CHA-LEE

They should have put an angry kangaroo under that desk so when you flip it up you would have to dodge its kicks to your face while engaging the targets...

The recoil spring you use should be chosen to balance against your grip. The goal is to have the front sight raise and return to a perfect sight picture. The front sight shouldn’t return high (too light of a spring) or dip low then return to the correct height (too heavy of a spring). If the slide spring is balanced to your grip the sight should lift then return directly to its level position. Everyone’s grip is different so which lb slide spring you need is unique to you. All you can do is take a selection of slide springs to the range and test fire each one until the front sight tracks as it should. Keep in mind that you have to keep your grip consistent for this to work. If you want to change how the recoil is felt then play around with different weight bullets and burn rate powders. Lighter bullets will have a sharp recoil and heavy bullets will have a dull thud recoil. I would suggest trying 200gr bullets then pick a slide spring that balances the front sight return to the shooters grip. The key words here are “The Shooters Grip”, not your grip. If your lady is shooting the gun then she needs to shoot it while trying to find the recoil spring that works the best. You could tune the recoil spring weight that works good for you, but that will probably not work well for her. You will find that a more solid grip requires a stiffer recoil spring.

It looks pretty solid to me. I think that you could save time by calling your shots on the steel so you can move onto the next target faster. You could also engage the steel in a different order that minimizes needing to wait for the big popper to fall before you get the two smaller ones. For example, in the first shooting postion on the right, you could have shot the big popper first, then the plate and by the time you are done with the plate the little poppers would have been exposed and ready to engage. As you did it, you had to wait for the big popper to drop and get out of the way before engaging the smaller poppers then the plate last. Your running from box 2 to 3 is a little half harted. That is a good distanct to travel and you should really get after it when running to the last box. If the targets were fairly close in the last box you could enter the box shooting right away and allow your body weight to continue to travel through the shooting box as you finish engaging the targets. If they are easy shots, then speed is key and you shouldnt need an ultra perfect shooting stance. The only other thing I could see was waiting to engage the targets or move out of the shooting box too long. As soon as your first foot enters the shooting box you should be engaging the first target, then as you are engaging the last target for that shooting area you should be already moving out of the box. For example, I can see a GM shooting the first shooting box in one smooth body motion from right to left engaging the steel as he is exiting the box. This takes supreme confidence in your shooting ability though If you miss the steel as you are exiting and have to come back to get it you will lose a lot more time than just standing there shooting until the hits are confirmed. But that is why they are GM's right

With these undersized cases I had to adjust the front of the magazine feed lips to .385 inch. Some of my magazines were at .400 inch and the last few rounds in the magazine would jump up and miss the camber some times. Since I adjusted the feed lips to .385 it has been running like a champ. My basic rule of thumb is that you should be able to pull up on the nose of the bullet with moderate force and not make the round slip past the feed lips by spreading them apart. If you can, they are to wide. The feed lips should securely retain the round from pushing past them.

JThompson> If I had one of those to work with I would give it a shot to figure out. Every setup is different though so what worked here might not work for that situation. All you can do is try different setups until it starts working. It took me a while to get this nose dive worked out but then again I am not one to give up on somthing that does not work right. It has to function perfectly or I am not going to shoot it in a match, so I was forced to find a solution. I can say with 100% confidence that my pistol now feeds the rounds better than it has ever before.

that looks like it was a bunch of fun...... the one shooting from a pole was kind of crazy

Here are some pictured of the rounds and how they fit in the magazine. Base of case measurement Neck of case measurement 21 Rounds loaded up in a 10mm magazine using Henning 21+1 base pad and 11 coil spring with grams follower. Look at how well the second round is seated up against the first round. With these rounds the front of the bullets don't spread out as you load the magazine. Since they fully lay on each other they get picked up all that much easier with no catching on one another.

Smokie> If it helps, when I went from 1.175 OAL to 1.225 I had to up my powder drop from 4.5gr to 4.6gr. Every powder is different through so you may need add more powder to make up the difference in case volume between the two OAL's.

Smokie> Initially that is what I did, load using a longer OAL. That did help quite a bit with the nose dive issue, but it would still happen from time to time. I know that 1.225 seems super long, but at least with the Zero bullets I am using they still do not touch the rifling of the barrel when chambered. I kind of wonder if EAA makes one .40/10mm barrel and then just changes the case depth ridge for either round. I know that if I put one of the 1.225 rounds in my XDm barrel the bullet head will hit the rifling before the case is fully seated in the chamber. I am by no means an expert at this. I am just trying to relay what I have found. Hopefully it helps others from pulling their hair out in the middle of a match due to excessive nose dive issues.

Yeah a Roll Sizer would be a perfect solution but its also about 10 times the cost of the Gizmo setup I put together. In the end it does the same job so I am not sure its worth it to spend the extra $$$ on a Roll Sizer. Maybe its the altitude here in Colorado that causes the nose dive issues There are at least three of us here that were all having the same nose dive issues. Maybe its the Zero bullet we are using? It is a flat nose bullet. I can see how a rounded nose bullet would mechanically feed better. I have tried MANY different resizing setups in the press to overcome this nose dive problem and it always came back to the base of the case causing the problem. If the base of the case had any bulge or step in diamiter from the extrator ring to the base of the body they would hang up on one another as the slide tries to pick up the round it would cause a nose dive. The Dies in the press can never get all the way to the bottom of the case so you are forced to resize the brass in a seperate device. Since using the Gizmo and bringing the cases and extractor ring down to .415 in diamiter the rounds come out of the magazine smooth as silk. No hanging up on each other at all. Plus you have the benifit of how the rounds stack up in the magazine. I will take some pictures of these rounds loaded up in a magazine to show how well they stack up.

I was able to participate in an indoor USPSA match last night. It was at a really nice indoor range in Colorado Springs that I had never been to before. We shot three stages. One Run and Gun, one Classifier, and one Low Light. The run and gun stage was pretty basic. Three shooting boxes with three targets to engage in each box. I ran through the stage well and engaged the targets as I was entering and exiting the box, but on the last shooting box and last target I got a jam and had to clear it before finishing up. I would have had a really good run if not for the jam, but oh well, that’s how it goes. The second stage was the CM99-22 Nuevo El Presidente classifier and I shot it “ok”. I botched the draw a little bit and took too long to get the first shot off but somehow I still managed to get a 68% on it. The last stage was a low light situation where we had to engage three targets at about 10 yards with two shots to the body and one shot to the head. My time was good and I got all hits on target, but every head shot was low just below the head. I think I was subconsciously worried about shooting over the head and pulled the shots low. Not being able to get a sight picture on the heads due to the low light was tuff to deal with to say the least. This was only the second time that I did a low light shooting stage so I still felt like a fish out of water. Overall it was a lot of fun and good experience for shooting in low light conditions.

Wow....... Over 50 views and not one comment huh. Is this information not useful to you guys? If you think I am crazy or way off base with this solution feel free to chime in.

DarthMuffin> Trigger finger mag release? You can flip the mag release button around on the Limited so it pushes in from the strong hand side. Basically setting it up for a lefty shooter. Or is the HK pistol have a completely different mag release button for the trigger finger?

Welcome to the world of the EAA Witness Limited!!! If you want a better reset on the trigger go with the EGW sear and hammer. Fitting is needed though as its not a drop fit. The use of a longer OAL will probably be needed once you start cramming more rounds in the magazines. That and if you are using once fired brass that will exasperate the nose dive issue. Check out the other thread I started about the nose dive solution.

I sent my entry off on the 2nd via priority mail, how do we know that we made it into the match or not? Will we be sent a confirmation e-mail?

As you all probably already know, the EAA pistols are super finicky about feeding reloaded rounds if the cases are not perfectly straight. After much testing, retesting, and more testing I believe I have found a solution for the nose dive issue that allows you to run ANY previously fired brass. Two other EAA shooters and I have put almost 2000 rounds of this new round setup through our guns and it has performed flawlessly. More importantly, it has performed flawlessly in all of our different magazine setups. The other huge benefit to this new round setup is that the Henning 21+1 base pad setup now fits 21 rounds fairly easy. You can’t cram 22 rounds in there but 21 rounds fits nicely and still allows for them to compress a little so you can reload with the 21 round mags without having to beat it into the gun to seat properly. With no further delay, here is the recipie for the new round setup…… Special Resizing Tools needed (1) Gizmo Case Resizer – This resizer resizes the whole case by pushing it completely through the resizing die. You can order this from Target Arms my e-mailing John Eiermann at jnighthawk@sbcglobal.net. I believe the price of this is $75 shipped but I am not sure if he is changing is prices with the new year. E-mail him to find out what the story is. How it worked for me is I e-mailed him, he said to mail him a money order for $75 and then a few days later the Gizmo was in my mailbox. Super nice guy to work with too. (2) EGW Undersize Die - You will have to drill out the threads at the top of the EGW Undersize die to something larger than a .40 case diameter. The Gizmo Case Resizer pushes the case all the way through the die and it comes out the top. The standard EGW Undersize Die comes with a threaded top to put the decapping pin in the die. Since we are not using it to decap the brass and the case needs to pass through the top of the die, you need to drill it out. This is easy if you have access to a drill press. I got the EGW Undersize Die off of Henning’s website for $30. He is also a super nice guy to work with. (3) Single Stage Press – I got a LEE single stage press for $20 off of ebay. You could probably get one from a local gun store as well. Nothing fancy is needed with it so don’t spend more than you have to on one. (4) Case Lube – I use the Hornady One Shot case lube. This is needed to lube up the cases so they can be easily pushed through the Gizmo Case Resizer. You can force the brass through the Gizmo without it but it takes a LOT more effort. The case lube makes it a lot easier to resize the brass. You should be able to find this or other case lubes at you local sporting goods store. I am using the Dillion 650 reloading press and keep the standard Dillion resizing/decapping die in the first stage. When you run the cases through the Gizmo with the EGW U-Die the cases end up being .415 in diameter. The Dillion resizing die will bring cases down to .417 so as you run the Gizmo’ed cases through the press the Dillion resizing die isn’t even resizing the cases, it is just pushing out the used primers. As you run the rounds through the press the bullet will push into the cases and expand the neck of the case to a size of .420. At least this is the case with the bullets I am currently using (Zero 180gr FMJ). When the round is finished you should be able to measure .420 at the top of the case then it should tapper down to .415 down the rest of the case. This size difference from top to bottom also helps keep the rounds at a tilted angle as they are fed into the magazine. I am also using a really long OAL of 1.225 as this also helps with fending off the nose dive when/if it happens because the round is long enough to place the tip of the bullet on the start of the barrel feed ramp when it does nose dive. Then it will just climb up the feed ramp and chamber as it should. When the rounds have a shorter OAL there is a chance that the round will nose dive and dip below the start of the barrel feed ramp and cause the head of the bullet to butt up against the base of the feed ramp. Given that the OAL used is a lot longer than normal a different powder load is needed. I have listed below the load that works great for all three of our guns. I hope that this helps other EAA owners get past the nose dive issues when using once fired brass from unknown origin. I know it was a huge sigh of relief for me when I got it figured out and didn’t have to worry about nose dives any more. I can take some pictures of this stuff if you like, but its pretty self explanatory. Let me know if you have any questions. Round Recipe Case – Standard Mixed Brass Gizmo Resized to .415 Bullet – Zero 180gr FMJ Primer – Winchester Small Pistol Powder – Hogdon Clays Powder Drop – 4.6gr OAL – 1.225 Average Velocity – 935fps Average Power Factor – 168 PF

We were able to get some more practice in today at the private outdoor range. More moving in and out of shooting boxes and shooting on the move. We ran through about 4 different stage setups and it was great. I am smoothing out my movements and engaging the targets a lot sooner as I get into the shooting positions. I have been focusing on keeping the gun up in front of my face as I run and enter shooting positions and that is greatly improving my on target engagement time. More practice is needed though as it is still a little odd keeping the gun up all the time while moving around. The benefits are evident though so I will need to burn it in and make it a standard practice. The match set for tomorrow has been canceled due to poor weather, which sucks. The winter season is upon us so matches being canceled are to be expected. I am eager give these new tactics a try in an official match so it is a little frustrating to have the matches canceled.

The match tonight was "So-So". Their stages were very process and target engagement oriented with little regard to the proper flow of how it should be shot. If this was a USPSA match and we could have shot the stages any way we wanted, it could have been shot in half the time we were doing. As it was though you were forced to engage the targets from a stand still most of the time. It was fun to shoot, but it really does not help better my USPSA shooting skills. I think the next time I shoot that match I will shoot it all strong hand or weak hand to at least get some better practice at that type of shooting. Otherwise its really a waste of time and ammo given the shooting goals I am trying to achieve. Oh well, some lessons you learn sooner or later.

I was able to get in about 350 rounds of practice today at a private outdoor range. A friend of mine has some land not too far out of town and he invited me and a couple of others to some out and shoot today. We setup a couple of different courses and ran through them a bunch of times. It was a great practice session and we tried many variations of tackling the stage. Trying different target engagement orders, different starting positions and things like that. My cadence shooting is getting better and better the more I practice it as well. I have been working really hard on optimizing my body movement from one shooting place to another. I have taken up a strategy to keep on moving the whole time until I get to the end of the stage where I can engage the last few targets. This makes the stage flow so much better it’s unbelievable. Even though I move through the COF at a normal pace I am finding that it takes less effort to get to the end of the stage and also allows me to keep shooting most of the time nonstop. I can't wait to put this new flowing way of shooting to the test during tomorrows match. The match tomorrow is a "Home Grown" match at an indoor range and is kind of a mixture of IDPA and USPSA style shooting. It’s more based on a mental game of engaging targets in a specific order and accuracy than speed shooting. So this is a good match for me to turn the speed down a notch and put the thinking cap back on. It’s really fun to shoot fast though so it will be hard to restrain myself.

Lock tight is your friend, use it or forever retighten it when it comes loose.

eerw> Thanks for the encouragement buddy, it means a lot coming from a GM such as yourself. Shooting for me is always a work in process, I just have to keep at it.

bentley_owner> The recoil springs that come with the EAA/Tanfoglio pistols are rated in Kilograms. Most of the recoil springs here in the US are rated in pounds. The bags the recoil springs come in are marked with their kg rating so I am sure you could find a conversion for that rating to know what they are in lbs. But its a LOT easier and cheaper to get lb rating springs here in the US so I would recommend getting some Wolf springs (10lb and 12lb for .40 caliber) and see which one works better for you.

That thing looks pretty sweet!!! Why can't we get the Stock II pistols here in the US? Is that a Tanfoglio only thing?

I got to shoot a USPSA match today, the last one of 2008 in fact. It was a cold one though. Most of the day it was between 20 - 25 deg and there was a slight wind so the bone chilling cold was in full effect. One of the shooters brought a portable propane heater for us to use and that was a life saver for all. There were not many competitors today but that was not a surprise given the cold weather. The sun was out and we were able to put some holes in paper so it was still a lot of fun. I think I am now stepping up my performance to the next level. I shot all of the stages at a speed that was far better than before and my shooting cadence was great. There were not many run and gun stages this match due to the bitter cold making it hard to setup extensive stages. Most of the stages were tests of reloading and shooting freestyle then switching to strong hand only. On the one run and gun stage I got a really nice movement flow and my shooting cadence as I went through the stage was great. That was really nice for me to put together such a strong run and having all of my skills come together all at once. I have been shooting a lot better now that I have a new found confidence in my shooting index, its crazy what happens when you just let go and allow yourself to break through what you previously thought was 100% of your capabilities. Allowing myself to see what you only need to see for a sight picture on a given target, verses forcing the same sight picture for every target, is like stepping into a whole new world of shooting. I have been slacking on my dry fire practice though and it was showing in a couple of fumbled reloads. I need to set a specific dry fire schedule a couple of days every week and just stick to it. The more I burn in the basics the less I will have problems with them in matches. Here is a link to a YouTube video of the run & gun stage that went well for me. Not too bad considering the temp outside that day and barely being able to feel the gun and trigger.

What time is the party going to be starting?