EAA Witness Elite Match 40

[RobBob]

Hey guys new to the forum, I bought my first of 3 witness' about 12 years ago, excellent pistols. For one reason or another I traded or sold all three of them. About a week and a half ago I saw an EAA Witness Elite Match in 40 S&W and I had to have it. Before I ordered it I called EAA and talked to a woman there and asked her if the Witness Match had polygonal rifling. She wasn't sure so she said she would call me back and I told her I was in kind of a hurry because I was home on lunch break and I was going to call Bud's Gun Shop and order it and she said she would call me right back. True to her word she did call me right back and said she looked in a book and according to the codes the Match pistol did not have polygonal rifling, so I ordered the gun. I picked up the gun a few days ago and comparing the barrel to a Glock factory barrel, I don't see much difference in the two. On the Budsgunshop.com website a guy said that EAA claims the Witness Match does have polygonal rifling but his did not. I can't believe that I can't tell the difference. Like probably others here on this board, I shoot hard cast bullets but if this is polygonal rifling I would be reluctant to do so with this pistol. The range that I shoot at has a lot of steel targets but you have to use lead bullets only. I would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

[Skydiver]

This thread maybe interesting:

http://www.brianenos...ndpost&p=821801

Tanfoglio states that lead is okay through their barrels. I believe that it is only Glock that has stated specifically not to use lead bullets.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Skydiver

[Nealio]

My Match from 4 or so years ago has lands and groove rifling. But you can tell very easily if its polygonal or if its lands and groove rifling.

If you look down the business end of the barrel, it will look like one of these pics (left is lands and groove and right is polygonal):

This image shows pics of what they look like. Its the opposite of the one above (left is polygonal and right is lands and groove):

The Tanfoglio's have a more rounded polygonal profile than the above picture shows, so it should be easier to tell. If you look down the barrel towards a bright light, it will look like there are (6?) large shiny panels (sides of the polygon) if its poly, or you'll see well defined ridges if its lands/groove.

Hope that helps.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Nealio

[Skydiver]

My Match .45 from 2007 and Match .40 from 2009 have land and groove rifling.

[RobBob]

Thanks for the help guys. After checking to make sure the gun was unloaded, I took a flash light and looked down the barrel from the muzzle end and toward the chamber area and it didn't look the same as my glock factory barrel so hopefully it is not a polygonal barrel. It sounds like even if it is polygonal rifling that if I'm shooting hard cast bullets and clean my barrel say every 100 rounds, that I would be okay anyway. I'm looking forward to trying the Witness Match out in a couple of days.

[RobBob]

Well I got to shoot my EAA Witness Match for the first time yesterday. Wow! That is the most accurate pistol out of the box that I've ever shot. Off hand at 20 yards 3 shot groups right around an inch with usually 2 holes touching. I'm still not sure of the rifling in the barrel, it almost looks to be polygonal and land and grooves as strange as that sounds. I put 57 rounds of lead ammo thru it. The only issue I have is the slide doesn't lock back on an empty magazine. When the pistol shoots empty the slide doesn't lock back and when I push on the magazine release the magazine won't come out either. However if I push in on the mag release and pull the magazine out and reinsert the magazine and then pull the slide back, the slide locks open. I'm thinking maybe the follower tension in the magazine may be too much or maybe too little, I don't know. What do you guys think?

Thanks.

[Skydiver]

RE: stuck magazine and the gun not locking back on empty:

I've seen the same thing happen on my old magazines with the red followers. What's happening is that the red follower is rubbing against the inner edge of the slide that usually picks up the next bullet off the magazine (I'm sorry, I can't remember for the life of me what that part is called). Easy fix that costs money is to replace the magazine springs with CZ magazine springs. The cheap easy fix is to bend the part of the mag spring that supports the front of the follower up a few degrees so that the slide isn't biting into the follower.

I don't own any of the new MecGar mags to know if a similar problem exists for those mags.

If you have the Gram's followers and springs, then the Gram's followers are not meant to lock back the slide. If the mag is getting stuck, again it's the slide digging into the follower, but as I recall my fix was to just bend the spring to cant a little more to the right. Or was it to the left? I fixed it once and never had to deal with it again.