Dessert Eagle 44 Mag/50 ae

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Huntolive

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I've been flirting with getting a DE 44 for a while.
I see a nice very little shot one that is combo 50ae/44.

I have Glock 20 and Springfield XDM 10mm.

I also have 44 Mag Super Redhawk, And 2 PC 629 44 Magnums and a 44 Redhawk, all w Barrel from 5 to 8+ 3/4 inches.

Can a DE 44 even dream of competing accuracy and reliability wise with these revolvers for Hunting?

Where does the DE Shine?
Where does it suck?
 
My dad had a 50ae and a 44 both shot well, I killed a nuisance bull one day with the 44. For some reason with the 44 when dad shot left handed the case would hit him on the top of his forehead but not me. Don't know if that was just with the 44s.
 
Dessert Eagle? Does it have Cool Whip or something?

There are several Desert Eagles in my family. My dad and my grandpa each had older Mk VII .44 Mags, and my brother bought a Mk XIX in .50 AE when he got home from his first tour in Iraq.

Good? They are well made. Quality of materials, machining, and finishing has been very good on every Desert Eagle I have handled or shot. They are rail gun accurate. They have a fixed barrel and their gas operation and rotating bolt means there is nothing moving forward of the bullet until it leaves the muzzle. I have seen my dad hit a rock the size of a laptop on a hillside a laser ranged 200 yards away 6 out of 8 times from the supported offhand position. They are fun. Chopping firewood with 350 gr JSP from my brother's .50 AE is almost the most fun I have ever had with a gun. The fireball is visible in the daylight. The thing is a beast. We are a country of over indulgence, and the Desert Eagle fits very well into a lifestyle of Super Sized value meals and 1000 horsepower sports cars. And they are generally reliable. With a caveat. You have to manhandle the things. If you limp wrist or allow it to pull you around, it will short-stroke or hang up on you. That is just a compromise you make with automatics in general. They aren't going to be as forgiving of poor posture or weak technique.

The bad. Well, they are big. If you have small hands, it might be hard for you to get enough of a grip on it to really control it. And this can lead to issues. Its weight helps control recoil, but makes it difficult to pack. I know latest versions have addressed weight issues and added a compensator, but it is still a handful. This is both part of the appeal of the design, and kind of a bummer. Speaking of recoil, the .44 is soft shooting, but the .50 has some recoil, and more than that, it is a unique type of recoil. The rotating bolt means that instead of coming straight back, the pistol tends to torque in your hand. This can lead to brass being ejected straight back in your face, and it takes some getting used to. If you have thin little bird wrists like me, I don't want to say it is painful, but after a few mags, it can be fatiguing. Ammo is expensive for the .50 AE, so you will want to reload (which means keeping track of your brass, which might be difficult in some of the country you hunt in). And you won't have the ammo choices regardless of caliber, because the gas operation means you can only shoot jacketed ammunition, and the feed ramp profile means some of the bigger meplats or longer bullets aren't going to function well. And finally, this one is more subjective, but I think the controls suck. As an American, I believe in the spirit of John Moses Browning (Blessed are thee among inventors...) that if a pistol has a safety, it should be frame mounted and down swept. The up swept, slide mounted safety seems to be the worst possible design in the worst possible place. And the size of the pistol means reaching it is almost impossible in the firing grip, so the Desert Eagle becomes a handgun that requires both hands to operate (handsgun?).

Overall, I recommend never passing up an opportunity to shoot one, but I don't know if I personally would ever spend money on one. They just don't seem that practical to me. Fun, yes. But not very useful.
 
One other issue that I noticed, and was confirmed by my friend who owns one, is that you have to use full power 44 Mag rounds or it will malfunction.

It will also cure you of the infamous "teacup" grip, as any pressure on the bottom of magazine will also cause malfunctions.

But they are fun to shoot until fatigue sets in.
 
I love Desert Eagles. They are like owning a drag car, super impractical but super awesome.

Have you considered that new light weight .357 version since you already have .44's?

But you mentioned hunting... Accurate, yes, but so are your revolvers. I don't think it would be a better hunter unless maybe it was a new one with the mounts for optics.
 
I keep the .50 AE barrel on my .44/.50 IMI made set I've had more than a decade. I rarely shoot it anymore, but it is there and it works and it has a 6" barrel with a BIG hole in the end :) just in case
 
I've shot (rented) both the 44 & the 50 and ended up buying a 44...recoil is quite mild for a full power 44 which as others have said, you need to run for reliability.

I reload so that isn't a problem for me.

It is extremely accurate and great fun to shoot.

My avatar is the fireball from my 44 at an outdoor range during the day :):):).
 
Wow, this sounds like an awesome impractical piece of equipment / toy.
Which leaves me still wanting it but trying to be good.

When you guys refer to full power 44 magnum loads would that include standard off the shelf Focacci and Winchester white box jacketed hollow point 44 Magnum rounds?
Or are you talking about rounds that are pushing the envelope of 44 all together?
 
I have a Mark VII .44. The biggest downside, aside from the size and weight, is that you must use jacketed bullets. The manufacturer says lead will foul the gas system. I don't know if this is true as I have never wanted to test the claim.
 
when you guys say jacketed bullets do you mean full metal jacket only,or can I at least use semi jacketed soft points and semi jacketed hollow points for hunting without any issues?
 
Also, the DE shoots like a rifle. It is very accurate, but, at least with my gun, it takes 5 to 6 shots to properly foul the bore after cleaning out the carbon and copper.
 
When you guys refer to full power 44 magnum loads would that include standard off the shelf Focacci and Winchester white box jacketed hollow point 44 Magnum rounds?
240 gr. JSP ammo from Winchester and Federal both run great in my guns. I’ve seen people have issues with Remington ammo, but that is usually loaded on the low end. And it may have been 180 gr. ammo.
 
MT Militiaman wrote a pretty fair synopsis. Accuracy is exceptional. Weight is up there. Safety requires you to have the thumbs of a double-jointed ape.

I have guns in the three common calibers. One of these days I may buy a .429DE barrel, but it’s not a very high priority at the moment.

And fireballs are fun. :evil:

j3j1aCVl.jpg
 
Bipod is attached to a lug that was added to the 14" barrel. Had the slide and barrels refinished in black chrome. Frame is stainless steel, only offered a few years by Magnum Research. Front strap and trigger guard have been checkered to make it grip better.

front stud.jpg checkering 2.jpg
 
Overall, I recommend never passing up an opportunity to shoot one, but I don't know if I personally would ever spend money on one. They just don't seem that practical to me. Fun, yes. But not very useful.

I've shot a .44 Magnum, .429 Desert Eagle, and a .50 Action Express. @MTMilitiaman basically summed up the advantages and disadvantages nicely in his post.

In case you are wondering, the recoil for the .50 AE is significantly more than the .44 Magnum, which is actually pretty tame from the Desert Eagle.
 
When I see the 50 ae they are often sold as combos with 44. But I see many 44 Magnums sold just as 44 Magnum.
Is there any reliability advantages to just getting the 44 magnum straight up?

I m not really interested in getting another odd big caliber. I already shoot 454 casull from Toklat SRH and Freedom arms 83, so really just want 44.

But why would it possibly be better to get the Combo of both?
 
Me personally i would pass on a DE, with a couple of caveats; Kahr needs to offer a 480 Ruger model(for no 50 cal States), also offer 4.25"-5" barrel models and/or barrel conversion kits, change/modify the gas system so it can be cleaned that way lead/plated bullets can be used, and last but not least, offer a 327 Fed Mag and reintroduce the 41 Mag model and/or conversion barrels kits.
 
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