picked up a 10mm steel witness to help a bud heading out it has been fired 12 times (i got the rest of box of 20) was told they are bad about cracking frames, any thing i can do to prevent this, was going to call eaa but was told they are not much help,thanks for any help,
eaa witness 10mm frame crack
I am awaiting on my new 10mm Match to arrive, probably Friday or Saturday, but the cracking I am reading in this thread concerns me a bit. To get better educated, which exact Wolf springs would you recommend that I replace in order to make this new pistol of mine a great performer? Also, what is it and where can I purchase the Sprinco recoil reducer? I will be reloading my own ammo mostly for hunting & self defense but I'll be doing a fair bit of plinking to get used to shooting it so your expert inputs will be greatly appreciated.
The way I choose to look at it is I purchased a new pistol that should be properly designed and build, no matter the caliber or taxing load, as long as the load remains within factory specifications. Now if the 10mm is inherently problematic then Tanfoglio should not produce or sell it. Which makes me think, maybe those that have cracking slides choose to use extremely hot rounds? Just thinking out loud here so please don't take it as being accusatory, that's not my intent!
The 10mm round is very hard on guns. In fact even the first .40 S&W guns had issues because they were built on 9mm frames. Add to that that almost all "factory" ammo for 10mm is watered down (except for Double Tap) so if they sprung it correctly it may not function reliably with factory ammo. So most companies stay away from the 10mm round because its a hard problem to solve.
I don't think the materials or engineering is lacking on the Witness 10mm Match in any way, EXCEPT for the spring. It needs something like a 24# progressive spring. That is the only issue. Any gun is going to crack its slide if its hitting the frame. However the design of the rounded slides may be suspect on those guns. I asked every person on 10mm talk who had a cracked Tanfoglio slide if they ran the stock spring and they all said yes. Granted that's just a handful of people, but to me it points to what I think the real culprit is.
I haven't hung out here for a while. I jumped on because I need some insight. I have had a Witness Elite Match large frame in 9mm for 3yrs. I bought it new in April 2014. Anyway, I took the grips off for the first time a couple days ago and noticed the frame is cracked where the backed portion of the mag well opening meets the back strap. It does look like a ductle fracture or fatigue. It looks like a cold joint in the casting. As anyone seen this?
I wouldn't worry about this issue at all. As I wrote above, I did have a Match (in 10mm) that cracked at this spot... which made no difference to how it shot. Once I finally noticed it, I sent it in and EAA sent me a new gun. I've put a lot of rounds through the replacement (again, in 10mm), including a lot considerably hotter than any .40 load.
No, I have completely lost faith in Tanfoglio . Even though the Witness is a beefy, well constructed pistol, I have read too much about frame and slide cracking on these models, both the small and large frame (even though others had "only" cracks on the ejection port area of the slide, which isn't nearly as long or as dangerous as my particular slide fracture).
Its not like every new gun self destructs after a few hundred rounds. Mostly the guns that have issues are the .40 and 10mm guns with the round slide. I think guys don't put the right spring in them and they crack on occasion.
It is very rare that the square profile slides crack. The only ones I have heard of cracking were 10mm ones, and IMHO they were probably didn't have a stiff enough spring. There are a lot of guys on this forum with square slide guns that have over 15,000 rounds through them in .40, 9mm, .38 Super, etc.
I started looking around online for "EAA slide cracked" from what I have seen almost all were the base model, Witness wonder finish, rounded slide, 10mm and 40cal. But I did find several 9mm slides cracked, it looks like the witness wasn't designed to run the 40cal and 10mm just too much pressure. I know all firearms have problems but I hate that feeling in the back of your head telling you that you better baby this thing. The accuracy im seeing with my witness stuns me every time I hit the range. 2ff7e9595c
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