Men’s passion for arms is widely known. It is caused by historical reasons: a man has always been a warrior, a defender for his fatherland and hearth. A weapon gives him confidence, the sense of superiority. And sometimes this passion for danger and adventures is shared even by women. But is it a good idea to give a weapon to a woman for her birthday? Asking ourselves this question, we first of all think about the moral aspect of such gifts, remember a lot of prejudices connected with weapons. Of course, you can give her pneumatic firearms, or a beautiful souvenir sword. A decorative blade always catches the eye and fascinates with its beauty. However, human nature always wants something unattainable and forbidden. For example, such a complex and dangerous “toy”, as a Desert Eagle gun.
Desert Eagle is one of the world’s largest pistols, a self-loading large-caliber model developed by the Israeli arms company Israel Military Industries in 1983. Although, originally the famous American company Magnum Research also participated in the development of this pistol. Currently, there are several variants of Desert Eagle offered for sale.
The manufacturer positions Desert Eagle as a gun for self-defense and hunting, but not everyone can cope with this pistol: Desert Eagle is like a hand-held howitzer. It uses 12.7 mm caliber cartridges (as for a machine gun). The instruction says that with this gun you can hunt a bear or a hippopotamus — perhaps, it is true. However, if you will not be careful handling this weapon, you may get a serious injury.
In the cult film about the special agent Nikita, a fragile girl who plays the main role, easily copes with bad guys using a huge Desert Eagle. In reality, such a situation is impossible: it’s hard to imagine a weapon that is more inappropriate for a woman than Desert Eagle.
Desert Eagle is not just big — it’s huge. Its weight is about two kilograms, that brings this gun close to automatic rifles. This weapon can’t be carried concealed, it can’t be pulled out quickly, very powerful bullets penetrate through the body of a person, creating the danger of accidental injury for other people. The cartridges that the gun uses give a lot of soot. Therefore, Desert Eagle needs regular and thorough cleaning, otherwise the mechanism can jam at the most inopportune moment.
When you fire a Desert Eagle, the sound of a shot may just deafen you if you don’t use special earpieces. Thats why firing this pistol is prohibited in many closed shooting galleries. The gun is inconvenient to hold in hands because of the huge size of a handle and not very practical plastic overlays on it. And, of course, it doesn’t fit for miniature female fingers.
If you don’t hold the gun correctly while shooting, a used cartridge sleeve can get directly into your face, and if your grip is too weak – the gun can hit into your head.
Another problem is the design of the magazine. Its thin plates can be easily deformed even by minor impacts, that causes cartridges skewing and stops shooting. The quality of the cartridges is also important: Desert Eagle does not “like” steel sleeves, they often cause delays when used.
The Desert Eagle was invented by Bernard S. White, an employee of the US arms company Magnum Research. At least, his name is mentioned in the patent. Although, the history of this weapon began even earlier.
The history of the gun
In the early 1970s, several Americans conceived the idea of creating a pistol for a high-power cartridge of .357 Magnum caliber and created the company Magnum Research for this goal. The first patents were issued in 1980, and in the next year a prototype was ready. In 1983, the company developed the first copy of a similar pistol, it was called Eagle 357. However, the weapon required serious revision. In particular, it was necessary to improve the reliability of the automation. Its principle was taken from the assault rifle M16: the outlet of a part of powder gases from the barrel bore and locking by a rotating bolt. Such a system was used because of the capacity of the cartridge.
Its rework was carried out by the Israeli arms company Israel Military Industries (IMI). In 1985 this firm has got a second patent, that fixed all changes made in the gun’s construction. At that time the pistol was called Desert Eagle.
The first batch of pistols — 1 thousand units — had a caliber of .357 Magnum and traditional barrel rifling. The frame was made of light alloy, then it was replaced by steel. Since 1985, polygonal rifling have been used for the barrels, instead of hexagonal profile. Today these pistols are real rarities for collectors and weapons lovers. Even their replicas are now difficult to find — and they are not cheaper. Mass production of Desert Eagle was started at IMI plants in Israel and then in the USA.
In 1986, a new version of Desert Eagle appeared for a more powerful .44 Magnum revolver cartridge.
In 1989 a modification called Desert Eagle mark VII was developed, it had some differences in the trigger design. And in 1996 the last modification of this weapon was released: Desert Eagle mark XIX. It was created for an even more powerful .50 Action Express cartridge.
The design of Desert Eagle is very original. It’s more typical for automatic rifles than for self-loading pistols: its automation uses the energy of the outlet of powder gases (as AK-47). Above the barrel there is a gas pipe: the powder gases are diverted from the barrel bore through it and impact on the shutter frame.
Locking of the barrel channel is performed by the rotating bolt, that is very similar to the analogous design of the American automatic rifle M16. It is due to the presence of the gas pipe the barrel looks so massive. To provide the necessary space for the shutter frame movement, the body of the pistol had to be made long, which also increased its weight.
The shutter has four catches, which engage with the breech part of the barrel.
The gun has trigger type mechanism, the fuse blocks the shutter. The magazine is single-row, with a capacity from seven to nine cartridges, depending on the caliber. The sighting devices are open, unregulated, some models can be equipped with optical sights.
Initially, these pistols had frames made of aluminum alloys, but then the manufacturer completely switched to the use of weapon steel. There are different types of coating: bluing, nickel plating, gilding. Although the last option is more often used in souvenier replicas than in standard factory copies.
Models and modifications that are on sale
Since the start of mass production, several models of this pistol have been developed:
- Mark I and Mark VII. The Mark I model has already been withdrawn from production, its main differences were some design features (the location of the firing switch and the handle cheeks). The Mark I variant was manufactured with a light alloy, carbon and stainless steel frame. Other variants differed mainly in the shape of the fuse lever and handle cheeks. The Mark VII variant has an adjustable trigger and a Weaver rail mount on the barrel which helps to install additional accessories: optical sights or laser target designators. Pistols of this modification can use cartridges of .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum calibers.
- Mark XIX. This model is developed on the basis of Mark VII and today it is on sale. There are several modifications of Mark XIX, which use ammunition with the calibers .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and .50 Action Express. They differ in the barrel length. Fitting for another type of cartridges can be made quite simply: it’s enough to change the barrel, the shutter and the magazine.
This gun has never been used (or even offered) as a service or combat weapon. With great confidence, we can say that this trend will continue in the future. There are several reasons:
– The weight of the gun is 1.7 – 2 kg. That means, instead of one heavy Desert Eagle, a soldier or a policeman can take two more miniature Glock 19 or SIG-Sauer Р228, which are much more convenient to wear and to use.
– Excessive recoil of the weapon and too bright flash of a shot that complicates fast and aim shooting.
– Insufficient store capacity.
– The gun is not reliable: it needs thorough care. In addition to that, it has never been tested in extremal conditions.
Here is a quotation from a review written by a Desert Eagle’s owner:
“No matter how hard I tried, no matter how hard I trained — anyway one of 50-100 empty cartridge cases would get into my forehead! Once it flew right into my eye, but I was wearing glasses, according to safety rules. If the grip is slightly weakened, the flight path of the cartridge case changes significantly towards the shooter’s face. The cheeks of the handle are made of cheap plastic, it is very solid. If the hand is wet or oiled, it will slide. With such a recoil, it is not very pleasant and quite dangerous. Therefore, plastic cheeks should be immediately changed to rubber. Summarizing, I can say that the main drawback of the gun is low reliability. Every time I went to the shooting gallery it had at least one delay for one reason or another.”
And, nevertheless, the Desert Eagle has the image of a cool gun, which is actively used by special forces fighters or policemen. Although it is just a myth. The reason is simple: DE very often can be seen in various action games and fantastic action movies. Since 1984 and “Year of the Dragon” film, Desert Eagle was shown in “RoboCop” trilogy, “Predator 2”, “Eraser”, “Commando”, “Alien vs. Predator”, “Another World”, “Resident Evil: Apocalypse”, and a huge number of other movies. In particular, Desert Eagle was a weapon of agents in the famous trilogy “Matrix”. Such popularity is the result of huge size, spectacular design and large caliber of this handgun.
Thanks to Hollywood movies and computer games Desert Eagle is a very famous pistol, but professional shooters have an ambiguous attitude to this weapon. If a professional is not satisfied with the power of his standard pistol, then he will most likely to prefer a submachine gun or an assault rifle, it will provide a much higher efficiency. So Desert Eagle is just an original sports pistol and a gun for Sunday shooting outside the city, that’s all. Currently, it is one of the largest handguns in the world. It is not only inconvenient for shooting: even to buy this weapon is not always easy. Depending on the modification, the cost of the gun on sale ranges from $1,400 to $2,100. Ammunition for Desert Eagle is also not cheap: the price of one .50 caliber cartridge is 1.5 – 2.5 dollars. Expensive pleasure, in addition to all other difficulties.
So what’s to be done if you still want to please your girlfriend who dreams to repeat the spectacular scene from her favourite film, and imagines herself with a DE in the place of the main heroine? It’s too risky to buy her such a dangerous gift, that is so difficult to handle. But there is another alternative: miniature replica guns. For sale such small Desert Eagle is produced by the Russian company “Miniature Arsenal”. It is made on the scale of 1:2. In the photos above, the samples are presented. As you can see, even in the half size they look impressive in the hand. And it’s not just a fake, it’s a replica, which performs all the same functions, only the size is changed. But if something goes wrong — the consequences will not be so severe. In fact, manufacturers of miniature firearms often deliberately fill cartridges using only a third part of the volume in order to make their products more practical and safe.They know that mini-pistol can be purchased as a gift for children or adult people who are not very capable in terms of arms handling. So you will not be nervous if your girlfriend goes to a shooting gallery with her new Desert Eagle: she will not need a special assistant. And besides, when you place an order for making a souvenir, you can personalize this gun especially for her: for example, to add an engraving with words of love or a colored incrustation in the form of a the queen of hearts – as in the first picture. Packed in an elegant gift case, such a surprise will definitely be appreciated!
The only negative moment, which, nevertheless, will remain when using this option — the price. Miniature replica guns on sale are even more expensive than their full-size prototypes. They are not produced in large batches, each copy is manufactured on customer’s request, and it means higher labor cost. In addition, the smaller the mechanism, the more difficult it is to reproduce and to adjust all details in order to make it operable. So the price will be increased several times comparing with an original gun.
Too much? Then, perhaps, you should consider other variants of miniature souvenir pistols for women. For example, this tiny Derringer. In gold version it costs $1300, and in silver — only $400. Notice that all its parts are made of precious metal, including even screws (the only exception is steel springs made of special Swiss steel, which is also used in famous brand watches). So this is not only an original mini-weapon, but also a piece of jewelry. In addition, this pistol is a kind of record holder in the world of miniatures: at the moment it is the smallest operating pistol in the world with a caliber of 1 mm. In the kit there are 10 cartridges with steel bullets. The shot is quite impressive and powerful: it can penetrate even a metal target. To evaluate the pistol in action, watch this video:
Of course, people do not go to shooting galleries with such pistols. But it’s hard to come up with a better idea, if you want to create the image of a fatal woman who knows how to stand up for herself and at the same time has a good sense of style and beauty. Your girlfriend will appreciate it doubly, because from a female point of view, it’s just a perfect combination of a cute trinket and a stylish accessory, which, moreover, has a spirit of danger.
To get more information about this weapon or order it online — go to this section.