Mag Research Baby Eagle users: What are your experiences

[Matthewd]

Any Baby Eagle owners here that would care to tell me your thoughts and impressions with your Baby Eagle?
How would you compare it to a Sig 226 or USP?

Thanks

 

[Matthewd]

Really? Nobody here owns one?

 

[harkamus]

I had one. It was a love hate relationship. I don't want to get into it.

Regarding mags, Mecgar mags with Wolff extra power magazine springs worked for me. Mecgars are the ones that most people will recommend for Baby Eagles. They are the CZ-75 or the EAA Witness magazines. Both work.

EDIT: I see you meant Magnum Research, not mag research as in you're looking for spare magazines and doing research on that. Leaving my initial reply up there for posterity.

When they work, they work well. When they don't, expect to have a paper weight on your hands that fails to feed/eject once or twice every 100 rounds. If that's okay with you, get it. To me, failing at a rate of 1 - 2% is too much. I did everything possible to try to rectify the problem.

In the end I got an HK45 and never looked back. It's a shame, since that gun felt like nothing else. Solid and natural pointing. It's the reason my grail gun is a Sphinx Standard Model 3000. I want a "reliable" gun that looks like a Jericho 941 (the original name of the Baby Eagle), so I went for the best, which is the Sphinx. Hand fit together by Swiss engineers. 941s are all CZ75 based, with subtle differences. The Sphinx is like a highly modified and re-engineered CZ75. It also costs like 3.5.

The 941 weighs like a ton of bricks which is fine with me since I wanted that heft. It's heavier than some 5 inch barreled 1911s.

It's worth saying that I put around 7000 rounds through my 941. If you want an account of all the things that has plagued my 941, I'll pm you a link.

 

[Matthewd]

It's worth saying that I put around 7000 rounds through my 941. If you want an account of all the things that has plagued my 941, I'll pm you a link.

Yes - please do...
Any other comparisons to your HK or experiences with SIG 226 would be great too.
Thanks

 

[harkamus]

The comparison to the HK is that my HK works and the Jericho doesn't. I hold the belief that a firearm should work out of the box without having to be fiddled with. I mean there are some such firearms, but for the most part a good firearm should work out of the box. 1 - 2 percent out of a hundred rounds for failure is not something that I'd deem carry worthy. I practice at the range weekly. I don't want to run into a situation where I need to actually use my Jericho and have it fail on me. It's retired. The HK has been nothing but reliable, even on reloads. I put 2050 rounds of factory ammo through it including several hundred rounds in hollowpoints. Never failed. The only failures I had were in the beginning when I started reloading .45. My rounds were too weak so I had two failures to eject and two failures to lock the slide back. I corrected the powder charge and the reloads work fine for now. But when I reload, I only make batches of 1-300 when I'm testing loads, just for the reasons I just mentioned. Until I have a recipe where the rounds feed and eject properly, as well as lock the slide back after the last round in a mag, I only make small batches. So far though, my reworked recipe is working. I use 7.2 grains of Vihtavouri n340 powder, Winchester primers, and Montana Gold 185 gr hollow points. The factory loads I tested were all 230 gr. I will PM you the link about the Jericho. I cannot speak for any Sig, other than the one I rented once which was a beat up range piece and probably not conducive of what a well maintained sample should be.

And if you think 1 - 2% isn't bad, consider this. I go weekly. I may shoot 1 - 200 rounds problem free, but then rounds 201-300 result in 2-6 failures. What if those failures happened when I needed them not to happen in some worst case scenario? That doesn't sit well with me.

And for anyone that's wondering, the 941 got cleaned after every range visit, regardless if I put 200 rounds through it or only 50. The HK is problem free. I get too lazy cleaning, so I clean that one after every other range visit. Also, I'm pretty anal about cleaning firearms. Each hand gun takes me 60 to 90 minutes to clean. When I say I clean them, I mean they come out looking spotless.

 

[tiogatires]

can't speak highly enough of the USP. Buy one and you have one of the finest guns on the market. Although - I am personally partial to 1911's and carry a full size Para Ordnance in SS. I also carry a Sig P238. IMO a fine .380...

 

[ElConquistador]

I remember when CZ75s and it's variants were cheap, they were a good value for the price. Now they seem to cost as much as anything else and don't seem to be a good value to me.

I think, in general, the baby eagle/CZ is a proven design. They are heavy, ugly, have rough machining, but generally seem to work. I'm not a fan of any DA/SA trigger and the CZs are not an exception.

There are better choices if you're looking for a full size 9mm. I'd start with a Glock... ...people seem to love Glocks or hate them but for a full size gun they're hard to beat. The Glock has a good trigger with the same pull for every shot and a short reset.

 

[harkamus]

The Glock has a good trigger with the same pull for every shot and a short reset.

So does a USP with an LEM trigger.

And FWIW, the single action pull of the Jericho 941 was the best trigger I've felt out of the box - not counting expensive 1911 customs - until I tried a Charles Daly Hi-power. I've shot many guns and Glock triggers (IMO) feel horrendous. Striker fired guns feel terrible to me, though the M&P isn't bad after some trigger work. This is why I like my HK45 LEM. Same pull every time and it's hammer fired.

 

[Bimmer1]

I have not had any issues with any of my Baby Eagle handguns. I own two in .40 and one in 9mm. The steel variant is heavy as others have mentioned. It feels good in your hand. The Mec Gar magazines are the best. The Jericho/Baby Eagle tends to be more of an Israeli police issued handgun but the Israeli military guys usually say that Glock and SIG are highly favored over there for military use. It's tough to get parts for a Baby Eagle and aftermarket accessories are almost non-existent. I do not know how Magnum Research is for customer service either if you were to ever need them. So far I have not needed service on my Baby Eagles but they do not have a super high round count through them either.

 

[harkamus]

Kahr Arms bought out Magnum research a while back. It's the reason the Baby Eagle II (this is what they are now called) are being imported again. From 2009 to 2011 (if I'm not mistaken) importation for the 941 stopped, because KBI/Charles Daly went belly up.