Elephant hunting pistol
US Army Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Hutchinson fires a Desert Eagle pistol at a shooting competition in Germany in 2009. It throws him up nicely, doesn't it?!
Caliber - easy to get scared
Lose peace for good
By eye - thirteen millimeters,
More precisely - twelve and seven ...
Adam Lindsay Gordon (October 19, 1833 - June 24, 1870)
Lose peace for good
By eye - thirteen millimeters,
More precisely - twelve and seven ...
Adam Lindsay Gordon (October 19, 1833 - June 24, 1870)
stories about weapons. In the two previous articles, we talked about high-power pistols of the early twentieth century - the unsuccessful "Mars" and the completely successful and armed English pistol of the company "Webley and Scott" designer Whiting. Well, what was the situation with large-caliber pistols later? Well, today our story will be about just such a pistol. Moreover, we will only recall one such pistol, and we will tell about the other in more detail.
"Wildie Magnum" by Wildie J. Moore
And it so happened that in 1973, the American Wilde J. Moore conducted a marketing study and determined that there was an unoccupied niche for large-caliber pistols. Revolvers chambered for the Magnum type, for example. There is a Colt Python, but there are no self-loading pistols! Well, he created such a pistol, moreover, with automation based on the removal of gases from the bore and chambered for high-power cartridges .45 Wildy Magnum and .457 (.475 inches - bullet diameter 12,1 mm) Wildy Magnum of his own production. The pistol was named "Wildie-Magnum" and it became the first such pistol in the world! Note that we had an article about this pistol at VO, however, for a long time. And this article, let's say, was somewhat redundant in terms of information. However, it is definitely worth recommending: The arms of Robert Hillberg. Part five.
"Desert Eagle" .50 AE, coated with "Titanium Gold". Probably, if the sale of short-barreled firearms was allowed in Russia, such pistols would go well with the gypsies!
The Desert Eagle is a gas-operated semi-automatic pistol chambered in .50 Action Express, the largest centerfire cartridge of any magazine-fed semi-automatic pistol.
"Desert Eagle" .50 AE, coated with "Polishchd Chrome" - also "wow", but the "gold" is certainly more effective ...
Ten years later, Bernard C. White of Magnum Research Inc. (MRI) and Arnolds Strainbergs filed a US patent in January 1983 for an original gas-operated pistol called the Desert Eagle. Eagle"). The second application was received in December 1985 of the year after another company, Israel Military Industries (IMI), finalized its design to enable its production, and it was this version of the pistol that went into production. By the way, there was also an article about this pistol on VO, but in a slightly different vein, with a different design, and, of course, with the level of novelty of the text corresponding to the requirements of VO.
The market is a market, and its goal is to maximize the satisfaction of the needs of consumers, and they - these needs, in turn, are based on their tastes. Hence the whole "line" of colors for the "Desert Eagle". The range of colors of the pistol chambered for .50 "Action Express" (12,7x32,6 mm)
So, the “father and mother” of this pistol turned out to be two firms at once - American and Israeli, which divided the design of the new pistol and the development of its production technology. The Israeli company also produced it until 1995, when MRI transferred the contract for the production of this pistol to Sako Defense in Maine. But just two years later, production returned to Israel again, but since December 2009 it again moved to the USA, now to its own MRI enterprise - a plant in Pillager in Minnesota. And in 2010, both the company and its production were bought by Kahr Arms.
The color line for .44 caliber is a little poorer
So, what is this gun and what is good and bad about it? Let's start with the fact that the "Desert Eagle" is a pistol not for the army, but "for the market." That is, there is a niche in the market and it must be filled. Therefore, this pistol has never been tested for firing in a contaminated state - dust, dirt, sand and all the other “charms” of army weapons are not for him. This is a pistol for the home, for the shooting range (to show oneself!), Well, and - as stated, for hunting. That is, if you missed the buffalo from the "express", and it rushes at you, then ... there is a chance to stop him two meters away from you by firing several bullets at him from this pistol.
Appearance. Drawing from US Patent No. 4
Drawing from U.S. Patent No. 4 showing the device of the barrel and vent tube
Now about its construction and design. Yes, outwardly the gun looks menacing, but its design leaves much to be desired. It has long been proven that the closer the barrel of a pistol comes to the trigger, the better this pistol is. It throws up less when shooting, the recoil affects the hand less. Moreover, it was the gas exhaust system that made it possible, in principle, to create a pistol according to the M16 or Kalashnikov principle with a gas outlet tube above the barrel. But only now the creators of the pistol acted differently and installed a gas outlet pipe under the barrel.
The three main parts of the pistol: the barrel, the bolt carrier, on which the rotating bolt with lugs is mounted, and its own frame. Drawing from US Patent No. 4
When fired, gases exit through a small hole in the barrel in front of the chamber. They pass through a tube under the barrel to a cylinder below the front of the barrel. The bolt has a small piston at the front that fits into this cylinder. When the gases reach the cylinder, the piston pushes the bolt back, and a large pin inside a profiled cutout at the back of the bolt causes it to rotate and unlock. A spring-loaded ejector presses on the sleeve until it is completely out of the chamber, after which the sleeve is pushed out, freeing itself from the extractor holding it. The shutter reaches its rearmost position, then moves forward again - everything is as usual here. The lower protrusion of the bolt pushes a new cartridge and then feeds it into the chamber, and then the bolt turns again, locks, and the pistol can be fired again.
The frame and trigger mechanism of the pistol. Pay attention to the width of the handle. Due to the powerful, but long cartridges, it turned out to be such that not every person can grab it, and therefore securely fix it when fired.
The rotating breech has three radial lugs (the fourth lug is only for feeding the next round into the chamber), with an extractor on the right side, very similar to the seven-lug breech of the M16 rifles, while the barrel-mounted gas cylinder and moving piston strongly resemble those of carbine "Ruger-Mini-14" (the original patent used a piston similar to the M14 rifle).
Today, multi-caliber is in vogue, and the creators of the pistol provided the opportunity to put a different barrel, bolt and magazine on the same frame and get a pistol chambered in a different caliber, and save money. The latter is important, since the price of the "Eagle" is more than $2000!
Everything that was discussed above allows Desert Eagle pistols to compete in the market in an area that was previously dominated exclusively by revolvers. On the other hand, it has many shortcomings. First of all, it is large size and heavy weight, and besides, it also has a completely specific drawback, which in no case should be forgotten by the arrow. The fact is that, due to its gas venting mechanism, lead bullets without a shell cannot be fired from it, since lead particles remaining in the barrel during firing can clog the gas outlet and become an obstacle in the operation of automation. That is, cartridges for it should be equipped only with jacketed bullets.
"Caliber - it's easy to get scared / Lose peace forever ..."
The most popular barrel length for this pistol is 6" (152mm), although 10" (254mm) barrels are also available. The barrels of the Mark XIX model have built-in mounting bases for the sight, which allows you to mount various additional sights on it.
Pistol chambered in .44 Magnum
The pistol is powered from a detachable magazine. It has a capacity of nine rounds for the .357 Magnum, eight rounds for the .44 Magnum, and seven rounds for the .50 Action Express.
"Desert Eagle" .50 AE, "Matte Chrome"
There are several models of "Desert Eagle".
The Mark I is no longer in production, was offered with a stainless steel or aluminum alloy frame, and differed mainly in the size and shape of the guards. The Mark VII has an adjustable trigger (which can also be fitted to Mark I pistols). The Mark I and VII are available in .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum; The Mark VII was chambered in .41 Magnum. Later Mark VIIs were marketed in .50 "Action Express" with a Weaver rail on the barrel; The .50 Mark VII later became the Mark XIX. Barrel lengths: 6", 10", and 14" for .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum, but only 6" or 10" for .41 Magnum.
But these are, well, very unusual “striped” pistols in “tiger coloring”
The pistol was also produced in .440 "Cor-Bon", a case derived from the .50 AE. In December 2000, about 500 of these pistols were imported into the United States. They are marked with the number 440 on the left side of the underside of the barrel, and the numbers are twice as large as other calibers, and in addition they are without a dot.
Barrel Mk. XIX .50 AE integral with Picatinny rail. Well, where without her?
Mark XIX barrels are only available in 6" (152mm) and 10" (254mm) lengths. Current production Mark XIX models have a Picatinny rail along the top of the barrel, as opposed to the dovetail rail on previous models. Some Mark XIX pistols also have a Picatinny rail under the barrel. For California, a special California version of this pistol has been developed - the Desert Eagle .44 Magnum California, which has a Weaver rail on the barrel and an automatic firing pin blocker.
The barrels of some Needles, as can be clearly seen in the photo on the page of the Shooting-Illustrated magazine, have two Picatinny rails at once and three holes on each side of the barrel, which play the role of a muzzle compensator that reduces its toss when fired
But on the other hand, all this “specificity” of this pistol fit perfectly into the movie. Suffice it to say that on the website of the manufacturer of "needles" there is a list of those films in which (and with great success!) This pistol "lit up". And in this list of them ... 24! So for a movie, this is just what you need!
TTX pistols of the Desert Eagle series:
Model Mark VII: weight 1,769 g, chambered in .357 Magnum; weight 1,905 g, cartridge .44 "Magnum"
Model Mark XIX: weight 1,995 g
Model Mark VII: overall length 269,2 mm (barrel length 152,4 mm)
Model Mark XIX: total length 273,1 mm (barrel length 152,4 mm); 374,6 mm (barrel length 254 mm), barrel length 127 mm
Ammunition: .50 Action Express, .44 Magnum, .440 Cor-Bon, .429 DE, .41 Magnum, .357 Magnum
Muzzle velocity 470 m/s (.50AE)
Maximum range of aimed fire 201 meters
Interchangeable barrels for the Desert Eagle pistol
PS Photographs from the Magnum Research website were used for the design of the article.
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