New From Magnum Research: Case Hardened Finish Desert Eagle Pistols

1. You guys should definitely drop test one of these….with a live round.

2. Man. Talk about polishing a turd.

   • at least it’s not purple. The case hardening does have a unique post-apocalyptic kind of feel.

     • Who buys these things? I’d sooner have a Taurus.

       • I would love one … if it fell out of the sky for free, in .41 Mag, but I could never pay the price for one with a clear conscience.

3. Nope.

   I do not want case hardening, I do not want excessive bling.

   I do not want it tiger striped, I do not want it with night sights.

   I do not want Action Express, or in any other caliber no less.

   I do not want it, Deagle man!

   • But do you want green eggs and ham?

   • Green mags & blam?

   • Well done.

4. It almost has a steampunk look to it.

5. Just a shot-coat of clear over carbon steel?

   What a nightmare of maintenance to keep from rusting…

   • I’m thinking mid-70’s Datsun. Given the neglect a lot of the owners of these guns put them through, there’s gonna be a few hilariously bad examples of this one in a few years. It’ll be like when they found Qaddafi’s Hi Power –perhaps Libya’s only marketable historical artifact within living memory– rusted so completely to shit in some idiot’s dresser drawer in two-years’ time that you could no longer tell it was gold-plated or even engraved.

     • Qaddafi’s Hi-power looks like a Damascened model. A gold fold foil hammered into an engraved steel, and a true artisan craft. The downside being a rigorous maintenance schedule requiring constant attention. But at 10-30 times the cost to do the work than the cost of the pistol, odds are if you can afford the gun you can afford to professionally clean it.

   • Actually, case-hardened steel resists corrosion better than many other types of passivation on carbon steel. I’ve had in several shotguns where the blueing on the barrels wore through, and pitting rust formed, while the color cased receiver was left mostly alone in the same salt water vapor environment (ie, gun owner in Florida, near the beach).

     The thin clearcoat is similar to what I do over color cased frames/receivers – I’ll use some sort of lacquer or vanish over a new color casing layer. There’s two things that are hostile to color cased surfaces – rust, and handling (ie, fingerprint oils). The bigger danger in most cases is handling, which will cause the colors to fade before rust will attack.

     Where color casing gets a bad rap is that there’s been lots of attempts to create surface finishes that look like color casing, but are not. They’re just some appliqué that has been put on the outside of alloy steel to gussy up plain steel; there is no charcoal pack hardening done. This is because a) it is cheaper, and b) frames/etc made out of alloy steel (eg, 4140) will harden through when put into a carbon pack and heated to critical temperature.

     The ideal steels (and irons) to use in color cased firearms will have low carbon contents (eg, 0.20% carbon), and be alloys like 8620. These won’t harden through – they don’t have enough carbon to harden. Hardening in steel starts somewhere in the 0.30%+ range of carbon, and is well on its way to getting Pretty Damn Hard[tm] by the time you’re up to 0.40% carbon, as in 4140 steels.

     What you want with a case hardened object is a hard, wear-resistant outer layer, and a more malleable, tougher (ie, resists impact loading) core. The receivers & bolts on Garands and M14’s/M1A’s are case hardened 8620 (or War Department equivalent steels on the Garand), but they’re not color cased. Colt SAA revolvers from the 1st gen were color cased because their frames weren’t made from steel at all, but malleable iron.

     I have no idea what Magnum Research is using for steel in the above pistols, but they describe it as “high carbon steel,” which isn’t what I would want to see on a case hardened gun, because it might be prone to cracking under impact loading.

     • “…they describe it as “high carbon steel,” which isn’t what I would want to see on a case hardened gun, because it might be prone to cracking under impact loading.”

       Phew. A good thing Deagle owners are *never* known to run stupid-hot loads in their hand-cannons for sh*ts-n-grins.

       *sarc*

       (And, as always, another wealth of gun knowledge we never would have gotten elsewhere from DG, a TTAG national treasure. As pretty as a gun like that is, I’ll pass on it, I’m too afraid I’d store it wrong. But, damn, a gun like Jeremy S’s jaw-dropping color-hardened P-7 is weak-in-the-knees *gorgeous*)

6. It looks like someone used it as a boat anchor for the weekend.

7. And this, my friends, is why intelligence & taste must be used when selecting aesthetic finishes. Case-hardening looks like marine decay on large flat surfaces, or when applied over an entire object’s surface. Were the slide *or* frame simply blued, the case areas would look much better. In this configuration it looks like it probably has barnacles & starfish hanging off it.

   You think the next Deagle’s gonna have a rust-brown finish and bleached-walnut grips, so it looks like surplus from the Spanish American War?

8. Unpopular Opinion: I think it’s kind of pretty. Stupid (and I still don’t want one), but pretty.

   • Another unpopular opinion. I like it and would want one. I shot a Desert Eagle a few months ago and had a wonderful experience. I think it would be a really fun gun if you’re a handloader.

     • Agreed. If youve ever shot one, you do want one. One of those things you’ll never spend the money on but would take to the range if you had it and would have fun.

       I had a big grin from the time I got to.

       • I’ll jump on this “unpopular” bandwagon. I get a “Steampunk” vibe from this gun. If I had the scratch, I might buy one.

       • I have shot many and I’ve never been impressed. Never wanted one.
         Except this one. To keep in my truck console.

       • What would be really cooool: You could post a picture on Instagram of you holding the DE pistol up in front of you with a weird look on your face. Or with your head down and wearing one of those “I’m ex-military” olive drab hats. Or do an Instagram video of you drop testing the DE while wearing armor and eye protection. Good stuff.

   • I like it too.

   • You’re entitled to your own opinion, even (especially?) if it’s unpopular.

     And if I don’t happen to share it, well, we can agree to disagree.

     But perhaps this is one of those debates best conducted over a good beer or two.

9. I kinda like it. It had a rough kinda unreal that the thing is even a real gun look. I kinda like. Probably will never buy one though so no worries if I’m wrong.

10. I’ll take a gold tiger stripe thank you very much.”If taste means black, polymer & tacticool ,” I have no taste then. Bring on some flash.

    • I had to click over to look at that pic myself. It’s pimp-dilly-icious!

11. At least we can find solace in the fact that it’s a flat-shooting, practical gun. No, wait…

    I do think it has a really cool impingement system, though.

12. I gotta look at getting one of these.

13. I have owned a couple Deagles in a few different calibers. They are fun, but I wish they would just redesign the grip. It is not made for human hands. There is enough meat in the grip for a radical recontour, to make this thing more of a firearm and less like palming a brick.

    • Yeah I hate the stock grips that came with my Deagle. Honestly I find the hogue rubber ones to be a good replacement. Normally I don’t care for hogue but some reason they feel good in my hand.

14. I got 3 letters: O. M. G.

15. When I fired the .50AE Deagle, it left me with a grin on my face and several indentations on my forehead from the ejected casings, which flew straight back and ricocheted off my noggin. It wasn’t every round…every 4th or 5th casing would smack my head. It was more unexpected that way; kept me on my toes.

    As I look at this particular variant, the gold-ish trigger doesn’t seem to blend with the color scheme at all. It screams “garish!” to me, but Deagle owners would take that as a compliment.

    • Gold triggers just seem to scream “I’m a pimp!”

      I’d prefer to see a nitre-blued trigger.

    • To me, it fits the “old west flashy” theme, as I can easily imagine color case-hardened fancy guns of yore with brass triggers. But DG’s idea would look good, too.

16. that is some pretty groovy swirlification. let me know when i can get this in sarah coat.

    it is always requested that this device accompany whatever gets dragged out for a session. a very satisfactory indulgence in .44.

17. It is all in the eye of the beholder and I like case hardening, so who’s to say I’m wrong? If I hadn’t invested most of my dinero in SIG pistols and Anschutz match rifles, I would buy one just the example in the photo. Gold color, however, is a bit too much, even for a drug kingpin. Brush stainless or mirror polish stainless are great too in 44 Action Express of course. They are also much lighter than those .445 Supers, 460’s, 475’s and 500’s revolvers anyway and the target will not know the difference or appreciate the color.

18. I have a Stevens 311D shotgun from 1955 with a similar finish on the frame. Barrels are standard bluing.

    What cleaners can I use that will not harm the finish on the frame?

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