Why did they make the Desert Eagle .50 cal?

[Lumpy]

@mek7699

IMI wanted a caliber that could penetrait an engine block reliably in a package that could be relatively comfortably carried as a side arm. Spefically they were looking for a weapon that they could arm thier border check point personel with that had the potential to stop a vehicle bearing down on the check point filled with explosives and a determined motivated driver.

Interestingly, I’ve heard that this very mission is also the design rationale behind a varation of the .50 AE round, the .50 Beowulf.

[Sailboat]

@mek7699

Spefically they were looking for a weapon that they could arm thier border check point personel with that had the potential to stop a vehicle bearing down on the check point filled with explosives and a determined motivated driver.

And that weapon would be a sidearm? Is this credible? It seems like asking a lot out of a sidearm that it stop a speeding truck bomb. I mean, as a design spec? Why not go all the way and design a sidearm that will reliably knock down an intercontinental ballistic missile outside earth’s atmosphere, but still fit into a pants pocket? Surely Israel would like to have that.

[silenus]

Hell, I’d like to have that!

All the better to kill zombies with.

[Norse]

@Crafter_Man

Has anyone ever shot a 12 ga. shotgun without pulling the stock into their shoulder?

Yah. 12ga. 2 3/4", 36g (1 1/8 oz) shot. My right thumb hurt for a while due to the toplever, but otherwise it’s no big deal for an adult of normal size. If I’d held on to the pistol grip a bit better, it wouldn’t have been a problem at all.

Shotgun trick shooters do this all the time.

[mangeorge]

I was about ten, and had never fired anything bigger than a 22. I was out in the boonies with a few grown men, all okies, when I got my first chance to fire a 12ga. One of the guys said “Be sure to hold it off your shoulder a couple inches, son, so it won’t hurt”.
Ha ha ha, fuckers. Very funny. My bony little shoulder hurt forever.
Peace,
mangeorge

[Kevbo]

@Lumpy

Standard firearms doctrine is that you use the smallest caliber that will do the job, so you have more rounds for a given weight.

Where is this standard you speak of published? Another way to look at is to use the largest practical caliber so that one shot per target will be sufficient in almost all cases and you don’t need to carry a bunch of ammo.

As for the DE: It is a novelty item. Well made, and an OK design excepting an internal gas passage that is nearly impossible to clean should it become fouled. Numerous revolvers are more powerful, lighter, and more reliable. Some are even made by the same company that makes the DE.

As for recoil in a handgun: A large amount of recoil is soaked up by allowing the gun to recoil back/upward. This spreads the impulse over time. Consider hitting a piece of iron with a hammer. If the iron is not backed by an anvil, the hammer won’t make a dent in it, and the heavier the anvil, the faster the iron is worked. I have fired the same .454 Casull loads in a Taurus 10" barreled revolver and a 20" Rossi * '92. The Taurus is tolerable, and the the Rossi is absolutely brutal. The longer barrel on the lever gun does up the velocity a bit, but nowhere near the difference in sensed recoil. A Magnum Research BFR and a Marlin '95 in .45-70 make a similar case, though the '95 is heavy enough to make it far less brutal than the .454 '92.

As for utility: “Hand Cannons” are useful for hunting big game, knocking over silhouettes…and for making shooters grin.
*Made in Brazil by Rossi, marketed in the US by Leagacy Sports International as “Puma”

[DrDeth]

@HPL

Wow…Most Usless gun EVER!

No, there’s a number of tiny revolvers that are more or less only useful for hunting mice…small, sickly mice.
http://www.vincelewis.net/tinygun.html
This one is only for signals and blanks, but they made a real one, once:

404

[Scumpup]

The desert eagle was developed in colaboration between IMI and MR. The weapon was developed as a superior innovative side arm, the caliber .50 AE was developed with a specfic mission in mind. IMI wanted a caliber that could penetrait an engine block reliably in a package that could be relatively comfortably carried as a side arm. Spefically they were looking for a weapon that they could arm thier border check point personel with that had the potential to stop a vehicle bearing down on the check point filled with explosives and a determined motivated driver. While other manufactures have since created more powerful cartriges, the desert eagle 50 ae remains the only semiauto pistol cartridge capable of delivering 300 + grains at 1500 fs.

Cite? The DE was introduced in the mid- 80’s as a .357 Magnum automatic pistol. A .44 magnum version followed. IIRC, the .50AE variant didn’t show up until 1990-ish. The Israelis are nothing if not pragmatic, it would seem a pretty straightforward thing to simply arm border guards with carbines and AP ammo.

[Lumpy]

@Scumpup

The Israelis are nothing if not pragmatic, it would seem a pretty straightforward thing to simply arm border guards with carbines and AP ammo.

My understanding is that they specifically needed/wanted a large heavy projectile; although if that’s the case I don’t know why a 12-gauge slug wouldn’t suffice.

[mangeorge]

Didn’t somebody ask for this?