of the gun. Just as I was handing it to him C&L, it occurred to me that I had neglected to demonstrate the thumb safety. So I pulled it back (not wanting him to pull the trigger and get nothing), showed the safety to him, and said, "The gun won't fire if the safety is in the up position." Then I pointed the gun downrange and pulled the trigger.... BOOM! goes the Longslide. The safety sheared completely off and whizzed away, probably landed in someone's taco down in Mexico.

Adam's Firearms was in Lawton, about 40 miles away, and the smith there just happened to be an AMT authorized repair station. He took the gun apart, measured everything, and said every individual part was in spec, but all were at their lowest measurement to be in spec. Tolerance stacking... Anyway, he ordered the parts on Wednesday and got them in the mail Thursday and fixed the gun.
 
Mainsail

Among other problems my fiend's Hardballer kept breaking mainsprings, mainly because the notch in the frame where the tab was held in place was so poorly cut that it would, sooner than later, shear off. Needless to say there were more things going wrong with that gun than were going right and he eventually sold it and got an RIA 1911 that was a much better built and fitted pistol.
 
Miami_JBT said:
But the gun was a flop. Made from 1991 to 1994, the On Duty was plagued with issues. Small production numbers, lack of quality control, and a high price for a handgun that was competing against other brands like GLOCK, SIG Sauer, Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Heckler & Koch, and others. The MSRP for the On Duty was $700 and that hurt it, especially since AMT had a bad reputation of bad quality. Their other handguns were looked down upon due to most not working correctly out of the box. About the only quality part of that gun that was good across the board was the magazines. Why? Because they were made by Mec-Gar of Italy.
Click to expand...

This was AMT’s entire existence. Too bad too because I liked many of their concepts. I would like an AutoMag in 22 WMR still but speaking of magazines....
 
I always wanted an Automag III but got scared off by the reliability problems.

Plus nowdays they are north of 1k....a lot to pay for a gun with problems
 
Hey Jeepnik (I've an 'O4 TJ, BTW), how does the Backup work; is it locked breech in some fashion?
I think I owned or shot the Backup; seem to recall it being straight blowback, and rappy to shoot.
Thnx,
Moon
 
bc1023 said:
I had one years ago. A complete POS
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You had on On Duty? More details please. I have never seen one of these in the flesh but they were all over the magazines at the time. No shops I went to ever got any in. I did look for them. There was no gunbroker back then. I am not an AMT basher but I admit they can be tough to get running sometimes. It all depends on the gun.

anyways... please tell me about your experience with the On Duty.
 
Wow, first time I've seen one of those, ever.

I lusted after one of their carry model stainless 1911s back when after seeing one in a magazine, but dealers around here didn't really carry AMT so I moved on to something else.

I guess in hindsight that was a good thing.
 
sparkyfender said:
Wow, first time I've seen one of those, ever.

I lusted after one of their carry model stainless 1911s back when after seeing one in a magazine, but dealers around here didn't really carry AMT so I moved on to something else.

I guess in hindsight that was a good thing.
Click to expand...

I will take the "Skipper" for $200!

Did I guess right?
 
My AMT DAO .380 was straight blowback... I don't know about the 9mm or .45ACP versions, however.

I wound up having to order a spare magazine directly from AMT through the mail.
 
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