gary reeder
the guy is a bit off on some of his info
Tuesday, August 17, 2021, 22:32

TDE stood for Trust Deeds Estates which was a holding company that took over management when Harry Sanford was in money trouble. The Auto Mags were always made by Sanford and his people, even though several companies took over either management or distributorship. High Standard took over distributing for a short while and Lee Jurras was the world wide distributor for the Auto Mags. It was thru Lee's promoting that kept the Auto Mag company afloat. Lee was the promoter behind Clint Eastwood using one in his movie Sudden Impact.
The model 160 in 357 AMP and model 180 in 44 AMP were the 2 most common models. The 280 in the B and C models were the least found. The model 280 in 44 had a solid bolt that helped reliability. The 41 JMP (Jurras Magnum Pistol) was Lee's own caliber and my favorite caliber. Also the least found.

I am not sure what the AZ-33 serial number stood for other than maybe someone's personal serial number. Whoever gets this pistol, will probably need to run at least 140 to 160 grain bullets in it for reliability functioning. I have had several of the long barrels and light weight bullets didn't always function reliability. But that was well over 40 years ago and our powders today are better than in the past.