zombie44
Member
I have owned and shot only revolvers up to this point. The 44 mag was my favorite shooter by far, I just love the muzzle blast and the recoil that it produces! I can't get enough of that cartridge, I must have close to 1500 pieces of 44 mag brass waiting to be tumbled and deprimed. But anyway I wanted a similar experience in a semiauto so I thought maybe a 10mm would be a good start. Of course this meant investing in new dies, brass and bullets. But then I spotted, tucked away in the bottom shelf of my local shop, a rather large box with a picture of a semiauto and the words '44 Magnum Semi-Auto Pistol' on it!!
It was crowded that day and with people all around the counter, opening the box elicted quite a few ohhs and ahhs but also some eye rolling and looks of disgust But once I held the gun in my hand and verified it indeed took the very same rounds I shoot out of my revolver, I bought it on the spot
It appears to be an early model, Mark I Desert Eagle 44 mag, my guess from around the late 80's. It seems well maintained, shot little and came complete with box, papers and assorted tools. My initial reloads didn't work out too well and a few times I had to pound out a squib from the barrel. I thought maybe there might've be an issue with the Wolf primers though I've had no problems at all shooting them through my revolvers. Then I recall while cycling dummy rounds through the DE I noticed sometimes the slide wouldn't slam home tight entirely and perhaps this slightly out of battery condition might have been the cause of my squibs as well. Considering it's age I thought maybe the recoil springs needed to be changed out but in the meantime I peformed a more thorough cleaning with some extra application of lube. For my lube of choice I used what I had laying around which happened to be some Synthetic Brake Caliper Grease It's high temp and thick enough to stay put.
I also polished up a bit the feed ramp and magazine lip
Experimented with a few different loads initially
And settled on 18.0g of AA#9
So with the extra lube job, polishing and a watchful eye on any possible out of battery condition, I managed to fire off all 100 rounds from my new batch of reloads without a single issue
It's definitely my new fun gun now Also 18.0g is a starting load according to my Lyman manual so you don't necessarily have to run the hottest loads for the Desert Eagle to function well.
It was crowded that day and with people all around the counter, opening the box elicted quite a few ohhs and ahhs but also some eye rolling and looks of disgust But once I held the gun in my hand and verified it indeed took the very same rounds I shoot out of my revolver, I bought it on the spot
It appears to be an early model, Mark I Desert Eagle 44 mag, my guess from around the late 80's. It seems well maintained, shot little and came complete with box, papers and assorted tools. My initial reloads didn't work out too well and a few times I had to pound out a squib from the barrel. I thought maybe there might've be an issue with the Wolf primers though I've had no problems at all shooting them through my revolvers. Then I recall while cycling dummy rounds through the DE I noticed sometimes the slide wouldn't slam home tight entirely and perhaps this slightly out of battery condition might have been the cause of my squibs as well. Considering it's age I thought maybe the recoil springs needed to be changed out but in the meantime I peformed a more thorough cleaning with some extra application of lube. For my lube of choice I used what I had laying around which happened to be some Synthetic Brake Caliper Grease It's high temp and thick enough to stay put.
I also polished up a bit the feed ramp and magazine lip
Experimented with a few different loads initially
And settled on 18.0g of AA#9
So with the extra lube job, polishing and a watchful eye on any possible out of battery condition, I managed to fire off all 100 rounds from my new batch of reloads without a single issue
It's definitely my new fun gun now Also 18.0g is a starting load according to my Lyman manual so you don't necessarily have to run the hottest loads for the Desert Eagle to function well.