Gas system clean-out tap for Desert Eagle

[lockhart]

Has anyone ever given any thought to drilling and tapping say, a quarter inch hole underneath the bore of a Desert Eagle in line with the gas hole underneath the bore? That way you could shoot cast bullets, remove the plug, and use a wire drill to clean out the gas hole under the bore? I think it would work. Any comments, pro or con?

[MrBlackCat]

I have thought of that... but never tried it. I was thinking of it to try and make an adjustable gas system with a set screw type system. If cast bullets are plated and or hard enough, it doesn't seem to cause issues. Multiple vendors state their hard-cast bullets do not cause this issue. I am not sure how many I have shot, but I have shot them in 50AE.

Buffalo Bore uses some kind of really hard exposed lead bullet they have tested not to cause the issue.

MrBlackCat

[lockhart]

I was hoping you would respond, MrBlackCat. No offense to any others on this forum, but you seem more knowledgeable about the Desert Eagle platform than a lot of others on here. Back in the early '70's I was deeply involved in the original Automag pistols. I had the .44 and .357 AMP calibers, and had to make brass from scratch. I did a lot of correspondence with Kent Lomont, and Lee Jurras. These guys gave me lots of help with making cases and loading info. The truth about those guns were that they were released to the public without a lot of testing to work out the bugs. And they did have some bugs! When the Desert Eagle came along, I didnt buy one at first. Only after I had sold all my Automags did I try those out. I was pleasantly surprised when I could fire a whole magazine from my Mark VII .44 without one jam! Real hard to do that with an Automag. I soon found a .50AE barrel for it and it quickly became my favorite caliber. Anyway, thanks again for responding to my post.

[MrBlackCat]

You are welcome. Sharing knowledge is the most important part of being human I think.
Some people just like to shoot guns, and some people are "tinkerers"... some are mixes of both. I have worked to improve reliability of these unusual firearms for years. I am sure plenty of people have done the same, but just don't have time to share what they have learned.

I really struggled between a Desert Eagle, AMT "Automag", Auto Mag "AutoMag", or Grizzle in 50AE... I went with the Desert Eagle and got lucky they survived as a company. I have never owned any of the others. Glad you found help, even if there were design issues.

The Desert Eagles are just sensitive to a few different issues which cause failures, but I don't think the design is flawed... it is just limited by the gas system blowing a LOT of crap back into the gun. Even the manual says to clean your Desert Eagle every 100 rounds, and with the ammo I shoot, it is usually lower than that.

This is not my image... if you haven't seen it before, it is pretty interesting.
https://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz121/TheMrBlackCat/Tool%20Forums/50AE_Cutaway_zps1ndss4gf.jpg (https://s820.photobucket.com/user/TheMrBlackCat/media/Tool%20Forums/50AE_Cutaway_zps1ndss4gf.jpg.html)

As far as drilling through... I have seen images of a barrel that blew out the front of the gas port. It seemed to be plug-welded through the front of the barrel. They probably drill the gas port through from both ends.
I have removed the allen screw from the gas port under the chamber (US made barrels) and drilled the plug weld out to see what, if anything, was in the gas port of a barrel I had. Israeli barrels are different, and I don't know what you do in that case.

MrBlackCat