Wanted: Used extractor for EAA Witness

[SLM]

Hi. I'm hoping someone can help me out. I'm looking for a used extractor to put in my Witness. It's a small frame 9mm if it matters. This gun has given me extraction FITS from day one with ANY brass case. Oddly enough it will run Blazer aluminum and never miss a beat.

If anyone has a used extractor they'd be willing to part with cheap I'd really appreciate it!

[sinnsyk]

What kind of extraction problems are you having? Is it leaving the case in the chamber? If it does, try filing down the knob that controls how much tension you're getting on the case. See my article on how to adjust a 38 super RIMLESS extractor. The same principle goes for 9mm and you can file it down to the same measurements (0.045"). How old is your extractor spring? If it's seriously old and used, maybe you're not getting enough tension from your spring.

Did this solve it or not ?

If not... does the case get jammed in the slide? Okay, if it does, look for a black mark at the bottom of your slide. If you have one of those, the case exits too low. This means the ejector may need to be filed to push the case out higher. Its a relationship between the ejector and the extractor. Both should be slightly changed / filed to push the case up and out higher. Another thing you can do which is a little more drastic, but will improve reliability drastically is to dremel and polish the ejection opening of the slide. Remove all sharp edges. I've done this on my 40 without changing the extractor/ejector and nothing gets stuck anymore.

None of this helps? Probably want to send it off to Canyon Creek, EGW or someone who knows the guns very well. I've always been able to fix extraction / ejection problems, but it may be time consuming and require lots of ammo. Ultimately you can't tell for sure you've got all problems fixed until you can shoot 500 - 1000 rounds w/o any hickups.

Good luck

[SLM]

Thanks Henning.

The gun leaves brass cases in the chamber. I'll try cutting some more off the knob sometime. I don't know the measurement on it. I didn't have anything to go by. I've cut some off it trying to increase the tension already. I've replaced the extractor spring (twice) with Wolff extra power ones which didn't help anything. I took a Dremel (yes, a Dremel) to the extractor hook and made severe changes to the design and made VAST improvements. That got it down to about one failure per 10 rounds. It was leaving 4 or 5 before that. No matter what I've done (thank God) it will still run 100% with Blazer aluminum but I'm about out and now I reload 9's so I want it to run brass.

The best it's ever ran with brass is my handloads with 9.0gr of Blue Dot under 115's. It only averages one failure in 20 rounds with those.

I bought the gun new from CDNN. It was part of a special run with a ported barrel/slide and adjustable rear site. It's a nice range gun (when it runs) but isn't worth sending to anyone. If I wanted to shoot it in USPSA I'd have to shoot it in Open because of the ported barrel and I'm a lefty and it doesn't have ambi safeties.

I wanted to swap out the extractor because I really don't know how bad I've messed the hook on this one up, even though it does work better.

Thanks again!

[UW Mitch]

You've probably done this, but one thing that hung me up once was I hadn't case gauged all my rounds. In one of my XD-9's I was having extraction problems (round left in the chamber) with my reloads but not factory ammo. My reloads haven't had problems in any of my other 9mms. After I case gauged all my ammo, I found some that didn't drop into the gauge. Once I fed the XD-9 only ammo that passed, the extraction problems went away. My other guns much have looser chambers.

~Mitch

[Mo Hepworth]

XD 9mm seems to have a tight chamber....I have seen some shooters having problems with handloads.

[SLM]

Thanks but the problem is with factory ammo.

The few of my reloads I ran through the gun worked better but I attribute that to the fact they were .1gr over max loads at the OLD SAAMI specs for 9mm. I think they basically blow the case out of the chamber, lol.