Interesting discussion with EAA Tech service..have a laugh..

[saturno_v]

Today, after several attempts in the last few days, I was able to get in contact with a very grumpy EAA gunsmith.
I was willing to try a second chance to buy a Witness 10 mm auto (I had one and I sold it because of frequent jamming and crappy Customer Service) and I wanted to ask couple of questions and at the same time hoping that the level of service improved over time.......fat chance....

Here we go:

Technician: How can I help you??

Me: Hello I would like to ask a couple of questions about the Witness 10 mm auto before buying one

Technician: Go ahead

Me: Can I use Corbon, Double Tap or Buffalo Bore ammo in a Witness 10 mm auto??

Technician: No, we strongly recommend against the use of such ammo in a Witness, and your user manual says clearly "No use of +P ammo".

Me: Well I do not own the gun yet so I cannot read the manual, however Corbon, Buffalo Bore and Double Tap all say that their 10 mm ammo is SAAMI compliant, no overpressure, and there is no +P standard for 10 mm auto anyway.

Technician: (irritated) I do not understand what point are you trying to make, their ammo can be SAAMI complaint and still be +p

Me: Well if there is no +p standard for the 10 mm auto and the manufacturer says that their product is SAAMI compliant how can they be overpressure??

Technician: Again, sir, I do not understand what you are saying eek:), we recommend against the use of the ammo you mentioned, penalty is the loss of warranty

Me: But if I use, for example, the Remington or Winchester ammo, they are loaded below the 10 mm auto standard, so what is the point of having a 10 mm auto pistol if I can only use ammo with the same performance as a 40 S&W???

Technician: I don't know the ammo you mentioning, by the way for self defence they should be fine anyway fire:), you do not need all that power.

Me:.......oook, well last question. The new Witness has a rounded slide top compared to the previous model and I heard of several cases of cracked slides...is that true??

Technician: We had only few cases and in general are because excessive use and/or wrong ammo used like the Corbon and Double Tap..

Me: Ok thank you

Technician: Bye


Sad sad sad......Witnesses are nice pistols unfortunately imported by a very lousy company....basically no customer service, sheer incompetence (I would like to know how ammo SAAMI compliant can be at the same time overpressure or +p)
The guy basically admitted that the new rounded top are weaker that the previous model.

Really too bad...I'm tempted to call Tanfoglio directly in Italy and tell them that they have serious issues with their importer in the US.....they should do a way better job considering the fact that the US is by far the largest and most important private firearms market in the world...

It's a shame that even a company like Hi-Point can run circle around EAA when it comes to customer service.

So, I guess I will keep my hard earned dollars in my pocket.....I'm trying to "like" Glocks........the G20 is basically the only well priced "real" 10 mm auto in the market (the Witness, with such limitations, at this point is a joke)...I just do not like the polymer, no external hammer and DA only.


Comments???

 

[rockinrussky]

Well thats certainly an interesting conversation... I'll keep that in mind if I ever consider a Witness 10mm in the future (that not being likely).
If you want an autoloader in 10mm there's always the 1911 route. As I recall Kimber and Dan Wesson make some great examples. They'll definitely be pricier than EAA or Glock of course.

 

[saturno_v]

Well thats certainly an interesting conversation... I'll keep that in mind if I ever consider a Witness 10mm in the future (that not being likely).
If you want an autoloader in 10mm there's always the 1911 route. As I recall Kimber and Dan Wesson make some great examples. They'll definitely be pricier than EAA or Glock of course.

My problem is that I do not like much the 1911 platform either.....
I think I will put the 10 mm Auto "bug" in the backburner for the moment....

 

[Seven For Sure]

I'm one of the "few" with a Witness Compact 10mm with a cracked slide, with less than 100 rds. I lost the receipt and they refuse to even look at it. It is clearly a brand new gun with a cracked slide, period. I would stay away from them. EAA sucks but I must admit, unlike many others here, I think Tangfolio(?) sucks too. I mean, it's not EAA's fault the slide cracked. They're scum for refusing to even look at it but they did'nt make it. And as you said, what's the point of a 10mm if you're going to shoot 40 power loads? Mine just happened to crack using brand new G-A's load which is a very mild 180 @ 1,100.

You would be much better served with a Glock, S&W or one of the 1911's out there. I've got both Glocks and a S&W 610 that can take anything that won't bust the case. The S&W autoloaders are supposed to be rock solid as well.

 

[Ash]

I, for one, am a big Tanfoglio fan. The top Witness pistols are nice indeed. The basic Witness is a fine pistol (at least in .45ACP, which is the only caliber I own in the Witness, as CZ's are better in 40 and 9mm) and I like it. Tanfoglio has a good world-wide reputation. I cannot vouch for the new 10mm's as my 45 is ten years old.

But, EAA as a company stinks. I really hoped that Armalite would introduce their AR-24 in .45 just so I could get that platform without the EAA name associated with it (yeah, I know, Turkish and not Italian).

Ash

 

[atblis]

Ha

Sounds like some conversations I've had with them.

Me: My rear sight flew off of my 10mm Witness
EAA: What kind of ammo were you shooting?
Me: Georgia Arms
EAA: Sounds like hot ammo. Thats what caused that
ME: A 180gr bullet at 900 fps doesn't sound very hot to me.
EAA: Well, that's what caused it.

Okay whatever.

Also had pretty much the same conversation, but substitute broken firing pin spring (1 week old gun too).

 

[saturno_v]

Sounds like some conversations I've had with them.

Me: My rear sight flew off of my 10mm Witness
EAA: What kind of ammo were you shooting?
Me: Georgia Arms
EAA: Sounds like hot ammo. Thats what caused that
ME: A 180gr bullet at 900 fps doesn't sound very hot to me.
EAA: Well, that's what caused it.

Okay whatever.

Also had pretty much the same conversation, but substitute broken firing pin spring (1 week old gun too).
Today 05:19 PM

180gr bullet at 900 fps hot ??? Maybe in the 19th century.......amazingly ridiculous....

 

[tawcat]

Not going to beat the horse....

I recently bought a EAA Witness P Compact .45ACP. You can do a search for my initial range report thread.

Sometimes you have to give up on customer service if you feel the product is good. Had a lot of folks tell me not to buy this piece, but I have to admit, my Witness has been the best "out of the box" shooter I have ever owned. And strangely enough, I fired better off-hand then with a two hand grip!!!

 

[saturno_v]

I recently bought a EAA Witness P Compact .45ACP. You can do a search for my initial range report thread.

Sometimes you have to give up on customer service if you feel the product is good. Had a lot of folks tell me not to buy this piece, but I have to admit, my Witness has been the best "out of the box" shooter I have ever owned. And strangely enough, I fired better off-hand then with a two hand grip!!!

Tawcat


I tend to do not rely too much on Customer Service for my guns, I have a very good gunsmith and I can do some fiddling on my own.

The problem with the 10 mm Auto Witness, especially the new model with the rounded top slide, seems to be that the slide itself is "structurally weak" to absorb comfortably the beating of a full spec 10 mm round...my understanding is that the pistol is basically designed to fire comfortably the "tuned down" 10 mm ammo commonly found in stores (Remington, Blazer, etc..) which are the ballistic equivalent of a regular .40 S&W round....so what is the point in owning a 10 amm EAA Witness?? More expensive and harder to find ammo for the same performance of a .40.

Even stiffer recoil springs, I heard, are not going to solve the problem....with full spec loads, the slide can easily crack.

Unfortunately, the weak slide problem cannot be resolved by any amount of gunsmithing....

If on top of that you add pathetic customer service and the fact that you have to pay the shipping back to you in case of repair (one guy on this forum once said that he paid more in shipping charges for his Witness back and forth than the price of the pistol itself) why bother???

Regards

 

[loop]

Are you still whining about your EAA pistol?

My God, I've bought and sold 30 pistols since I first heard you whining about one particular gun.

Get over it.

 

[tawcat]

Saturno V: Thanks for clearing that up. I totally understand. Best of luck.

 

[saturno_v]

Are you still whining about your EAA pistol?

My God, I've bought and sold 30 pistols since I first heard you whining about one particular gun.

Get over it.

Loop

Why don't you properly read my message before launching your grumpy tirade??

I wanted to BUY AGAIN a 10 mm auto since I sold my Witness long time ago..

Since then I traded more than 15 firearms....

 

[The Bushmaster]

Love my Kimber...American made too...

 

[conan]

I for one will stay away from them on the customer service issue alone.

I guess they couldn't just replace the slide since that one was gonna crack soon too!

 

[CZF]

Tanfoglio is Italy is deaf to customer complaints as well.

Great guns IF you can get them to run right.
That said.

I'd only buy a Witness in a caliber that you can't buy in a
CZ.

The real deal CZ will have MUCH better customer service.

 

[CHEVELLE427]

this is the first bad thoughts i have come across on the eaa 10mm.
did a little checking before i picked up a used compac mod and all feedback was great. so far it has been as good as my sw1006.

i reload for it (not to the max) but hot enough. and it has been flawless.
mine is not the rounded slide mod.

guess there like all other guns , you have good ones and bad ones.

 

[abuelo]

this is interesting news,i owned a witness 40 for about 5 years before selling it to my son who has used it for about the same amount of time with no problems.we have both used the 9mm conversion that i bought at the same time with no problems. All this to say, my daughter liked the feel of the gun so much that she bought a compact, all steel model last fall. after shooting this gun several times the slide cracked at the ejection port. she sent them an e-mail explaining that it was a used gun but not abused. we sent it in and they sent in back with a new barrel amd slide at no cost other than shipping. we were quite satisfied with their response, although a little slow.

 

[atblis]

They're a little touchy about the 10mms.

 

[psyopspec]

Are you still whining about your EAA pistol?

My God, I've bought and sold 30 pistols since I first heard you whining about one particular gun.

Get over it.

Was that really necessary?

As a shooter casually looking into the 10mm market, I'm glad to have run across this thread. Horrible CS is one thing, but throw in a bad product and you'll never get my business.

 

[kitsapcharly]

Bought a 22/45 combo not long ago while trading in the last taurus I'll ever buy. So far everything works fine but I've mainly used it with the 22 top. It has the rounded slide but as 45 ACP has much lower pressure than a 10 MM it may hold up.
The gun is very likeable buuttt it may be more so if I avoid EAA. Seems senseless the way they do things. Must say the problem seems to originate back at Tanfoglio since they make what cracks. Do they sell the same stuff in Europe or do they unload their mistakes over here.
Any input from people in other countries might be interesting. These guns used to have a good reputation and the basic design seems good.

 

[saturno_v]

kitsapcharly

Originally I'm from Italy (naturalized American) and Tanfoglio has a very good reputation over there as accurate pistols with very good workmanship. And they are pricey too, usually more than Berettas.
I'm surprised their sales channel in the US (such vital market for firearms) is in the hand of a company with a level of service that would make even Bryco or Jennings blush.

I just think that their 10 mm Auto is purposely designed to fire the lower pressure "FBI load" (aka 10 Lite) of the 10 mm, which is, by the way, the most common 10 mm ammo found in stores (Winchester, Remington, Blazer).
Basically, it is the ballistic twin of the .40 S&W.
This, in my opinion, disqualify the Witness as a real 10 mm Auto.

The EAA Gunsmith will not admit that...but I suspect this is the way it is.
He calls the Double Tap, Buffalo Bore and Corbon loads "overpressure"..which is nonsense, these companies load their 10 mm Auto to full 10 mm SAAMI specs

The EAA manual warn you in bold letters against the use of "+P, high pressure and high velocity" ammo....what the generic term "high pressure" (they do not say "overpressure") or "high velocity" really means?? You can have a high velocity load with a very light bullet..you can have a "high pressure" ammo within SAAMI specs..if that particular cartridge is a designed as a high pressure one (.454 Casull or .500 S&W magnum anyone???) the conforming ammo will be high pressure too!! (duh!!!)
It seems like a stupid blanket statement to me...no other firearms brand that I know makes a statement like that in their manuals.


From the Witness manual

 

[Beagle-zebub]

Well, I'd imagine that European users don't often shoot the 10mm cartridge, let alone the full-house loads.

Now, I could be wrong! But that would be my guess.

 

[saturno_v]

Psyopspec


We are in the same boat.
I want to buy a 10 mm auto myself for "light" wood defense (potential small blackies and cougars), unfortunately the only reasonably priced choices are The Glock 20 (I'm not in love with Polymer guns and/or with no external hammer) or a used Colt Delta Elite or S&W 1006 (single stack magazines, the Delta Elite is Single Action only, potential problems for replacement parts).
As I said in my previous message, the Tanfoglio Witness cannot be considered a real 10 mm Auto and EAA CS is horrible anyway.

North of 1 grand you can get a Dan Wesson or a Kimber, again I'm not in love with 1911 based pistols and I think they are single stack too.

Either I forget the 10 mm affair or I think I will get a Glock 20 if I find a screaming deal too hard to pass on....another advantage for the Glock is the availability of after-market Jarvis 6" barrels which can significantly increase velocity and accuracy.

Until then, my S&W 29 will be my deep wood companion... a bit heavy and awkward to carry around but better be safe than sorry...

Too bad no other companies make pistols for this magnificent cartridge....

 

[saturno_v]

Beagle-zebub


In Europe, and Italy in particular, one of the most popular pistol round is the 9 X 21 IMI basically unknown in the US.
It is the ballistic twin of the 9 mm Parabellum (aka 9 mm Luger)

Not many 10 mm Auto over there for sure...

 

[atblis]

9x21 was somewhat popular among the action pistol shooters for a time here so it's not unheard of in the USA. I am guessing they used it in 38SA sized pistols, and loaded it longer than 9x19. Basically a rimless 38SA before 38SC and 9x23 Winchester came out.

I personally don't think the 10mm Witness is quite up to full house 10mm loads. Not saying it'll blow up in your face, just that the service life is drastically shorter than usual for CZ pattern pistols. I think EAA knows this, but they sell the 10mms so well and obviously don't care about their reputation, so they keep selling them.