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EAA/Tanfoglio Chop Shop - NO SELLING OR TRADING


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  • 3 weeks later...
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If I wasn't so in love with the look of my blue aluminum grips on my pistol I'd be really tempted to get wood ones since I'm normally a "wood furniture" type of person on all my guns. Might be a possible out for me on my project since I know wood grips look good on a two-tone pistol whereas I have no idea how blue aluminum grips would look on one.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Anyone here ever heard the Johnny Cash song  "One piece at a time" The story goes he was a worker at the Cadillac factory and wanted a Caddy so bad and could not afford one, so over the years he stole a part here and there and with a mish mash of parts he built his own caddy. 

 

Well, I wouldn't steal stuff and couldn't afford / justify a Tanfo Gold Team, so rather than set my aspirations on open division I thought I'd take the less costly route and I'd go limited and got a new Limited Custom in .40. I figured with the LC I could build the equivalent of the GT over time, or if the finance stars aligned I could buy the real deal.

 

First I found the magwell... no easy task nowadays, they seemed scarcer than hen's teeth. Later on I saw the GT grips at EAA on sale... getting close, maybe I wouldn't have to spring for a whole GT if I found an upper. Then one day, WOW I stumbled onto a NIB complete V12 slide. In the end, I didn't save a bunch of bucks maybe $200 +/- but I'm able to shoot two divisions with the same frame.  If I had held out for a GT I'd only be able to shoot one division! 

 

The .38 super slide from my Lim pro also fits the frame but I'll not be starting up with super again any time soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tanfo_lc_gt_3s.jpg

Edited by gnappi
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Awesome work Gary!  I love that song and the spirit of your Open journey.  Mine was similar: I fell in love with a rented tactical sport, couldn't justify buy a Czechmate, so I bought a TS and promptly started building custom CZ/Tanfoglio Open guns.  Eight years and dozens of guns later I've made some great friends all over the world, learned a lot and had tons of fun!

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That's really inspiring to see such a project come together, gives me hope for mine working out in the end. I especially like how your build looks all silver like that. I was thinking of doing the same with mine after seeing a 92f Inox "ghost gun" but I couldn't find silver aluminum grips so I first got red ones, but my Witness had one screw hole drilled incorrectly so they rattled around until one day a screw sheared off. Henning offered to fix it and they gave me a pair of blue textured ones for my troubles.

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21 hours ago, gnappi said:

Anyone here ever heard the Johnny Cash song  "One piece at a time" The story goes he was a worker at the Cadillac factory and wanted a Caddy so bad and could not afford one, so over the years he stole a part here and there and with a mish mash of parts he built his own caddy. 

 

Well, I wouldn't steal stuff and couldn't afford / justify a Tanfo Gold Team, so rather than set my aspirations on open division I thought I'd take the less costly route and I'd go limited and got a new Limited Custom in .40. I figured with the LC I could build the equivalent of the GT over time, or if the finance stars aligned I could buy the real deal.

 

First I found the magwell... no easy task nowadays, they seemed scarcer than hen's teeth. Later on I saw the GT grips at EAA on sale... getting close, maybe I wouldn't have to spring for a whole GT if I found an upper. Then one day, WOW I stumbled onto a NIB complete V12 slide. In the end, I didn't save a bunch of bucks maybe $200 +/- but I'm able to shoot two divisions with the same frame.  If I had held out for a GT I'd only be able to shoot one division! 

 

The .38 super slide from my Lim pro also fits the frame but I'll not be starting up with super again any time soon.

 

 

21 hours ago, gnappi said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

tanfo_lc_gt_3s.jpg

 

What of mag extensions are you running with the magwell?  I have the Hennings and for some reason my stock magwell wont work with them.

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Pippu, funny you should mention the Beretta Ghost. I have two a 92 and 96 Brig and I thought about them both when putting this one together. 

 

Chubbs, I have an older Tanfo 10mm compact and I discovered that the older base pads can be modified to work with the magwell and still work for the standard frame. They take about 20 minutes with a Dremel to mod. I'll get some proper pads at some point but putting this together made me able to push that expenditure out a few months.  

 

Pic below. 

 

 

 

Tanfo_basepad_mods_sc.jpg

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14 hours ago, gnappi said:

Pippu, funny you should mention the Beretta Ghost. I have two a 92 and 96 Brig and I thought about them both when putting this one together. 

 

Chubbs, I have an older Tanfo 10mm compact and I discovered that the older base pads can be modified to work with the magwell and still work for the standard frame. They take about 20 minutes with a Dremel to mod. I'll get some proper pads at some point but putting this together made me able to push that expenditure out a few months.  

 

Pic below. 

 

 

Awesome thanks!  I have the Limited 40 HC and found that the mags would not release fully with the stock magwell 100% of the time (using Henning pads).  A friend let me use his Henning Magwell and I have no problems now.

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On 7/9/2020 at 6:36 PM, Pippu_Paladin said:

If I wasn't so in love with the look of my blue aluminum grips on my pistol I'd be really tempted to get wood ones since I'm normally a "wood furniture" type of person on all my guns. Might be a possible out for me on my project since I know wood grips look good on a two-tone pistol whereas I have no idea how blue aluminum grips would look on one.

Well, with a little bit of photo shop, it may look like this, I borrowed kneelingatlas' pic I hope you do not mind? 

 

 

 

tanfo_blue_chrome_blu_grips.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

Figured this would be the place to ask...what’s been the general consensus with EAA conversion kits?

 

New to Tanfoglio pistols, buddy owns a gun shop that just acquired all of the stock from a gun shop nearby where the owner passed away. In the ‘haul’ was a brand new Limited Elite in 9mm. 
 

I’ve always wanted a Tanfoglio to shoot in USPSA as they just feel darn good in the hand and shoot lights out accurate. 
 

A positive I see here is that I could buy it since he’s offered it to me extremely cheap and run it in L-10 Minor (ban state) and Limited Steel Challenge. I do really want to go Major though. 

 

Is it feasible or am I just opening up potential for a headache with the conversion?

 

- Jake

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8 hours ago, jakeb said:

Figured this would be the place to ask...what’s been the general consensus with EAA conversion kits?

 

New to Tanfoglio pistols, buddy owns a gun shop that just acquired all of the stock from a gun shop nearby where the owner passed away. In the ‘haul’ was a brand new Limited Elite in 9mm. 
 

I’ve always wanted a Tanfoglio to shoot in USPSA as they just feel darn good in the hand and shoot lights out accurate. 
 

A positive I see here is that I could buy it since he’s offered it to me extremely cheap and run it in L-10 Minor (ban state) and Limited Steel Challenge. I do really want to go Major though. 

 

Is it feasible or am I just opening up potential for a headache with the conversion?

 

- Jake

 

Jake, the conversion kits are very good and generally drop in without any fitting whatsoever 👍

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Well, I have three, all were new and factory chrome plated, one standard slide in .40 and two V12's one each in .40 and 9mm.

 

All of the slides (barrels already fit perfect) needed fitting. I used a diamond paste mixed with Tri Flow oil, left the barrels out and it took almost no time to lap them on my frames.

 

After they fit enough to hand cycle them relatively easily with the slide / frame alone I cleaned out the lapping paste, oiled them up and went to the range and shot them in without problems.

 

If you buy one, and want to try the compounds you should not need the coarser of those (found on Ebay) shown below. I used the 2.5 or 3.5 only (don't remember which) but they REALLY need to be thinned with a thin oil like Marvel's mystery oil of Tri Flow or else the thick paste as it comes from the tube will not get between the slide and frame. 

 

PS, fitting the second .40 V12, did not make the first V12 I fit with this method looser. I surmise the lapping works the 90 degree corners of the slide more than the flat spots. But without a microscope of sorts with before and after I cannot say for sure. 

 

diamond_lappings.jpg

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Hi,

I have a couple of EAA Witness small frame guns that need some attention.  How is EAA to deal with these days?  I have dealt with them in the past, and was not impressed.  One of my guns needs a new top end it's a 9mm and I was thinking about getting a 9mm long slide with the super sight.  I also need a couple of trigger bar spring assemblies.  

Thanks!,

Z

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19 hours ago, Zebraman said:

Hi,

I have a couple of EAA Witness small frame guns that need some attention.  How is EAA to deal with these days?  I have dealt with them in the past, and was not impressed.  One of my guns needs a new top end it's a 9mm and I was thinking about getting a 9mm long slide with the super sight.  I also need a couple of trigger bar spring assemblies.  

Thanks!,

Z

 

You'll probably have the same experience.  I called them about a few months ago about a potential issue with my Limited HC and the lady I spoke with seemed as if she was being bothered.  She asked me to go into detail, and when I was done she just said, "Just send it in, but no guarantee we can fix it."  And that was it.

 

I know what I typed doesn't represent inflection, but imagine if you were talking to a valley girl that was in the middle of applying her chapstick- that's the vibe i got lol

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So I took my new slide to the range and I think the recoil spring is too weak. It is WAY easier to rack and to hold in place to pop the slide stop out to switch slides. When I shoot I can feel it chugging along and if I try to drop the slide on a reload it gets stopped by the round in the mag, I have to pull it back all the way and slingshot it. I had plenty of failures to feed and occasionally the slide would try to go home on a reload from the mag sliding in.

 

I really hope this wasn't a lemon.

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On 8/30/2020 at 7:04 PM, Zebraman said:

Hi,

I have a couple of EAA Witness small frame guns that need some attention.  How is EAA to deal with these days?  I have dealt with them in the past, and was not impressed.  One of my guns needs a new top end it's a 9mm and I was thinking about getting a 9mm long slide with the super sight.  I also need a couple of trigger bar spring assemblies.  

Thanks!,

Z

Well... I recently needed to deal with them and they did not return two calls, after a couple of weeks I wrote Tanfoglio in Italy, I received a call the next day and I got what I needed.

 

There are reasons that IFG, Patriot Defense, Ben Stoeger, J&L, and Henning are in the mix now.  It's a good thing too I REALLY like my Tanfo pistols to the exclusion of the rest of the brands that I own. 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, gnappi said:

Well... I recently needed to deal with them and they did not return two calls, after a couple of weeks I wrote Tanfoglio in Italy, I received a call the next day and I got what I needed.

 

There are reasons that IFG, Patriot Defense, Ben Stoeger, J&L, and Henning are in the mix now.  It's a good thing too I REALLY like my Tanfo pistols to the exclusion of the rest of the brands that I own. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henning is awesome! My Tanfo came with one grip screw hole drilled poorly so my aluminum grips I bought from them where floppy and one screw stuck out. Eventually a screw sheared off and not only did drill out the screw for me for free but they gave me a new set of grips because my old pair was scratched up from struggling with screwdrivers.

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