New Israeli Made (IWI?) Barrel Quality?

[MrBlackCat]

A few days ago I was looking on the Magnum Research site and decided to look at the 10" .357 Magnum barrel, as that is the last one I wanted for my collection. To my surprise, they were listed as made in Israel! I ordered one immediately, and it arrived today...

The website description doesn't say IWI, it just says Israeli made... maybe it was made by a quality challenged third party? Maybe I got the single rough, returned, abused floor model? A quality department reject that was accidentally shipped out? Maybe it was dropped while being packaged? Don't know.

A couple of oddities can be noted...
It was packaged like other new Desert Eagle barrels I have purchased, in a white box, wrapped with closed cell type white foam, inside a plastic bag... but strangely, there is almost no grease inside the bag. On previous barrels there was enough grease to remind you of buying old military surplus guns. Like dipped in grease.

The barrel has been previously mounted and fired, for sure. Maybe they test all of them? There are marks on the finish at the barrel locking surface (to the metal) as well as finish wear at the point where the frame slides into the sockets next to the gas port. There is also powder residue on the bottom of the barrel from the gas cylinder.

Ok, whatever, I got the barrel I wanted, and if I has been test fired and not cleaned well, no big deal.

But then I see a rather deep nick through the finish on the side of the barrel.
This one... Not terrible, but deeper than it looks in this image for sure. No deal breaker, I can fix it.


As I continue to look the barrel over, I see that it has been clamped a bit rough... look at these two images on opposite sides of the barrel. Note that they are UNDER the finish...


I have said this before... my guns are not show guns. I don't require them to be perfect. They are tools for enjoyment and potential defense, and a nick doesn't change that.
However... when I spend $498 on a new gun barrel, I expect more than this. I could have bought two inexpensive fully functional, name brand firearms for the cost of this one barrel... and they would not likely have any nicks. But I didn't... I bought this barrel for my Desert Eagle from Magnum Research, and it looks like it was treated really poorly. Is it safe? What if some of the locking mechanism or two part barrel lock was treated this poorly? This barrel doesn't look "good enough" for my Leopold scope really. Other than finish wear, my 25+ year old Desert Eagle is in better condition... certainly no nicks or gouges like this.

Due to recent issues with new Magnum Research barrels (discussed in other threads/forums) I had just kind of blamed "American Manufacturing" basically... but now seeing this Israeli barrel, I wonder if it isn't all around. Maybe the barrel is third party, and made in Israel, but not IWI?

For the cost of this barrel, I really didn't want a barrel to repair flaws on and then refinish, which is what I planned to do. It is a lot of work to strip and re-finish a barrel.

So... anyone else having issues with new barrels from Magnum Research? If so, I would like to hear what kind of issue and which barrel(s).

MrBlackCat

Edit: Update... I stopped working for a bit and decided to try mounting this barrel. It actually won't work on my gun at all. The bolt hangs up without passing through into the chamber... and when you ease it through, it seems to bottom out early and the slide will not close without a good push. (dry, no ammo) Then the slide doesn't want to open without a lot of force. When it jams in the bolt lock face, you have to remove the barrel to get the slide free again. It does this on both of my Desert Eagles.
Garbage... I have three other working (US made) .357 magnum barrels that have no binding issues at all. In total I am running nine barrels on these guns without this issue.
Here is what I have working currently...

This is the first and only barrel with an issue like this... is hard to believe this barrel would be made by IWI. I am leaning toward "it isn't."

This is unacceptable, and will be returned.
I have notified Magnum Research of the issue. I will keep you posted on how they respond.