EAA 9mm witness

[Jonnin]

As promised elsewhere, a quick review of this gun.

First, every darn gun they sell is a "witness". This is ours, a 9mm DA variety:

It feels great, with low recoil from a heavy gun and really nice grips and overall 1911ish experience. Its very, very accurate. The first shot went astray for some reason but the rest did ok... this is the wife's shooting, of course.

Out of the box, the gun had fixed sights that were not even close. We had the rear sight replaced with fully adjustables first thing, to get the above result.

One issue is this thing is very, very picky about ammo, even for a new gun. It may break in or not, but currently it jams on the first round if the slide release is used, and not if the slide is pulled back and released instead. It clogs up a bit on cheap hollowpoints, and would not even chamber my reloads which has worked in a glock, beretta, ruger, and a couple of other 9mms. All commercial ball ammo has been flawless and even the hollowpoints are "ok" apart from 3 or 4 feed jams.

The trigger is very nice, for a DA almost no slop and one of the best DA triggers I have felt out of the box.

She loves it, and while more testing and break in are needed it looks like it may work for her without jamming up easily (she is not strong and does sometimes jam stuff by moving it from side to side too fast).

For a $500 gun, this is definately a great range gun. Its too picky (so far..) to recommend it as a defensive gun, though I may revise that after a reasonable break in period and some additional ammo testing.

Edited May 22, 2011 by Jonnin

[1gewehr]

I'm sorry your pistol has had issues. Since it works well with factory ball ammo, I suspect it's just a break-in thing.

A couple of quick questions. Are the problems all failure to feed? Did you clean and lube the pistol before going to the range? Sometimes the preservative grease makes imported guns gummy. My first CZ75 had similar issues because I was too impatient to shoot it and didn't get the preservative out of it first. If it coninues to give problems, don't hesitate to send it back. EAA has a good warranty, and has been pretty responsive lately. It may be a rough feed ramp or chamber since it won't even feed some ammo.

Last possibility is a bad magazine. Did you try it with both magazines? Was one better than the other? MecGar makes great magazines, but you still may have gotten one with bad feed lips.

[Jonnin]

Yes, I cleaned and lubed it first thing. The problems caused by 2 things: 1) occasional hollowpoints that muck up on the feed ramp and 2) bullets that bite into the rifeling before the slide closes 100% on them --- these do not close enough to fire safely and cannot be removed without a hammer and dowel rod to tap them back out (or, I cannot do it, I am not that strong). I have 3 magazines, its not a mag issue. I can polish the feed ramp myself, and that may help the hollowpoint issue, I planned to do this next time I tear it apart, which may be today.

As an update, I tried some of the stuff I have around the house and the same rifle bite issue happened on some old SXT ammo (black talon replacement?). Today I sat down to reload a round that would feed into it. Lead bullets were just a no go. I took the finished lead bullet and hammered it (gently as can be!) into an empty, crimped 9mm case. This shaved the bullet down, a bit of twisting and such. After doing that, the bullet fed flawlessly and could be hand cycled out of the chamber. Having no other 9mm slugs around (I bought a lifetime supply of the lead ones... sigh), I poked a 380 FMJ into a 9mm case and that also cycled flawlessly.

I think my answer is going to be carefully selecting and buying some plated 9mm slugs that will feed in it. I will also tear it down to look at the chamber for any roughness but the marks on the extracted, jammed up bullets are rifleing marks, not burrs or anything. If you are familar with this gun, when a bullet bites and jams, the slide is in the disassembly position (the 2 dots/marks you use to take it apart are aligned, so the slide is that far back).

It may call for a trip back to EAA. All this thing has to do is work with ball ammo for action shooting stuff, prefer to make it work off reloads but if it will take cheap ball ammo reliably it is acceptable. To be honest we thought the bulk pack that we were shooting yesterday WAS ball ammo, didnt expect to buy a cheap pack of 100 shots and get hollowpoints.

Edited May 22, 2011 by Jonnin

[1gewehr]

Looking into the barrel, does the rifling begin immediately at the end of the chamber? It sounds like the barrel was made without a throat. The rifling should have a ramp-like area that starts about .3" after the end of the chamber. If your barrel is not properly throated, you need to send it back to EAA. Sometimes serious competitors will order a barrel with no throat so they can set it up themselves for their pet load. Your pistol may have accidentally gotten one of those barrels. Quality control should have caught it though.

[Jonnin]

Looking into the barrel, does the rifling begin immediately at the end of the chamber? It sounds like the barrel was made without a throat. The rifling should have a ramp-like area that starts about .3" after the end of the chamber. If your barrel is not properly throated, you need to send it back to EAA. Sometimes serious competitors will order a barrel with no throat so they can set it up themselves for their pet load. Your pistol may have accidentally gotten one of those barrels. Quality control should have caught it though.

I did not know that! I will take a closer look at it, but this may well be the case. Does one have the barrel reamed out to a custom throat or adapt a load that works in the special barrel? Most important, have I or am I doing anything dangerous by using this gun if it has this type of barrel? Are there any markings to designate such a barrel that you know of?

As an update #2, I made a few rounds using hardish lead 380 bullets (95 grain) that worked perfectly (thankfully load data for 9mm goes all the way down to 90 grain stuff). These bullets have a narrow round nose and the wider part is seated into the case, allowing them to fit into the chamber. They performed well, making a group similar to the above commercial ammo target (without the stray shot this time). Is there any long term issue with this approach?

I will check the barrel tonight to see what I can about the rifleing/throat.

[Jonnin]

The barrel has .635 inches that take the brass part of the round (guess this is the chamber, technically), which will seat an empty round up to the rim and looks about "right". IMMEDIATELY after this, the rifleing starts! The rounds that work all have a nose that is narrow enough to slip past the rifleing. The ones that do not are rounds that widen up fast. The rounds that do not work cannot be forced by hand into the barrel, and the brass is seated about 1 mm past the rim; IE the brass does not go in because the bullet nose hit the rifeling and stopped it. The slide hammers the bad rounds into the rifleing hard enough that I cannot get them out by hand.

This is not an uncommon problem, according to google. Something about this pistol being a clone of a CZ model and both of them have the issue, the solution is to try ammos until you find one that works.

I can try to take pictures of all this if it helps. What say the experts? No .03 gap to be found... but with other folks having the same issue, doesnt seem like a special barrel.... ?

[1gewehr]

Send it back. I just looked at both of my 9mm Witnesses. One is older (1992 TZ-75), and one is newer (2005 Witness). The throat is about .1" according to my tiny ruler and a strong light, but noticeable. And the rifling is a definite ramp as opposed to starting out with full-depth rifling.

Your pistol should work like both of mine do; with pretty much any factory 9mm I have ever found. (Israeli SMG primers are too hard, and British L7 is made for arctic use and develops very high pressures in normal temps) These are not finicky guns. They should work with anything made to US SAAMI or NATO specs.

Send it back.

[Jonnin]

Ok, thanks! I will get in touch with them & see where it goes from here.

[krunchnik]

I have a RIA MAPP I thats primarily a EAA Witness P and has ran everything I put into the magazine,and absolutely accurate also.Yours should also be very reliable,I would definately send it in and let them look at it.heres a picture for comparison.

[Guest dubaholic2]

i cant speak for the 9mm witness, but my .40 has never had the first flaw and all it has seen is the cheapest of ball ammo.