EAA Witness: Still cracking or improved?

[agtman]

*** Never heard of a frame crack though.

Witness frame cracks: one of several threads ...

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=404347

 

[MachIVshooter]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's a really odd place for a fracture, considering there is no stress there. Perhaps dropped and smacked on the inside?

If they're going to stress-fracture, it'll be at the barrel lug pin or just above the slide release cut-out, like any other autoloader.

 

[mlarkin_09]

Cracked frame

That Last photo was of my pistol It had less than 20 rounds on it. I sold the replacement weapon on gunbroker and bought an Eaa (tanfoglio) Stock in the 10mm. I have ran a few thousand rounds through this one and not a single problem

 

[Walt Sherrill]

Before I fired a single round, I swapped the slide-return spring with a Wolf 20lb one, which is a LOT heavier than the stock one. And I just replaced that; it was amazing to me how much the old spring had "shrunk" over a few months of fairly frequent shooting. My understanding, which is possibly incorrect, is that the same spring comes standard in the 9mm, .38 super, .40, .45, and 10mm. It seems fairly self-evident that, if the spring is good for 9mm, it's got to be undersprung for 10mm.

Undersprung? Not necessarily.

First, coil springs used in guns will take a "set" soon after installation. That'll happen even if the gun isn't shot a lot. Compare a new recoil spring (unusued) to one that has been installed for a week or two, even if the gun has not shot much, and you'll see a big difference in uncompressed length.

Next, what you'll also find, maybe here, but certainly on other forums, are arguments -- most of them well documented -- that heavier recoil springs DON'T SAVE FRAMES. Changing springs will change the shooter's EXPERIENCE of the fired round, but it has modest effect on the gun itself.

I would argue that as a more powerful recoil spring slams the slide forward as the next round is chambered, that a more powerful recoil spring is just as likely to cause frame damage -- or slide stop damage -- as prevent it.

People can fire guns WITH the recoil springs removed with no apparent damage to the gun. (1911Tuner, a very knowledge gunsmith type, does this for folks who don't believe. He sometimes participates here, and is a regular on other forums. He notes, too, that Browning called the springs in question something like ACTION RETURN springs [my term not his], saying in his patent that the spring was intended to return the slide and work the action, not control recoil. That part of his basic design is used in the vast majority of locked-breech guns in use today.)

If you leave the recoil spring out, the gun doesn't load the next round or reposition the slide for the next shot, but the gun isn't damaged, and the shooter doesn't really feel much that is all that different.

If Tanfoglio is having problems with some of their slides or frames, it's unlikely that heavier recoil springs are the solution.