I've heard so much crap on the net about DE's, I decided to join this forum just to leave some honest imput for someone with a genuine concern. In case you've read enough already, I'll make my main point up front and then rant. I am the proud owner of a late 90's USA made DE xix, AS WELL AS a ruger Alaskan .454.
Whether or not the Desert Eagle is right for you:
Do you enjoy shooting a nail gun with 16 pennys in it all day? Can you hold a one speed drill with a 3/4 inch bit and drill through sheet metal, and when it catches can you start drilling again or do you cry and go home? If you can't or you cry like a girl, you do not have the wrist strenght it takes to shoot a DE. I hear people say, "I don't limp wrist", but if you'r wrist doesn't have what it takes then you limp wristed it even if you had what you would call a "death grip".
I am under 6', under 195 Lbs, don't have huge hands. I love my DE. It is amazingly accurate and absorbs a great amount of recoil that I would othewise eat.
I personally get a kick out of shooting nail guns, even though that isn't in my profession. With a DE in a 44 mag I can shoot one handed, left or right with out it jamming, ever with factory mags. Limp wristing causes jams. Touching the "clip"/magazine while shooting can cause jams. Using cheap after market mags causes jams.
That brings me to my next main point;
If you can handle it as I just described, Is the Desert Eagle good for the woods/protection in the woods:
This is really 2 seperate questions. To get to the main point...If you want to use it for hunting, yes the one I own (unlike the ones so many other people talk about and Don't own) is a great hunting gun especially becuase of the versitility. If you want to handgun hunt exclusivly you've got a .50 for large game or midsised game at longer distance. For white tail or hog you've got .44 mag, and for hog or smaller you've got .357, all in one very accurate gun. And best of all, compared to a Rifle, which is really what you should compare this gun to (a 742 Rem), it is much lighter and easier to tote around in the woods.
For the "safty" in the woods question:
You better be Johnny on the spot to use an auto in a critical situation, especially one with a floating magazine. If you keep one in the chamber, unless you have the safty on, the firing pin of an eagle can hit the pin if you hit the back end of the gun. The safty blocks the actual firing pin, among other things. So you will have to be perfectly rehersed to draw your weapon, take it off safty, and possibly manually cock the hammer depending on how you carry it, then fire it without anything touching the magazine.
Another disadvantage of using any type of auto. If you roughly handle a gun while your shooting (i.e.: you saw the bear just when he started rushing you 30 feet away (.75 seconds) and by the time you drew your gun he was already swiping you to the ground) it will probably not work. I used to own a Glock 21, .45acp. I wanted to know what the gun would do in different situations. I found that if you push the gun at a .45 deg angle into a hard surface, like a board, and then try to fire it the pin won't reach the primer well enough. The same is true if you take a hard pillow and force the barrel into it and fire, it doesn't always go off. If you set a pillow over the gun while you fire it in a normal position, it will jam.
Therefore, I would believe from my experiance, that if you were using an auto loader while wrestling with an animal, there would be a good chance that it would malfunction, even a Glock. Fortunately I havn't fought a bear, but I have fought with a few dogs.
Other than the Hammer getting jammed against somthing when using a revolver, it will function flawlesly no matter how much you rough house while shooting.
Somthing you should really hear from some others here who live in bear country is that carrying pepper spray and knowing the actual risks you will encounter and how to deal with them is more important than taking a firearm with you. If you don't see the bear coming, no matter what you carry, you won't get to it in time, bears are just to quick on short distances.
There was an article in the early 2000's in Field and Stream if I recall written by a State Park Officer whose job it was to kill Grizzlies that were deemed Dangerous. He has quite a story and has killed more Brown bears than probably anyone currently alive. He has a set of diagrams and a great explanation from his real experiance on how to stop a bear before he gets you. He killed his first griz at age 10 i think. Even using a 12 guage with slugs, critical life stopping penetration is iffy, according to the writer. So the more penetration you get, the better chance you have.
Now for my ranting.
First of all, I would gladly say that a 45 LC (factory load) is a piss poor excuse for a bear stopper. I was shooting 45LC's out of a lever action i got rid of a while back at an old fridge, and at 75 yds, it didn't even dent the fridge. at 50 it left a thumb print with lead stuck to the metal. at 35 it began to breach the sheetmetal. A 17HMR put holes in the same fridge at close to 300 yds, just for reference.
I don't understand what happy imagination some one lives in to say a 45 auto would be a good bear gun. Maybe, just maybe a Thompson Trench gun in a 45. A good 45acp is reasonably close to a .38 spec. A good 10mm might be close to a .357 for penetration depending on barrel lengh. Remember, whether a round is fired out of a semi, a bolt action, or a revolver, and what length of barrel will hugely effect each round, and not in the same way. Some rounds need a long barrel to get close to their "reported" velocities, like the 45LC, factory. So don't just jump on line and compare listed muzzel energys for each round. Those numbers are only usefull if you know what you're looking at. It's like watching people argue about the bible using a Greek reference concordance with out even knowing how to use a normal english dictionary, which is another of my irritations in life.
Don't defend yourself from a person or dog with a 9mm. Don't hunt deer or defend yourself from a bear with a .45acp or 10mm. Neither have enough power to save you before you get some level of damage (if the person is determined). I believe in reality testing. Somthing you might find intersting to try some time instead of arguing about the merits of 9mm, take a good heavy weight leather biker jacket. Not a walmart cheepy, but a thick hide one. I've got a couple that weigh like 10 or so pounds dry. Zip up the jacket and hang it up at 25 yards and shoot it one time, then check the jacket for a hole. Keep getting closer until you can get a 9mm to go through the jacket. You might not carry a 9 any more. If you don't have one to shoot, try taking an old blanket and soaking it and hanging it over a line and try that.
Regardless of some internet search on ballistic comparisons, the 50 AE shot out of a 6" barrel will penetrate better than a .454 out of a 6" barrel, and of coursed better than a .454 out of the Alaskans 2". That being said, you may have come across a report of a guy in the woods with an Alaskan .454 who got bum rushed by a Grizzly and got off I think 4 shots in the 30yds it took for the bear to reach him. He hit it 3 times with one "fatal" shot if i recall and it died at his feet with him on his back. The .454 is enough for a Griz; the 50 ae is more.
To the guy with the 460 Smith snubbie, when you shoot .454's through it, does it kick more, I am curious. I almost got one of those instead of the Alaskan, but it was too bulky for me.
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