Are the Pro Mags or Check-Mate any good or is it best to stick with the factory mags?  My step son has a birthday soon and I was going to pick him up a couple for his DE 44.
Thanks!

I haven’t had luck with the ProMags. Can’t say about the others.

It depends if you like him.

If you like him, buy damage from magnum research, if you don't like him, buy pro mags.

Factory mags work, the others don't.

ETA ; this is what I know from personal experience with the .50ae

I’ve got two 10-round .44 cal USA-brand mags. I don’t use them much, but they do seem to run fine. Only down-side is they are a bit tight in the magwell.

Otherwise I avoided aftermarket mags, based on the numerous reports of poor reliability.

Thanks to all for your input.  I ordered 2 factory mags based on your advice.

All I hear are anything other then factory for the .50 are garbage.....True or not IDK, The factory mags aren't that much more.

PRO-MAG anything = PURE-CRAP

Not really, I have 25rd ones for my Marlin .22 rifle.  They all work great.

I have 3 Pro-Mags for 2 different platforms, all work fine.

Pro mag for DE were crap, I got a couple years ago and just looking at them side by side with factory would make you laugh out loud. Don't know about
them nowadays but you can always do Ebay and might get factory cheaper than usual.

It depends. Do you like your step son? If so get some factory mags. Otherwise, the pro mag.

I bought some check mates off ebay for my .44 and they look like factory 1 s,  promags  suck .

Let us know how they work.
I did not know about checkmate mags until just now when I read this thread.
I looked at them on their website and they look suspiciously like my factory mags.

I too avoid promags

Checkmate was (and probably still is) the primary OEM Manufacturer of magazines for Magnum Research.  Just like with barrels and other parts, there were others in past, but I am not sure if these were the same company under different names or not.  A set of calipers quickly shows the Checkmate magazines to be identical to Magnum Research retail packaged magazines... other brands are not duplicates, which would be fine it they worked consistently.

I have had poor luck with magazines other than factory.  I don't remember but a couple of other companies even trying to to make Desert Eagle magazines with much volume or success... except for ProMag.  I don't doubt when people say they have ProMag magazines that work, but if you buy ten, they will all be different.  The ProMags I have tried for Desert Eagle simply didn't work with any frame/slide combination I have with my Desert Eagles.

After trying others that even seemed to work at first, I ended up back with Magnum Research or "Checkmate" brand.  Having a gun hang up ruins the fun for me... so I just stayed with what works...

Good luck with your magazine hunt!  :)

MrBlackCat

Checkmate is the factory mag.

As always, avoid promags.

I want to expand on this just a tiny bit in fairness to ProMag...

ProMag for Desert Eagles have fundamental design issues in my opinion.  The ones I have don't work and getting them to work, in my opinion requires a design change.

However... but this is not the case for all firearms... kind of.  I bought a 32 Round ProMag for a Sig P320 because they were $17 and my factory 21's are $50+.  In on-line research, sometimes these 32 round magazines would barely work, but some videos and testimony showed mag-dumps one after the other with no issue.

So I bought one...
Sure enough, there is really no design flaws in them that I see, but the finish and fit was just poor.  I first cleaned all of the black oil off the inside of the magazine and spring, and it still seemed rather rough.  Looking at the follower I saw two things I thought could be improved... the pebbled grain of the surface of the follower was a bit aggressive, so I smoothed it.  Then, there was obvious excessive molding flash on the contact surfaces of it.  I also smoothed the feed lips a tiny bit.  I wouldn't my life on a ProMag Magazine.

Still going...
I bought three more to use for target practice and have not had a single magazine related failure in somewhere around 500 rounds total.  Not a phenomenal number of rounds, by any means, but still representative of what might could be expected over time.

Not for everyone...
The point here is that out of the box, ProMag magazines are very hit and miss... in my opinion, some designs are only miss... but IF you don't mind a bit of tinkering, and have the knowledge and equipment, then ProMag may be right for you.  If you are purely a shooter and don't work with your firearms or this is about personal defense, then its probably best to stay with quality factory equipment.

So some ProMag products might have their place, in my experience, and opinion.

MrBlackCat

the check mate DE mags worked great !!

I bought (4) Action-Arms/Checkmate advertised OEM mags in .44caliber off of eBay last week. 3 out of 4 of them work great. The 1 that didn't I had to hand massage with a pair of needlepoint pliers to bend the damaged feed lip back into it's correct profile and then smoothed up the lips with a fine file; making them really slick.

Also, the follower would get stuck down inside same said magazine so that was sanded a bit and oiled up too. The damage could have happened during shipping but who knows. Digital calipers show these Checkmates are all the same dimensions as with the OEM magazine that came with the DEP. The only slight difference is the depth of the date (07/08 and 44) and caliber stamping on the side of the magazine are slightly deeper with the Checkmates ithan with the factory DEP magazine. The date, stamp font, round count witness numbers, and placement each are identical as well on all magazines comparatively to the single OEM mag that came with the DEP.

If the eBay sourced Checkmates I sourced are indeed counterfeits (I don't believe they are), then they are high quality fakes with a lot of time put into making them appear to be legit OEM's. Thus probably making them too labor and detail intensive and time consuming to realistically make any profit. The only difference is that above mentioned "07/08  & 44" stamping depth. And it's only a small deviation that a lot of people might not even notice.

All are loading smoothly and hand cycling snap-caps the same now. Watch the one I had to hand massage and tweak become the most reliable one of the bunch now, hahaha!