Has anybody tried putting a flat recoil spring on the Witness or Henning Guild Rod? I'm thinking we could use a stronger recoil spring without the coils binding on the rod.
I'm in the middle of that right now... :o I'm trying it in a compact polymer 10mm. I used a Glock 19 Gen 3 ISMI flat spring. Bought three weights, but it turns out they all have the same specs except the oal. Did it fit? Nope! Not without some tweaking and stupid tricks to even get the spring and guide rod to go into the slide bushing. The fit of the spring itself, which is .418 OD just barely slides into the bushing. It fits perfectly on the Henning guide rod, tho. Because of the very close fit in the bushing, it's impossible to get the rod through the hole. Not enough wiggle room with the barrel in place.
I resolved that by pre-compressing the spring, starting at 7 coils back on the bushing side and all the way back on the barrel lug side. I made a compressor using a Quick-Grip clamp from a big box store, and drilled a 5/16" hole one one side for the 1/4" guide rod to pass through. Works great. I used small dia wire to hold the compressed spring in place. Once wired up, I could just drop the guide rod in place, then cut the wire.
Getting the spring in is a little easier than getting it back out. Similar drill with compressing, but this time you have to use a tool (I used a nail set with a cup large enough to rest on the tit on the end of the rod. So, wire the leading edge as far down as you can reach, place the slide on the edge of a bench so the guide rod can extend out. Push down on the rod to compress the spring and take a wrap with your free hand around the top coil, and come back under the wire to hold it in place. You can just hold it like while release pressure on the tool, and remove the spring and rod.
Drink lots of beer and drop F bomb's as needed.... :))
I'm working on a much simpler but more drastic solution to make this a reasonable thing to use the flat wire springs. BTW, it still doesn't work because of the very close spring fit inside the bushing, which is almost an inch long, so much of the spring needs to compress within that hole, and mine feels like it's binding up. The identical spring slightly smaller in OD would probably work well.
I performed that "drastic" solution today, and it worked. The Witness Comp-P 10mm has a recoil spring sleeve (guide?) that .955" in length. I cut that down to .410" in length. That allowed a lot more wiggle room to get the ISMI flat spring and Henning guide rod in place without going through all the previous tricks. It's like a normal installation now. The ideal length of that sleeve would probably be more like .375" in length. I still had to cut a few coils off a ISMI 22lb flat spring to take care of stacking issues. In other words, flat springs compress to a very small size, so much of it is still trying to coil up inside that .410" of space, and I'm sure there's some binding going on in that minimal bit of distance. The ideal fix for that would be to ream the inside diameter of the sleeve just a bit for spring expansion. Fortunately, there's enough wall thickness to do this. I haven't tried this, but I don't believe it would take much.
FYI, DO NOT do this mod. It's bound to kill off any warranty you may have, ruin your firearm, and, you may die from a skin eating bacterial infection if you nick yourself. It also may not function as desired, and you'll have to buy a new replacement slide, and, finally, Hillary may win the election and you'll blame me for this and I'll end up on a scary sheit list. :P
Quick follow-up. I've had this 10mm to the range several times since the mod, and all is still well. No signs of any stress, and it cycles perfectly. The flat spring is holding its length and doesn't feel like it's weakening any at all (unlike the dual springs that it came with), which is what I was after. It's not a drop in mod, and you can't go back except to buy a new slide, so I would still caution those that want to give this a go on theirs. I still haven't shot any Underwood ammo through it, but that's coming since I'm confident now that it will handle it.
...And a couple of pics. The white grease is Lubriplate SFL-B.
(http://commonbullets.com/uploads/tanfo/Witness_P_Compact_10mm_01.JPG)
(http://commonbullets.com/uploads/tanfo/Witness_P_Compact_10mm_02.JPG)
(http://commonbullets.com/uploads/tanfo/Witness_P_Compact_10mm_03.JPG)
It looks really cool! Nobody out there carries a single flat coil to fit this model? Has anyone looked into the DPM system for this?
Replaced the flat spring with the same flat ISMI, except found I could get a few more coils in there. This one is cut to 26 coils and it works great. Just FYI
(http://10mm-firearms.com/gunsmithing/flat-recoil-spring-in-the-witness-10mm/?action=dlattach;attach=2045;image)
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Update: Back to the range a few times since my last post. The Compact, with the new flat spring is doing well, and no failures of any kind. It's an amazing shooter, although I still haven't run any Underwood ammo through it. Scared? Maybe a little. :o
So far, just Armscor FMJ and PMC HP. I'm happy the PMC HP's feed well, and it's a little stouter than the Armscor or equivalents. Next time out I'll bring some Underwood 155 grain for schnitt's and giggles. I really don't think there will be any issues, though, as the gun doesn't feel at all stressed with the dumbed down ammo. Underwood is as tough as it gets, so if it feels a bit strong, something like Buffalo Bore could be a good carry option.
Quote from: Intercooler on January 14 2017 05:31:03 AM MST
It looks really cool! Nobody out there carries a single flat coil to fit this model? Has anyone looked into the DPM system for this?
I am using the DPM kit in my steel Witness (semi) Compact. It seems to be doing the job quite well.
So...Witness compact running solid with a flat spring.....Hmmmmm
Looking on gunbroker, cause I really need another handgun :-)
Quote from: sqlbullet on September 06 2017 05:49:06 AM MDT
So...Witness compact running solid with a flat spring.....Hmmmmm
Looking on gunbroker, cause I really need another handgun :-)
Yes you do! Of course it wasn't a drop-in solution, as I had to shorten the length of the spring pocket. But it was worth it in exchange of a solid, reliable pistol. I'd like to hear more about the DPM system, such as a link or part number, and if it's a drop in or if mods had to be made.
Wow I might even consider trying my 2002 full wonder finish compact with 10mm again. Last time I tried with a henning rod and a wolff spring I already had with a super thin brass washer a round discharged without fully feeding blowing out a mag plate. I'll try that flat spring anyways as I don't like the beating that pistol gets even with its 40 barrel in it (thin brass washer is pretty much gone with less than 50 rds).
Does this flat spring help with recoil absorbption or does it still beat the snot out of the frame?
Quote from: bnolsen on October 11 2017 06:37:02 PM MDT
Wow I might even consider trying my 2002 full wonder finish compact with 10mm again. Last time I tried with a henning rod and a wolff spring I already had with a super thin brass washer a round discharged without fully feeding blowing out a mag plate. I'll try that flat spring anyways as I don't like the beating that pistol gets even with its 40 barrel in it (thin brass washer is pretty much gone with less than 50 rds).
Does this flat spring help with recoil absorbption or does it still beat the snot out of the frame?
To reiterate, trying to get a flat wound spring in the spring pocket was nearly impossible, and certainly not possible without a variety of compression tools. It's not something you'd want to tackle every time you wanted to clean the gun. :o
The steel compact doesn't have a full dust cover on the frame, so there's not much "pocket" left to cut back in order to get the guide rod and spring to fit.
I can't really report the difference with the flat spring, since my original stock dual spring setup was trashed after just a few shots and wouldn't go into battery. All's I can say is that it's been flawless and really doesn't feel like it's getting battered. I cut the length of the spring to fit, ie, the slide lock still works and gives me as long a spring as possible. It solidly goes into battery without feeling mushy or slow.
I don't have a compact, but I want a steel frame version (if it can run with full power 10mm loads). So forgive me if this is a dumb question, but why is the flat coil spring necessary? Why not use one of the Wolf springs?
A flatwire spring of the same compressed length as a round wire spring will store more energy. This provides additional dampening in the confined space of the recoil spring channel. It also will have a longer service life.
Quote from: sqlbullet on October 15 2017 11:37:45 AM MDT
A flatwire spring of the same compressed length as a round wire spring will store more energy. This provides additional dampening in the confined space of the recoil spring channel. It also will have a longer service life.
Well, that solves that! Thank you!
Before deciding to make the final modification, I tried some stiffer round wound springs from Wolff. They took an early set and extended barely beyond the length of the guide rod. I feel sure that EAA/Tanfo ran into the same thing, which is why they went with dual springs (to get the slide to go into battery). Round springs, such as theirs, can't compress as much before stacking, and in short order will take a set and become ineffective. The dual spring combination that the Witness compact has doesn't play well with each other and gets tangled up and damaged. However, I've only seen a few like that online, as well as mine, but it's pretty convincing. The flat wound spring hasn't taken much of a set and still extends far beyond the guide rod, and like sqlbullet stated, will have a much longer service life.
Now I want to get back to to range to shoot it some more! 8)
Dangit! I couldn't get to the the range today. I forgot the home repair folks were scheduled for today to repair drywall issues (nail pops, separated tape, settling cracks, metal joint separation, etc). The 17 year old house looks awful with all the patching, but it needed to be done. They spent the entire day here making a mess, but the results look amazing. Now for the paint. Ugh.
There's always tomorrow for the range, right? ;D
Range day! Just took the modified Witness Polymer Compact 10mm and no other 10mm so I could stay focused on the mission to run lots of rounds through the one gun to test for reliability. It was a yes and no day.
I started of with two 50 round boxes of Armscor since they've always been reliable. As usual, there were no failures. I switched to a new round for me, called the Legend Basic 155 grain 10mm. It flies at 1300 fps and is a solid lead-free projectile. I'm not sure what the bullet material is made of, but it looks like lead to me. Anyway, it was pretty reliable, but had three FTF on the second round of every magazine. Plus the slide wasn't reacting as snappy as with the Armscor. Like the brakes were applied. Strange. Maybe I got the ramp and chamber a little dirty running the Armscor, which created resistance for the Legend. Dunno for sure. I think the next time I go to the range I'll start with the Legend ammo with a cleaned and oiled up gun to see how it reacts.
The Legend Basic ammo seemed to be more accurate than the Armscor, but both shot a little low at 15 yards. Could it be me? Nawww. I had some French red Bordeaux region wine to calm my nerves first! :o
So, bottom line is that the Witness Polymer Compact, even if modified to handle 10mm ammo with a flat recoil spring, is one awesome semi-automatic pistol.
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Does this mod help in launching brass into the next dimension?