I have an XIX 44 barrel that has never been reliable. Just straight up worthless. In contrast I have a VII 44 that is fine and an XIX 50 that doesn't miss a beat. I've tried it with new springs, old, new extractor, old style coil springs, etc.

The only success I ever had was removing the inner springs from the guide rods and shooting light weight titegroup loads, which was actually really cool, but still pretty finicky. However, that is the only even semi-reliable load I've found for this gun, and semi-reliable is stretching it.

I don't really know why this XIX barrel is so unreliable. About the only thing I can figure is its gas system is just clogged or highly restricted, and it isn't getting quite enough oomph. But I really don't know.

The method of failure 99% of the time is that the gun will eject just fine, and the new round will load, but the slide will remain 1/8 or so from battery. You can pull the slide back just a hair and it will go forward without an issue, and fire just fine.

I've tried factory, checkmate (which seem to be OEM anyway) and pro mag mags. They all work fine in the VII, but nothing does well in this gun / barrel.

Any ideas? I've about exhausted replaceable parts at this point and it's starting to look like a ship of theseus problem. I'll be able to put together another deagle soon if I keep buying spare parts.

I can think of a couple of possibilities. There seems to be some variation in gas cylinder diameters. An oversized cylinder allowing gas to blow past the piston, not transferring sufficient energy to the slide.

A fairly comprehensive write-up on several barrels can be found here.

The other thought is that the locking surfaces in your barrel extension are a bit rough, not allowing the bolt to smoothly rotate into place.

Interesting thread, thanks. I will mic the gas cylinder bore.

This is an Israeli barrel though, which the OP of that thread seems to believe stays in spec.

Hey Redarts...
If you don't mind, I would like to know what you find with the gas cylinder.
While my experience with gas cylinders being in spec on Israeli made barrels is excellent, it could always be an odd one.  The US barrels have proven to me that it is possible to REALLY overbore the gas cylinder in these guns.

I separate malfunction into two categories... pressure, or friction.

A.  There might be something like gas system stoppage from debris or rust, or gas cylinder diameter issues, as far as pressure.  I built a device to test gas system flow using a specific volume of air vs time to test for this.

B.  For friction, there could be a rough or burred chamber, and occasionally the back of the locking lugs have a rough spot and substantial energy is absorbed just unlocking the bolt before extraction.  I just dye everything and look for excessive contact and polish these areas.  If you would like to send your barrel to me to test for you, just PM me.  I am confident I can determine the cause of the issue and usually correct it with any case but over-sized gas cylinders... in which case, with my own barrels, I have just made a custom fit gas piston to compensate. (I do not provide this service for other due to safety concerns.)

I do hope you will post your findings on the gas cylinder bore diameter, as I am always curious.

Good luck,
MrBlackCat

I'm having pretty much the same problem with my new USA one. Except the slide is getting locked up right about where yours is stopping.   So far it's been back to magnum research once.  On mine  I'm able to rotate the piston in the slide while on the frame 1/4 turn.  Putting the flat spots on the sides instead of top and bottom. If I do this I can replicate the malfunction (while not having loaded cartridges) that happens at random points while live firing.  Once again on mine and maybe not the same as yours, there is visible peening on the recoil spring plate that holds the piston in place, imho, allowing this to happen. Only the 44 barrel locks shut, the 50 runs fine.  The 44 cylinder is supposed to be just slightly smaller than the 50 according to magnum research.  I'm still trying to get this resolved with the company.

Interesting... The piston flats are not critical.  I don't run flats at all on some of my experimental pistons.  The amount of rotational slack on them should not matter unless the shaft was bent, in my experience.  As far as cylinder size... in talking with Magnum Research, I have never received any reliable information they really know what the tolerance should be on these barrels.  I have a set of barrels from the same era and the cylinders in .357, .44, and .50 are with a couple of ten thousandths of each other.  The US made barrels, because of the gas port positional change probably, have slightly better gas flow than Israeli barrels... but this is only a very tiny amount on average.

I am not sure I understand the "visual peening" described... any chance you could post a picture of that?  One this is certain... I haven't encountered a problem that couldn't be resolved with a Desert Eagle, relative to function.

MrBlackCat

Yep I'll be more than happy to put up some pictures.  Just need to remember how since I believe photobucket went to crap. Lol. If you dont mind me emailing them to you I can also do that.  You seem very knowledgeable about this particular platform.  Any help goes a long way.