I have wanted a DE for a long time, but have been unwilling to pay the asking price for those I see locally and on GB.  I will probably shoot in .44 Mag most often, as I have other guns in this caliber.  I like the idea of having .50 AE, too, but would need to buy ammo and/or reloading gear for it.  But it would be fun to have.  The DE is a "for fun" gun, not for any practical use.  (BTW...I do have a TDE .44 AutoMag, too).

The gun I found to buy at what I think is "the right price" is a Mk VII that is coming with a soft case and 4 8-round magazines for $975.  I had done a bit of reading on and off about the DE and thought I knew what was needed to convert to .50 AE (mags, barrel, slide assembly).  But after finding the Mk VII and agreeing to buy it, I have found that in practice converting to an XIX upper for .50 AE is difficult due to lack of availability of parts.

I can also convert "down" to .357 (just need the bolt instead of a whole slide assembly).  Or to .41 Magnum (fan of the round) if I can find a barrel--but would that also need a different bolt from the .44?

Am I missing anything?

Anyway...looking forward to getting the gun and having to "live" with just the .44 Mag for now!

Rob

Hey Rob... the Mk VII series had different slides for each caliber, with the exception of 44/41, which shared a slide (but not the bolt)  The Mk VII 50AE's have (mostly) the same slide as a Mk XIX, but a few early ones won't clear 357Magnum magazines. Most Mk VII 50AE slides will not have this issue.

To convert your Mk VII to 50AE or 357 Mag, you will need a different slide and barrels.  Because Mk VII 41's and 44's have different bolts, to convert your MkVII to 41Mag you would only need a very hard to find bolt.

Your Mk VII barrel will not work with a Mk XIX slide.

Consider this maybe... if you get a Mk XIX slide, you can switch between any Mk XIX Barrel.  50, 429DE, and 44 Mag with only a barrel/magazine change as they use the same bolt.  And from that, you can change a bolt (2 minute change) to shoot 357Mag.  Bolts new are around $200 however.  I built a slide from parts a while back, but it was 3/4 the price of a complete gun really.
Think of it like this... Mk XIX barrels in all calibers are all cut from the same blank, so everything lines up.

Let me know if anything needs more clarification.  :)

MrBlackCat

Thanks for the clarifications of my info.

It arrived at my dealer yesterday and I went in today to start the paperwork (damn WA State for screwing CPL holders and now requiring us to go through the waiting period/extended background check).  Looks pretty good, I think, but it looks like the frame is completely gray...like no finish at all.  I didn't have a magnet to see if it was alloy or steel frame.







Unfortunately. of the 4 included magazines, only 1 is a factory mag.  2 are clearly marked ProMag ones and the last looks just like them except no markings at all.  How crappy are ProMag DE mags?  As bad as most ProMags, or are these one of the few that are worth a damn (like the poly HK33/93 mags which work very well).

Any additional info that you guys can give me from the pics?  Thanks.

Rob

The -S on the serial number is Stainless, so it is cast stainless steel, and is bare, with no coating.  I remember seeing those when they came out and assumed they were special order or someone had swapped parts around for the two tone look. Back at the time these came out, there never was stainless uppers offered... just the frame.  In recent years, there are/was a few Desert Eagle offered with stainless barrel, slide, and frame in the Mk XIX series.

Success with ProMag magazines is possible, but it is not common.  Just find good ammo that works with your Magnum Research magazine, then try the ProMags, just to be sure it isn't an ammo problem. The ones I have do not work reliable in any caliber, so I go with Magnum Research branded or CheckMate, the company which makes them for Magnum Research.  I don't recall ever having issues with a Magnum Research/Checkmate magazine.  Any issues I have had were caused by something else.

Ammo... it has to make the pressure.  Most target ammo won't work well at all.  Revolvers don't care how low the pressure is, so many loadings are WAY too conservative for a Desert Eagle, so I will offer some of what runs fine in mine.
These are rounds I keep on the shelf...
PMC 180gr JHP
S&B 240gr JSP
PPU 240gr JHP
PPU 300gr JSP (insert big smile)
Precision One 240gr XTP. (Their FMJ target ammo won't function... 1150fps stuff is too low pressure)
Aguila worked fine in all loadings, but disappeared from the market.  A bit dirty.
Hornady in any loading

Almost any XTP works in my experience.

Let us know when you get a chance to try it.  If you have any issue, they are usually not big deals to work out.

MrBlackCat

Thanks again for the great DE info, MrBlackCat!  I would not have guessed a raw stainless frame, but now that you said it, it makes sense!

I did buy a pair of Checkmate mags from the seller on eBay, so I'll have at least 3 good mags plus whatever I can make of the ProMags (immediate action drill mags?).

Most of the .44 Mag I shoot are handloads.  It was the second caliber I started loading more than 30 years ago when I was 16.  I know my favorite target load of 8.0 gr of Unique and a LSWC is NOT a DE load.  I have some good full magnum level loads using 240 JHP and JSP as well.

I do have a small amount of factory ammo, including classic Federal 240 gr JHP and some American Eagle and Fiocchi of the same.  I figure the Federal is probably the baseline for the DE.

Rob

Excellent on the magazines... probably JoesMagMania... I have bought SO many magazines from that guy.  (10+ per caliber for the DE!)
As I am not yet reloading ammo, let me throw you the save curve I have thrown some others relative to the Desert Eagle and some loadings.  I have Chronographed some commercial 44Magnum loads, in 240gr JHP's in different brands, in which the lower velocity round had 100% function of the gun, and the one of greater velocity did not cycle enough to even reliably eject.  I am talking 150+ fps average faster, and still would not cycle.  Judging from the muzzle flash, the powder was doing a lot of its burn outside the barrel.
Time-over-pressure.  The powder type/rate must be very important to the Desert Eagle gas system.  In the past, Precision One ammo knew this also, as they made a specific round for the Desert Eagle in 44Magnum, which wasn't really any faster, but it worked.  If you buy Precision One XTP's, they work fine.  I shoot their target/standard loads, but only in a 10" barrel, as they won't cycle in a 6" barrel.

Good luck and keep us posted!  :)

MrBlackCat

Have not yet made it to the range with my DE, but I did call Magnum Research today about it.  They told me that it was made in April of 1991 and confirmed the stainless frame and black upper.  I asked if there were any recalls and he said there were none (I thought I read somewhere about EARLY stainless frames having some tendency to crack).

I also asked him about conversion to .50 AE.  He said the complete Mk XIX slide assembly is about $400, which when added to a barrel kit puts the conversion at about $900.  I expected as much.  I'll just have to be happy with it "as is", or sell it and buy a Mk XIX instead.

Also with a 28 year old gun with an unknown number of rounds fired, it seems like getting a new spring kit is a good idea.

Rob

Got the big gun out to the range yesterday.  Wow, is it a lot of fun!  Wow, is it HEAVY!  I put about 60 rounds down the range and by the end my arms were tired!  That's a lot of gun to hold up for offhand shooting.  (When I switched to the little Beretta 81 in .32 ACP afterwards, it felt like NOTHING.)

I had 7 different .44 Magnum loads with me and only 1 had any issue.  I wasn't trying for an exhaustive test, or real accuracy testing.  I just wanted to familiarize myself with the gun and get an idea what ammo it might like to eat more of.  All shooting was done offhand at either 20 feet or 30 feet.  I labeled up all of my targets and then left them at the range.  D'oh!

In both pictures you can see the gun is shooting about 2 inches right and 0.5 to 1 inch high.  See the end for a question about the adjustable sight.

Here is what I considered the "baseline" load...classic Federal 240 gr JHP in the old 20-round red and white box.  These are the first 5 rounds fired from the gun by me (maybe EVER as the gun appears brand new):



The other factory loads I had were American Eagle 240 gr JHP, Fiocchi 240 gr JSP and a few odd rounds of Blazer aluminum cased 240 gr JHP.  The aluminum Blazer was the only ammo of the day that caused any problems.  It had problems exiting the mags and chambering.  It felt "sluggish" chambering and a couple times I had to help the slide close.  I'm not surprised, really, but just wanted to check it out.  The American Eagle and Fiocchi both showed good accuracy and no issues cycling the gun.

The other 5 loads touched off were my own handloads.  All carried 240 gr JHP bullets.  Here's a target that I pictured at the range, so all was not lost:



Lower right group 1:  Blue Dot powder and a 6 o'clock hold
Upper right group 2:  2400 powder with a hold at the top of the white bullseye (yes, that's 5 shots)
Center group 3:  a little more 2400 powder with hold at left edge center of the orange

EDIT:  Actual load info removed==these are NOT SUGGESTED LOADS.  DO NOT USE THEM.

Not pictured are the results of the other 2 handloads...22.0 and 23.0 grains of H110.  Results were similar to the loads with 2400, except the fireball seemed larger/stronger.

I did not experience any issues with the 3 factory mags.  The 3 Promags seemed OK for the most part, other than being tight in the gun and harder to load.  The gun certainly needs more of a workout before I can really comment on reliability, but so far so good (except for aluminum case ammo).

Rear sight issue

I mentioned the gun shooting to the right above.  It has an adjustable rear sight, but I could not adjust it.  You can see it is visibly off center.



The windage screw would turn, but the sight would not move.  I presume the top Allen-head screws are meant to lock down the sight (I checked the online manual and it was silent on the subject).  I think they need to be loosened to adjust the sight, but I could not get them to move.  We tried every Allen wrench we had and nothing fit properly.  Or maybe the screws are buggered, which is what I fear.

Am I correct about the cap screws?  If stripped out, any suggestions?  I don't know if my easy-outs are small enough to work on something like this.  Is the sight all steel so it can take some heat?

Thanks for looking.  Any and all comments are welcome.

Rob

Hey Rob...  The windage screw should move the notch bar at any time.  It is only held in place by detent tension.
The sight body is held in place by those allen screws on SOME sights, but I am not sure on that one.  Sometimes those screws simply hold the sight body to the dovetail piece.  I don't seem to have that one to check.  Desert Eagles in my experience have some extremely tight sight notches.
If you need to remove the tiny hex screws, there are two ways I use.  1.  At the expense of one wrench or bit, grind it to fit until you can tap it into the hex. It won't take much.  2.  At the expense of some marks on the sight, take a diamond disk on a Dremel tool and cut a slot in the head for a flat point.  Because of the cut disk radius it will cut into the sight body some of course.  Then just get some new screws to go back with.

Maybe someone with that model sight will let us know if those are set screws or just dovetail screws.

Good luck!
MrBlackCat