So the controller of the purse (wife) let me get one of the firearms on my "bucket list." A Desert Eagle in .50AE. It's a Magnum Research version, not the IWI version, if that matters. I suspect I know what may have caused my issues at the range the other day, but want to ask...

1. The magazine takes a LOT of push to get seated (leaving it to "float" as per the manual, about 1/8" space between the plate and base of the grip) but pushing the magazine release made it slip in. After looking at the pistol and some videos of people troubleshooting, it looks like this may be normal...

2. We had a couple fail-to-feeds where the round didn't go into the breech, and one somewhat scary FTF where the round was in the breech, but the slide locked back (buddy kept a solid grip on the slide, dropped the magazine, and I pushed the round out with a cleaning rod).

We called it a day after the second incident...

Details: Ammunition is Magnum Research branded that one of the local gun shops had in-stock (300gr)
Except for once, we were only putting one round in the magazine each time.
Prior to this outing, I field-stripped the pistol per the manual, and wiped it all down with a gun-oil coated cloth (actually Hoppes 9 field wipes) but didn't do a full cleaning.

My suspicion as to the cause of some of our problems is two-fold:
1. I think both of us need to work on our wrist strength. We weren't limp-wristing, but we may have been allowing the barrel to come up more than the gun likes, causing the slide to fail to come back all the way.
2. I think I need to do a full, thorough cleaning and try again.

At the moment, I'm willing to point the finger at myself, and not the firearm, but just checking with others...

Thanks,
Jason

PS Regardless of the problems, this is a FUN firearm to shoot!