When your character is introduced literally carrying a tree, no mere plinking pistol will do.

When special sunglasses expose the propaganda and aliens hiding in plain sight, or you’re facing mutant amphibians, a Glock isn’t the gun you need.

When a Graboid threatens your high plains town, a Browning High Power isn’t the sidearm to slay the beast. A Colt Python or Smith & Wesson Model 19... maybe.

Really, the only gun worthy of dispatching such mercenaries, mutants, aliens, or dirt dragons is the Magnum Research Desert Eagle, or, as it’s known in video game circles, the Deagle. The pistol started its life in 1983 chambered for .357 and .44 Magnum cartridges and added the thunderous .50 Action Express when the company introduced the third variation in 1995.

The slide on this Desert Eagle shows it's a hand cannon firing the .50 Action Express, the largest cartridge the Deagle takes. The gun can also be chambered for .357 Magnum as well as .44 Magnum/.41 Magnum.

A big gun for the big screen, the angular and shiny Desert Eagle arrived on the scene as the first large caliber semi-automatic pistol. Before the Deagle, wheel guns monopolized large calibers. In the 1970s, Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry fought punks with a Smith & Wesson Model 29 for .44 Magnum, while Charles Bronson and a parade of tough guys handed out street justice with the Colt Python in .357 Magnum.

The classic Desert Eagle box.

The Deagle Goes Hollywood

Arnold Schwarzenegger, former world champion bodybuilder, Conan the Barbarian, the Terminator, and former California governor, is an outsized human whose larger-than-life movie characters returned again and again to the Desert Eagle. Tree-toting Schwarzenegger went strapped with the Deagle to rescue his daughter when “Commando” hit screens in 1985. As the hunter and hunted, Schwarzenegger’s “Dutch” Schaefer, holstered the Desert Eagle a second time in 1987’s Predator.

In “Red Heat,” Ivan Danko, the Soviet cop played by Schwarzenegger, blasted baddies with a Podbyrin 9.2 mm, a Desert Eagle with a custom barrel to envision what a Russian gun might look like in 1988. Director Walter Hill wanted the gun to resemble a Walther P38 “on steroids.” The armorer on the film called it “The Hollywood Eagle,” using a Desert Eagle Mark I chambered in .357 Magnum.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has carried the Desert Eagle in several movies starting with "Commando" in 1985. Here he is with a Deagle in "Last Action Hero."

Professional wrestler Roddy Piper brandished the Desert Eagle in a pair of 1988 films. When it was time to chew bubble gum and kick ass, the Deagle came out in “They Live,” and when he plugged mutants in “Hell Comes to Frogtown.” Mickey Roarke was the first to take up the Desert Eagle in 1985’s “Year of the Dragon,” while Dolph Lundgren ̶ Ivan Drago, himself ̶ spit lead with one in 1989’s  “The Punisher.” Danny Glover, who carries a wheelgun in the “Lethal Weapon” films, hoists a scoped Deagle in 1990’s “Predator 2.

More recently, Ryan Reynolds’ “Deadpool” dual-wielded the Deagle with .50 AE to punch holes in bad guys in the super hero movie series. His Desert Eagles Mark XIX has “SMILE Wait 4 Flash on the muzzles of his guns.

“Anytime you need a weapon that is big, scary looking, with all those sharp edges  ̶  agents in the “Matrix” or the action hero  ̶  it has more presence. There aren’t that many giant handguns around. You have to give them a big old revolver or a Deagle,” said Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery, for the Royal Armouries.

A Desert Eagle Mark XIX chambered in .50 Action Express.

Desert Eagle History

Originally manufactured in Israel before production shifted to Minnesota in 2009, the Desert Eagle and its variations have been featured in more than 600 films, television series, and video games as the company actively lobbied motion picture prop houses to include the hand howitzer in their Hollywood arsenals.

Simply put, the gun is a monster. With a 6-inch barrel, it measures nearly 11 inches long and weighs more than 4 lbs., and that’s without a full seven-round .50 AE magazine. The length is 3 inches longer than a Glock 17, with half of the capacity. It has a heavy 7 lbs. trigger pull for a reason  ̶  to avoid double taps.

Fortunately Hollywood embraced the Desert Eagle since the military and law enforcement haven’t. Only a couple of countries’ Special Forces units keep the Desert Eagle in their arsenals. Like its long gun contemporary, the .950 JDJ, the Desert Eagle is a gun that exists because it can.

The Monstrous muzzle on a Magnum Research Desert Eagle chambered for .50 Action Express.

“From a military and law enforcement and arguably even a self-defense perspective, there is no real practical purpose for it,” Ferguson said of the Deagle. “It was designed to be the biggest and best in its class and it pulled that off.”

The Desert Eagle has a gas-operated ejection and chambering system similar to what is often seen on rifles. The design allows for firing rimmed, high caliber cartridges, but explains away its massive size.

The gun has been through three variations, the Mark I, Mark VII, and the Mark XIX. The Mark I was chambered in .357 Magnum and .44 Magnum, while the Mark VII, introduced in 1990, took on the .41 Magnum as well. The Mark XIX took it up a notch to chamber the thunderous .50 Action Express along with the .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, and recently introduced .429 DE cartridges.

The vaguely practical uses for this giant gat include handgun hunting, self-defense from predators, and target shooting.

The grips on the Desert Eagle bear the logo for Israeli Military Industries, the company that initially manufactured the gun.

And don’t forget making movies, television shows, and video games.

Entering the 1990s, Schwarzenegger reached for the massive Desert Eagle Mark VII in “Last Action Hero,” and the Mark XIX with a black finish, for “Eraser.” The 90s is also when the mild-mannered dad of “Family Ties,” enters the Deagle discussion. Playing survivalist Burt Gummer, Michael Gross helped Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward fight off the Graboid in “Tremors.”

A Magnum Research Desert Eagle for sale,

While action stars Ryan Reynolds, Hugo Weaving, Dwayne Johnson, and John Cena were hoisting the Desert Eagle into the 21st century, surprisingly so were comedians like Sasha Baron Cohen and Mike Meyers. Even the ladies started getting in on the act. B-movie actress Sybil Danning was an early adopter, causing mayhem with a Desert Eagle in 1989’s “L.A. Bounty,” Pamela Anderson and Elizabeth Hurley would soon be wielding them as well.

This Desert Eagle is chambered in .44 Magnum.

Gold Tiger Stripe Desert Eagle

Turn up the ridiculous impracticality of the Desert Eagle by adding some bling. It comes from Magnum Research in 10 different finishes including titanium gold, titanium gold tiger stripe, black tiger stripe, and two chrome styles. Demi Moore handled not one, but two gold-plated Desert Eagles in “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.”

Demi Moore with gold-plated (alas, no tiger stripe) Desert Eagles in "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle."

When the online game Counter-Strike took the internet by storm in 1999, the Deagle was born ̶ but not as the Desert Eagle. In Counter-Strike it is the “Night Hawk 50c,” and it wasn’t alone in handing the pistol a different moniker. Many games label the gun differently, like “Raptor Magnum,” “Lightning Hawk,” and “River Hawk.”

A Magnum Research Desert Eagle Mark XIX pistol with case.

No matter what you call it, the Desert Eagle is a gun worthy of men of action who were at the birth of the modern action movie. Schwarzenegger and others pioneered the idea of the over-the-top shoot ‘em ups and took them to bombastic heights.

Some may consider the Desert Eagle a niche gun, but it’s more of a clique gun, in a Hollywood class all by itself.

Find the Desert Eagle, the Spas 12, and more at RIAC!.

Sources:

Internet Movie Firearms Database

Magnumresearch.com

Desert Eagle: The Pop Culture Icon Nobody Uses