More EAA Witness Stuff…

Jeffersonian and I had a range day on the 21st. He had some handgun science to do and I wanted to see if my used Ruger 22/45 magazine worked in addition to further diagnosing my ongoing EAA Witness issues.

After loading up the “new” magazine with ten rounds of Federal blue box bulk .22lr ammo I proceeded to put ten shots rapid fire into a two inch circle from seven yards away. Not bad..and the magazine worked fine. A little gun oil and some fine steel wool will get rid of the surface surface rust no problem. At this point it appears to be a good, solid magazine. I’ve still got to try the new one I got afterwards, but my expectations are that it’ll work just fine. We’ll see.

The easy part of the session over with I loaded up twenty rounds of CCI Blazer Brass .45 ACP into my two magazines and slid one into the magwell. I thumbed the slide release and right off the bat it stopped just short of going into battery. A little nudge on the rear of the slide and it slid into battery. I then shot four shots and then the same thing happened again. If you remember (before the blog crash) I wrote about how this was happening with my handloads. These were made on the same reloading setup Jeffersonian makes his on, and his EAA Witness eats them up. Next I loaded up ten rounds of UMC bulk .45 ACP and popped the magazine into the gun. What followed was a repeat performance of the first magazine full of CCI Blazer Brass .45 ACP ammo.

Since Jeffersonian had brought his EAA Witness along I popped his barrel into my slide and got the same results as above. Because his barrel and slide are longer than mine, it was not possible to test my barrel in his slide. Next, we swapped slide assemblies and we tested them this way to see what would happen. My slide assembly on his lower receiver yielded the exact same results, while his slide assembly on my lower reciever performed flawlessly, and I turned in some great shots with it. Both of our guns are accurate, it’s just the reliability issue which has been plaguing me.

One possible cause of this problem could be in the locking lugs on the barrel and slide. Jeffersonian’s seem to have been relieved slightly while mine are almost sharp enough to cut yourself on.

One thing which Jeffersonian and I have found interesting is that my slide has very faint markings on the side, which if viewed from the proper angle say “Model P9″. The P9 of course is the Springfield Armory pistol based on the CZ75. It is my understanding that the P9 is in 9mm and uses a barrel bushing, whereas the EAA Witness I have is in .45 ACP and does not have a barrel bushing. It is also my understanding that both pistols are virtually identical and most parts are interchangeable. Seeing as how the EAA Witness comes in multiple calibers, the fact that my slide may have originally been a P9 slide does not seem as odd as I first thought.

Anyway, the upshot of our range based science appears to focus on the locking lugs and upper slide assembly. If I can’t figure out what’s causing this issue, one solution is to order a new slide assembly from EAA. This is by far the most costly solution as it would cost almost as much as the whole pistol did, but at least it would be reliable. The other is to find a knowledgable gunsmith who has dealt with this kind of issue before and knows how to fix it. Hopefully this solution would cost considerable less. Honestly, at this point I just want it to work.

Jeffersonian, I know you’re reading this. If you have anything to add, do so and I’ll update the post with your comments. I’m sure I’ve probably forgotten something too.

So, based on what I’ve written above, do any of my readers have any idea what to do about this problem?

Oh, and I brought my son along with me too, and when I was done with the science part, I taught him a little about how to shoot.

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