Dan Wesson -- Sign The Petition -- A Message To CZ

CZ 'just' stopped making the Dan Wesson .357's and they were also making barrels for the .44's. I would also like to see the .44's and .445's come back.

I also waited a long time to try a one. Got both a .44 and a .445 in the spring of 2019. Have only the original barrel for the .445 but several for the .44Mag, from 4" to 10". My experience has been mixed. Both guns needed work. The .44 was very accurate, except for one faulty chamber that threw flyers and made extraction very difficult. I was originally going to take another water buffalo with it that year but due to the sticky chamber, I did not want to risk shooting something that big with a gun that was difficult to reload. So I took a gorgeous blackbuck and a Corsican/mouflon cross ram. They're not known to stomp people when cornered.




This was typical of five-shot groups out of the .44. Always a lone flyer from that one wonky chamber. Otherwise superb. This one shot at 25yds with the 265gr Lehigh solid copper WFN.




I sent the gun home with Jack Huntington, who rechambered it to .45Colt, made a barrel insert for it and we sourced another crane/cylinder to make it a switch caliber gun.




The .445 also needed work. Everything I shot in it stuck terribly. A new cylinder was needed, which was not easy to procure. Haven't even shot it since getting it back, I reckon I'm still mad at it.

My biggest complaint is the weight. They are unbelievably heavy. Folks complain about the Super Redhawk but the above 8" Dan Wesson is half a pound heavier than a 7.5" SRH. IMHO, the Ruger is stronger.

My first centerfire revolver purchase back in 1983 was a well-used Dan Wesson M15. I bought a second M15 from a pawn shop a few years later. Both were refinished by Armoloy, and in time I added a Millet rear sight to replace the damaged blade on one of them and settled on Hogue's hard nylon grips.



I sold both in 2006 in a fit of stupid, thinking I could replace them with a single M715 later on. I'd love a chance at one of the CZ production examples, but they didn't get as far as California before sales ended.

CZ did resurrect the Dan Wesson revolver line making possibly, or so I've read, the best Dan Wesson revolvers yet. My favorite gun is a Dan Wesson model 15 on it's second barrel. I wish they would make them again too but also blued ones this time. The CZ/Norwich guns were only in stainless.

I have 2 15-2's, a 715, and a 44. Over the years I've had at least a dozen 15-2's and they are among my favorite revolvers. I only sold them along the way for needed cash. I would like to get a 744 one of these days, but I have an S&W 629-2 and don't really want to shoot .44 magnum at this point in my life too much, so I can't really see getting one unless a fantastic deal comes along. My 715 was the best deal I ever got on a revolver, the gun, barely a mark on it, 3 grips, the one below, a rubber one and a finger grooved wood one, the box and receipt, a bunch of internal spare parts. All for $269+20 ship and +20 transfer. I was the only bidder on it until the very end. I almost got it for $250. My 15-2's, even the rough one, were more than it was. My problems with DW revolvers have been almost zero, a spring or two and that's about it.

Sorry, I think you are just talking to the wall. CZ is going to make what sells the most and it isn't revolvers. My LGS owner has a VH-2 pistol pack with no gun, I have a !5--2 VH 8 with no pistol pack. Neither of us is going to sell to the other. Honestly, my DW is so accurate I wouldn't even consider changing it up at all. He has been saying for around 25 years that a gun will come into his shop with no luck.

doubleh said:

Sorry, I think you are just talking to the wall. CZ is going to make what sells the most and it isn't revolvers.

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Then do you think CZ is going to dump Colt's revolver line too?

https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/cz-group-purchases-colt/

No, or at least for a time. Colt has always had a much larger following than DW. DW was the red headed step child of the revolver world for some reason. If their Colt revolver sales fall off after the initial hype of them returning they will do what any company does when profit from a product drops to a certain point. They will stop production. It is all up the the consumer and DW was always a nitch market no matter how well they shot.

I think they dumped the Dan Wesson revolvers when they were able to pick up Colt instead.

Years ago, I had a Dan Wesson 357 revolver. It was a great revolver.

However, when CZ bought Colt. I think that sealed the fate of CZ DW revolvers. CZ would be competing against itself by having two lines of revolvers. I can't see CZ maintaining two lines of revolvers.

Actually, not the 1980's..... "During 1975–1976, further refinements to the Models 14 and 15 were incorporated into production as the Models 14-2 and 15-2. The Model 15-2 became the most well known and the best selling Dan Wesson revolver model to go into production"

I bought this pistol pac in the mid 1970s.

Dave DeLaurant said:

Then do you think CZ is going to dump Colt's revolver line too?

https://www.shootingillustrated.com/content/cz-group-purchases-colt/

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Colt revolvers are selling well. Better than DW revolvers.

While Colt is a better asset than Dan Wesson, it's a pity the Dan Wesson revolver products were not further developed.
The late-model 715 appeared to be made with consistent quality, albeit at a premium price. It never possessed the panache of the Python, the current version of which is selling for what they were trying to get for the 715's. Even so, the Dan Wesson, possessed some innovation from its designer Karl Lewis, who had designed the Trooper for Colt decades before. In many ways, the DW's were and have been the most innovative revolvers in modern times until the Rhino perhaps. While the features like the stud grip frame and coil spring, choke barrels, and interchangeable barrels had featured on previous Karl Lewis designs, the DW brought a lot of these innovations together into a relatively popular production gun. Ruger borrowed the stud grip frame, and S&W has since adopted a two-part shrouded barrel assembly, though it works slightly differently and doesn't offer user interchangeability. We know that S&W first innovated the latch on the crane in the turn-of-the-century triple-lock, but Lewis incorporated this while also relocating the cylinder release there. Ruger borrowed the latch at least for the GP-100 and SRH. It was unfortunate that more recent owners of Dan Wesson didn't make the 715 a viable platform for serious revolver shooters by backing up its production with a variety of barrel lengths that were actually available and making the aftersale/aftermarket a place where the guns were supported. The DW could be or could have been a revolver that would support further innovation and development with factory specials similar to Ruger's "Match Champion" models, factory moon-clip cuts, porting, 7, 8 or more chamber cylinders, and various chamberings. Personally, I'm content with 357, but the DW platform and market would support novelties like 327, 30 Super Carry, a new fad 375, .40/10mm, 429DE, 475/480, or one of the shorter 50's (AE, WE, JRH etc.), besides the classic Super Mags already mentioned. The interchangeable barrel thing could be updated to a sleeker design even if it were not to be backward compatible with all those old barrels on Gunbroker which only seemed to be the most practical source because DW wasn't producing them. Maybe DW could have been the one to innovate mini reflex sights for revolvers so we don't have to screw adapter slabs onto the top strap and mount all-in-one slide-ride units on our guns. I don't know all the new things that could come out for revolvers, but I know we shouldn't stop.

The Python and Anaconda, in contrast, seem firmly entrenched in nostalgia. Colt can't change more than they have without turning people off. I think they did a good job of bringing them back, addressing the most serious shortcomings, and preserving what was most appealing about them, but there's nowhere to go from here except maybe a different color (blue). The Python market isn't amenable to the kind of crazy novelties I just listed, some of which might just work out and if not any of those, then something else. The DW were always about trying different, seemingly odd things and ideas to try to gain an advantage, and some of them had certainly worked.

I really don't think the CZ decision to stop making Dan Wesson revolvers has anything to do with Colt. DW's have an appeal all their own with little overlap. Think about it though, if you make a revolver that can have any and all barrel lengths desired, that limits your market to a few frames and a bunch of barrels. They can't be cheap to produce either.

CraigC said:

I really don't think the CZ decision to stop making Dan Wesson revolvers has anything to do with Colt. DW's have an appeal all their own with little overlap. Think about it though, if you make a revolver that can have any and all barrel lengths desired, that limits your market to a few frames and a bunch of barrels. They can't be cheap to produce either.

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If they never purchased Colt, you still see then as doing away with DW revolvers? I don't think it was all because they purchased Colt, but I think it played a roll. DW was also a niche revolver that wasn't very popular outside a very small demographic. I'd reckon that while the majority of Americans heard of S&W, Ruger, and Colt revolvers, a teeny tiny percentage would know what a Dan Wesson is.

I been to dozens of gun and pawn shops on my lifetime in different states, and I never seen a DW for sale.

It's simple economics. If it doesn't produce a certain amount of profit it won't get made and apparently DW doesn't meet that goal. It nice to wish but unrealistic. Mr. Revolver guy was just finding material for a video.

Even though they did make the 715 briefly, I don't believe CZ ever intended to produce Dan Wesson revolvers. They bought the company for the name and the high quality 1911 pistols. I seriously doubt they'll ever be made again and that's a shame.

CZ Build quality for their DWs was by all accounts pretty high. Can’t remember hearing any negatives.

Cost was high and only option available was stainless in .357 Mag. All major gun manufacturers make a number of models in that configuration.

Had they offered it in blue I would have bit. Or just about any other caliber say like .22Mag, .327FM, 44 Mag or 45 Colt. I could even have jumped at some of the others like the .445 Super Mag and so forth.

I'll add my name to the list. I have 2 15-2's and a .41 Magnum. Love all of them and they are not going anywhere. I look at several websites everyday looking for my next one. You can rest assured if they ever do bring them back I will have at least one more!

Between me and my son, we have two 357 Super Mags (one Model 40, one 740) and a 6" Model 15. My 740 was purchased new.

The recent CZ attempt with the 715 just was not going anywhere given that it was a nice quality standard production gun but the price was just too high. If they had produced a bunch just prior to or early during the recent shortage, they would have sold, but I am not sure that their profit margin would have matched their high end 1911 stuff.

I agree that periodic limited runs of more unique offerings would be great.

With IHMSA pretty close to gone, the 357 Super Mag is just too big and heavy for most other uses. Some would sell, but many would probably be to folks that already shoot the Max in something else.

In the Super Mag frame, the 414 and 445 would be decent competition to the other Hand Cannon revolvers being sold. Although the 414 sold a lot less, it probably has one of the longest effective hunting ranges for typical US game animals. A snub 414 could also be marketed as a big bear gun. Plenty of power and "more controllable" for follow up shots.

In my opinion, the gun that really hit a sweet spot was the very short lived 360. It was much more powerful than a 357 magnum with a very reasonable sized gun. Production cost was also better than the Super Mag sized guns.

I love my DW’s! One 15-2 came in a 2-4-6-8 VH pistol pack.



The second 15-2 was frame-cylinder only mated to an EWK 3” VH barrel-shroud. The third is a .22 LR, with a 4” VH and a 6” V set.



I would love a .32 or a .41 DW, but they’ve shot up to be priced well out of my league.

Will CZ ever make them again? I’ll wager that they would probably sell the name and tooling to someone else before they would restart production.

But I’m not much of a gambler so who knows what may happen.

Stay safe.

Mr.Revolverguy said:

After this post I am feeling really sick BRB headed to pray to the porcelain god. Had I known this was going to be a let's torture Mr.Revolverguy thread I would have never posted. WOW what a beautiful 357Magnum, which do you prefer the older 15 or the 715? WOW and $269 WOW

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I have to admit, I like the 715 a tiny bit better, but it's just due to the looks. I nearly bought one of the DW 715's when they reintroduced them, but the price was, well, WOW. I think mine is better looking anyway! I still don't understand why it went so cheap, even back then, a decent SS DW was about $400+. I was very happy when my then FFL called me and told me it was in and "It looks really good!". I picked it up and went to the range and shot it immediately, and was very happy with it. Nothing was wrong with it at all. I paid almost as much for a S&W 629-2 a while back as a CZ made 715 was, but with old S&W's, it doesn't seem to bother me all that much, and I always wanted a 29/629, and the price is the price. The only DW I really want now is a 722/22, either one would be fine, but the prices are whacked.