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Tanfoglio Porn

bessy

By bessy
in Tanfoglio (EAA / IFG)

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  • 4 months later...
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  • 2 weeks later...
kneelingatlas Burned Out

kneelingatlas

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For those that have shot both how does the Tanfo limited compare to a 2011 limited gun?

CHA-LEE is best qualified to answer this question as he made GM shooting a Tanfo Limited for many years, then switched to 2011:

Sure there are aftermarket parts available for the Tanfo guns, but what is available is not even a drop in the bucket compared to a SVI/STI based pistol. For example, currently there isn’t an aftermarket rear sight available for the Limited pistols. Oh yeah, if you need to buy just a slide you are hosed because EAA/Tanfo does not sell just a slide. You can also get warranty work done on your EAA/Tanfo gun, but that also comes with a nice 6 month turn around time on the work. Yeah I could spend a mint on shipping to send my EAA/Tanfo off to a gunsmith that is competent with tuning it up. Or I could drive into town and have a choice of local gunsmiths to do the work on an SVI/STI. Alternately you can simply teach yourself how to work on the gun so you don’t have to send it anywhere, which is what I did.

On the front end the EAA/Tanfo guns are cheaper. But that is pretty much offset by the other things that do become a pain in the ass down the road. Since there are not many EAA/Tanfo shooters at most clubs you are pretty much forced to figure out problems on your own. Verses walking up to the multitude of SVI/STI shooters at the match and asking what can be done to solve XYZ problem you are having.

With all that said, I still love shooting my EAA Witness Limited and don't see myself switching to an STI/SVI pistol any time soon. It goes "Boom" when I pull the trigger and is capable of a performance level that is still far beyond my skill level will probably ever be. What more can you ask for really?

The EAA Witness Limited can be an effective pistol for the Limited Division. I have used the EAA Witness Limited pistols for many years in the Limited Division with great success. I think there are several main detractors that keep shooters for using it though....

(1) Feeding Issues - The .40 Caliber magazines use to really suck causing endless nose dive jam issues. If you didn't make custom ammo and wave a dead chicken over you magazines before every match it would result in endless jams. The good thing is that Mec-Gar designed a new style of magazine which produces solid feeding so the issue is resolved. The bad thing is that there are many years of bad nose dive jam issues from shooters using the older style magazine. This jamming stigma will probably never go away.

(2) Lack of EAA Competition Support - Many shooters, myself included, have had significant issues with EAA's customer support or the support of EAA pistols that have been geared up for competition. If you never modify or change anything on the gun EAA will honor the warranty. But if you change ANYTHING to make the gun more competition ready they will immediately void the warranty and send you packing if you have any issues. I can understand their stance on this from a business perspective, but it does not make sense to sell a competition gun and then not expect shooters to swap parts or modify the gun to make it more competition ready.

(3) Lack of After Market Parts Support - There are only a few vendors providing after market parts for these guns so your upgrade options are very limited when compared to other platforms like the 2011. The few aftermarket parts that are available are fairly expensive given what you get. The other thing to consider is that EAA does not sell certain main components of the gun. For example, they will not sell you a stripped slide. You have to buy a whole upper assembly which is almost as expensive as a whole gun.

(4) Lack of local brain trust or gunsmith support - Since these guns are not commonly used in competition there isn't a lot of local brain trust to leverage for figuring out the best upgrades, ammo, or supporting equipment. You are basically on your own with figuring out what works and doesn't work as well as figuring out solutions when it does not work. Finding local gunsmiths that have competition level experience with EAA/Tanfo guns is pretty hard. You are usually forced into shipping your gun around for high quality gunsmith work or you need to do all of the work yourself.

All of these things combined make using an EAA/Tanfo Limited gun less appealing than simply using a 2011.

Over the last year I went from an EAA Witness Limited (44oz) all steel gun, to a 2011 platform in Limited. My first 2011 Limited gun was a light weight "Eagle" style build (short dust cover, pushing barrel, plastic grip) with lots of slide lightening, aluminum mag well and steel mainspring housing. I can't remember its exact weight, but I think it was around 35oz +/- a couple oz. When I shot this gun, the felt recoil was a lot harsher than my EAA, which in its self isn't so bad, but its light weight caused a strange situation where the whole gun would displace off target when shooting from even a slightly circumvented stance or position. Like leaning around a wall or crouching. I would have to stop shooting and consciously drive the gun back to the aiming spot post shot because the gun was so light. The front sight would track straight up and right back down to level as it should, but the whole gun would displace off of my aiming spot on the target.

I added a stainless steel magwell, and tungsten guide rod and this brought the weight up to about 40oz. In this configuration the strange gun displacement was less of an issue, but it still happened. I still felt like I had to grip the living shit out of the gun to keep it from displacing off target while shooting fast in circumvented positions. In normal standing positions it was fine, but in USPSA you are not always afforded the opportunity to shoot from a "Normal" shooting position.

Since adding more weight seemed to help the issue, I had a second Limited gun built on an STI Long Wide frame with a Bull Barrel. This was basically an "Edge" style setup. Same slide lightening/weight as the first gun, but more weight on the frame side. I also kept the stainless magwell and tungsten guide rod. I think this second gun was about 45oz, and it had very little gun displacement issues while shooting from circumvented positions. I am a grip strength freak and grip the gun HARD, so this lead to my next problem. I was gripping the gun so hard during the reloads that I could trap the magazine in the gun by squishing the plastic grip into the magazine while it was still in the gun so it wouldn't drop free. I have fairly short thumbs so I tend to grip hard as I reach my thumb around to hit the mag release. Well the mags not dropping free during reloads issue wasn't going to get the job done so the only solution was to switch to a metal grip. I ordered up a Phoenix Trinity Stainless Steel grip and put it on the blaster as is, along with the tungsten guide rod and stainless steel grip. Now the gun weighed about 56oz. When I shot it in this configuration the felt recoil was so minimized that I actually laughed. The gun would literally NOT muzzle flip at all during recoil it was so heavy. This was great if you were shooting one target, but the target to target transitions were dramatically worse because of the extra weight. The on target splits were also slower because there was no muzzle flip to help promote the reset of the trigger.

Since the gun was too heavy now, I replaced the guide rod with a steel one, and the magwell with an aluminum one. Doing that brought the overall weight down to about 50oz. The gun still felt "heavy" when transitioning in dry fire, but surprisingly it didn't feel heavy any more in live fire. I could transition quickly with it and it only had a minute amount of muzzle flip. The little bit of muzzle flip helped with the trigger resetting and I was back to cranking out wicket fast on target splits. It also didn't exhibit any whole gun displacement issues when shooting from a circumvented position. Since this configuration seemed to solve all of the issues, I settled on this 50oz overall gun weight and have used it for the majority of this past year. To me, this weight of gun is now what feels "Normal" to me, and I can drive it as hard and as fast as I can see the sights.

I think that the overall gun weight really comes down to your recoil feel preference and shooting aggressiveness style. If you like a softer felt recoil then a heavier gun is what you will prefer. If your shooting style leans towards fast on target splits (sub .20 splits on a regular basis) then a heavier gun will help make that happen from less than optimal shooting positions. But in the end, I think a lot of it comes down to what you get use to. If you shoot a crap ton of ammo through whatever weight gun you are going to get use to that guns timing, recoil feeling, transition weight and grip requirement to run it effectively.

The cool thing is that the 2011 platform has a LOT of aftermarket parts following so you can fine tune it to work or feel exactly how you want it to. All it takes is time and money.

The which is better Tanfo vs STI decision is very hard when both guns are setup and running properly. I have shot both guns extensively in match conditions and they both effectively get the job done on the clock.

The main difference between the two platforms is seen when they don't run properly. The EAA/Tanfo guns have a very limited aftermarket following and thus an even smaller gunsmith following. You are also stuck with EAA for factory customer service here in the US and they have along standing reputation of being absolutely horrible to deal with. Since the aftermarket parts following is small and you can only get OEM parts from EAA you are basically held hostage to a few vendors for getting parts and they are not cheap.

The 2011 (STI/SVI) platform is dramatically easier to troubleshoot and maintain due to the significant following in the practical shooting sports. There are a boat load of vendors offering OEM and aftermarket parts and its not hard to find local gunsmiths that can repair or upgrade a 2011 pistol. The other advantage you have is the local brain trust at the matches. The majority of shooters will be using a 2011 based pistol and asking them for advice in upgrading or troubleshooting gun issues is relatively easy.

Long story short is that everything eventually breaks or has problems. Do you want to use a "One Off" type of gun that you will be forced to troubleshoot and fix all on your own? Or do you want to use a popular type of gun that has support readily available?

Personally, I switched to the 2011 platform because I got tired of dealing with EAA and their horrible customer service. But I did shoot an EAA Witness Limited platform for 5 Years successfully before switching to a 2011. I pretty much had to do all of my own troubleshooting and gunsmithing to keep my herd of limited blasters going (I went through about 5 of them total). But eventually I got fed up with EAA's poor customer service even when I wanted to buy replacement parts at full retail.

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  • 3 weeks later...
MemphisMechanic Back From the Dead

MemphisMechanic

Posted
Posted (edited)

Oh hell yes - cerakote. Looks good, but I'm sure others will be horrified you media blasted that beautiful hard chrome off of your baby.

I'm assuming that those photos are with and without flash - hence the shift in color. Also, are those the factory wood grips given an epoxy / aluminum oxide treatment?

I'm actually staring at 10 color swatches they sent me (5 darkest blues and their silvers/grays) as I pick a color scheme for my Stock 3. Sky Blue is currently my favorite, along with one of the stainless hues in a two-tone sceme. Blue grips and slide, silver elsewhere.

But two different grays - stainless and tungsten perhaps - with black controls/hammer/grips is also sounding attractive.

Sky Blue isn't nearly as annoyingly "bright blue" as it looks in this photo. It's much less of a toy gun color than it appears to be here.

post-11460-0-17055600-1470322140_thumb.j

Edited by MemphisMechanic
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arkadi Looks for Target

arkadi

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Posted

I wonder, it might be the case that USA customers gets lower quality guns from Tanfoglio, than Europe? Mine Stock III blue is still great, after 3+ years. Even survived a dishwasher once, with minor rust. Or, maybe, it was the secret recipe? ;)

Photos somewhere above.

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arkadi Looks for Target

arkadi

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It's backup now, moved to Stock II. Probably ~20k rounds through the gun with healthy amount of dry fire. I shoot IPSC, thus DAA Race Master. Trigger guard is worn to shiny metal, but no rust and I always use original nice box for transportation.

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MemphisMechanic Back From the Dead

MemphisMechanic

Posted
Posted

Oh hell yes - cerakote. Looks good, but I'm sure others will be horrified you media blasted that beautiful hard chrome off of your baby.

No chrome on Stock IIIs, just terrible blue which wears off and rusts like crazy after a few matches.

I missed the rail! My brain saw a silver gun - even though this is exactly what I'm planning to do! - and automatically said "that's a Stock 2."
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  • 2 months later...
goshimu Finally read the FAQs

goshimu

Posted
Posted (edited)

Here's my contribution, a few of you US brothers have asked about it.

 

SF S2 Xtreme AU.

100% reliable on cci. Running standard med Xtreme springs now the gun is broken in the trigger is fantastic, I couldn't be bothered changing to lighter springs until I need to tear it down,something to think about for the trigger guys. 

 

 

 

 

image.jpg

Edited by goshimu
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tedahlenius85 Finally read the FAQs

tedahlenius85

Posted
Posted
He replied in another thread that they are indeed LOK grips for a CZ. 

 

They'll only fit a small-frame Tanfoglio, which means that 97% of Americans are SOL on making them fit. 



Yes, it's my small frame gun with LOKs for CZ 75. Too bad for you Americans, but you got the Scales that only fit large frame :)
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  • 1 year later...

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