The "all new" Desert Eagle 429...

Update...
Finally got this in hand...


This is just some day one observations and experiences. No penetration tests. No accuracy over distance tests etc. This is just about function and a small chronograph sample.
The 429 compared... left to right, 9mm, 357Mag, 41Mag, 44Mag, 429DE Mag, and 50AE.


I got just a barrel in this case... not buying another gun, currently only offered in stainless with an internal muzzle brake, which effectively shortens the barrel. A shorter barrel is not what I want in a magnum handgun round. I want to give every opportunity for as much powder burn as possible. On a side note, there isn’t a 10” barrel planned in the 429DE, as all 10” barrels have been discontinued at this time. Sad. I will re-chamber a 10” 44mag barrel for the 429 as soon as chamber reamers become available though.

If you are only interested in ballistic test stats, they are at the bottom. Just skip the next two sections down to “Ballistics”.

Note that all below is based on an “out of the box” barrel. I will polish the ramp and chamber as I do on some of my barrels. Oddly, this is a two part barrel, which to my knowledge is only made this way in Israel. I’ve not seen a two part US made barrel before so I doubt this is made in the US. It also shares a gas cylinder perfectly in spec with my other Israeli made barrels, unlike any of my US made barrels.

Sharing magazines…
First... the 429DE round is stated to be magazine compatible with the 50AE. There aren’t any custom magazines planned I am told, but I might slightly modify some 50AE magazines and designate them as 429DE. Here is why. This is a necked down cartridge from a 50AE case to hold a 429 bullet. (.429 is a 44mag actual diameter, for those who don’t know) There is a slight tendency, when the magazine is full, to nose down just a tiny bit, keeping it from heading up the feed ramp. This only happened once, on a full magazine. No other feeding issues were experienced.
Second… it is substantially more difficult to load the rounds into the magazine than 50AE. I use a loader with 50AE only when loading up 10+ magazines. But I broke out the loader after the first magazine in this case. Big deal? Not at all, just wanted to mention it, as it is different than anything I have experienced with a Desert Eagle.
Here is a shot of 429DE compared to 50AE in magazines...


Firing...
Try to avoid this scenario... if your gun is dirty from shooting a lot of cheap 50AE, target ammo... and you get exited because your new 429 barrel comes in... and you don’t even wipe the slide and springs, just so you can get some rounds across the chronograph... most of the cases MAY eject almost straight back over your head… or some of the time they will hit your glasses or head. Also, you might get some failures to return to battery... but just wiping off the slide and recoil springs and rods with two tiny sheets of Hoppes Lubricating Gun Oil Field Wipes, solves both of these issues, at least in my case. With that said, the 429 did not throw the best pattern of brass for sure. The 50AE, I can put a box to catch nearly all the brass when shooting from a rest. The 429 simply didn’t pile the brass as consistently... I expect this will change when I polish the chamber and inside of the locking lugs on this new barrel. It might be a break in issue, but I don’t wait for that with a Desert Eagle barrel. I don’t consider ejected brass pattern a problem, just something comparative that I noticed, and thought I would mention. Functionality was fine after I took 45 seconds to wipe the powder residue from the slide, frame, and recoil springs.
The 429DE is a rather “snappy” round for the Desert Eagle... I swear it has more “climb” than other calibers, but not sure how to quantify that. It felt like a 44 mag 10” barrel basically. It falls right in line between 44 and 50, as expected.


Ballistics...
I got some of the two loadings offered by Magnum Research under the name Glacier Ridge Ammunition – Magnum Research. One is a 210gr JHP, the other is a 240gr JSP.

Using a Caldwell chronograph... 14 rounds each.
The 240gr showed 1569fps average. (which puts it at 1312ft-lbs) deviation was 10.6
The 210gr showed 1697fps average. (which puts it at 1343ft-lbs) deviation was 10.4

For comparison...
Samson 50AE 300gr JHP showed 1429fps avg. (~1360ft-lbs) deviation was 22.3
American Quality 50AE 300gr JHP showed 1269fps avg. (~1072ft-lbs) deviation was 51fps
PPU 44Mag 240gr JHP showed 1362fps avg. (~ 988ft-lbs) deviation 22.1
Precision One 44Mag 240gr RNFP showed 1173fps avg. (~733ft-lbs) deviation 65.5

Just as the math would have shown, it has the energy of a 50AE in the diameter of 44 mag. The penetration must be crazy. I don’t do anything fancy like gel testing, but I do test with wood, paper, and other materials for comparison sometimes. This will be an interesting round to explore.


That is all I got for now.

Happy Shootin’

MrBlackCat
(edited out the side to side movement issue report... this was an inaccurate observation on my part.)

Update:
Over the holidays I found a great price on 429DE Magnum ammo, and bought enough to matter finally.

One CON I forgot to mention before is the front sight is "wrong". Not sure what the deal is, but it shoots crazy low... like "I just shot my chronograph" low. The front blade sight that came on my 429DE barrel is 0.325" (8.26mm) high. The height of my other front sights across 13 barrels is around ranges from 0.240" (6.09mm) to 0.272" (6.91mm) depending on design. So at about 25 ft it shoots 3~4 inches low or so. Very uncharacteristic for a Desert Eagle. I did a few shots by "point shooting" and got the same result. To verify this, I pointed the gun several times, then looked down the sights and the front blade was about .100" higher than the rear site every time. Not sure what is going on with that.

One PRO... this bore has about the highest polish I have seen in a Desert Eagle Barrel. I have polished my barrels bores before, and get this result over time, but this barrel was like this new.

One issue I noted my first time shooting the 429DE, was irregular ejections. Mostly low, and it will throw them left or right, sometimes center. Not very good or consistent, but working. So I did a standard polish of the chamber and ramp between then and now to see if that changed anything. No improvement of consistency, but ejection strength/distance did increase. I did polish the chamber a bit for easier extraction, which seems to have worked.

So I ran another set through the chronograph I shot a while back, then through the new chronograph and got almost identical results... (guess the old one will be ok after all!)
DE429 6"
210gr JHP 1697.69mv
240gr JSP 1568.45mv
Pretty fun to shoot and less punishing than 50EA.

Then I just shot some things with it... like lumber, firewood, targets, and some water jugs. Shooting gallon water jugs with the 429DE in 210's is closer to shooting them with 454 Casull than with 50AE. Just noting that, but not a huge difference in any of these magnum calibers vs water jugs.

I will swap the front sight out for a more standard height one, but the height that came with this 429DE barrel is really crazy tall. Still puzzled about that one. When the second 429DE Barrel gets here in a few days, I will come back here and post if the sight is the same height or not.

I will leave you with a picture... this is a bag of happiness for those who enjoy the conversion of gunpowder and lead into smiles.

Happy Shootin'!

MrBlackCat

That is interesting about the front site. Wonder if they ran out of the reguilar sites and just grabbed a hand full of the taller ones with out thinking about the effect?

MrBlackCat, I just ordered my barrel so we'll see if it has the same tall sight on it. I also ordered 60 rounds and the Lee die set for reloading. Should have it all sometime next week.

I'm in the midst of (finally!) building my reloading shed; it's been in the works for over 3 years now and I'm down to a few minor details. Hopefully within a couple of months I should have some actual results; that is, if the dies come in at a decent time. I can't remember if I bought a bullet mold for 44 mag or not, but if I do I'll cast and powder coat some bullets too. The 429DE is sort of a birthday present to myself, and probably the first thing I'll play with when I get back into reloading.

Just a side note, depending on the picture of the barrel you see, sometimes I see them with the tall sight, other times I see them with the normal height sight. The picture for the one I bought appears to have the normal height one but of course it's just a stock photo so no telling what I'll get. Looks like it'll be here next week.

Edit: I just looked through my orders from various places and it looks like I bought a .430"-310gn Lee mold that uses gas checks. I have a mill and can shave that down a bit but I'm thinking I'll get the .429"-240gn mold as well to play with. Also already bought the .430" sizer die which should be perfect for powder coated bullets.

I am still wondering if the slides are different now...
When I bought my Williams Firesight the front sight was WAY too short for my gun. This was put on a US made slide, but I don't know when it was made, as I bought it new, but bare. Then I found out that the Williams sight is only made for certain Desert Eagles with specific prefixes on their serial numbers. I wonder if the difference is a lower cut out for the rear sight. I have no Desert Eagles with these serial number ranges to find out, but I suspect it could be the case.

MrBlackCat

The dovetail cut is different on a US-made barrel vs. an IMI barrel. So it would stand to reason the rear dovetail in the slide would be different as well.