By: Mike Detty
Make no mistake about it, the Desert Eagle is a serious gun! With its hand-filling girth and 4.75-pound, solid-steel heft, the precision-engineered pistol possesses power and accuracy not normally associated with handguns. There are very few guns that are as iconic as Magnum Research’s massive Desert Eagle. It is a gun that is instantly recognizable and symbolic of American ingenuity and brute force.
It’s hard to believe, but Magnum Research is in its 29th year of production with the Desert Eagle! In 1979, Magnum Researcher’s founders, Jim Skildum and John Risdall, started the long and arduous process of transforming blueprints into a working masterpiece. Full-fledged production of the gun started in 1985, with pistols being manufactured in Israel by Israel Military Industries (IMI) until 1995, when MRI relocated manufacturing to Saco Defense in Maine.