EAA red follower mags. Attempt at fixing!

Intercooler · June 29 2013 10:20:37 AM MDT

I did a swap of some K10 black follower 14 rounders that worked excellent in my Witness pistols for another member's 15 round red follower mags he was having huge issues with. Well today was the first time I tried them and yup... they suck!! I can see some differences between his two reds and my two reds I have been using for a couple of years without issue. Well today I plan on taking some pictures and trying to make some sense of it all. With any luck I can get these two to work like the others ${$default_huh_smiley}$

Intercooler · June 29 2013 01:00:28 PM MDT

I took them all apart and did a cleaning plus parts inspection. The springs, base plate and spring holders all looked the same. You can see in this picture the far left follower (one of the old mags) has a bigger stand-off underneath. Beats me but I don't think it has any effect on operation:

Intercooler · June 29 2013 01:05:57 PM MDT

I then took my caliper out and took some measurements on the steel mag bodies. Pretty much all the same , so I stopped recording the measurements after one old and one new mag.
At this point I put them all back together and inserted a snap-cap in each one. The two old mags (Hunter/Match) are on the left and the traded newer ones on the right. I think this picture shows how the newer ones were standing the rounds up like this ---> / when I would look at the jam into the top of the barrel:

Intercooler · June 29 2013 01:09:24 PM MDT

Old on the left and new on the right close-up. You can see how with a snap-cap in place, the follower on the right is sticking up higher past the left lip of the black steel. For sure not very level and pretty sure why the rounds want to go upwards!

Intercooler · June 29 2013 01:11:41 PM MDT

In this photo I tried pulling up on the front of the snap-cap. The old mag on the left had enough retaining lip tension to prevent it from lifting out. The new mag on the right... not so! I could stand it up fairly easily every try!

Intercooler · June 29 2013 01:14:56 PM MDT

Here is the first newer mag lip I tweaked. It is the contact point about 12:00 where the mag contacts the shell casing:

Intercooler · June 29 2013 01:16:07 PM MDT

Second newer mag before tweaking:

Intercooler · June 29 2013 01:19:21 PM MDT

I'm hoping this is all that was needed. I used the snap caps and tweaked the newer mags by feel a little at a time until I had the same basic resistance trying to pull up on the snap-cap as the old mags (which have always worked). Can you tell which is old and new compared to the first group photo?

The_Shadow · June 29 2013 01:22:11 PM MDT

Great report IC, did you reshape the lips of the magazines or did you work on the followers only?
${$default_huh_smiley}$

Intercooler · June 29 2013 01:44:41 PM MDT

Just one lip and only the front corner. The one away from the slide lock-open. Couldn't really see anything different in the followers so left them as-is.

The_Shadow · June 29 2013 01:59:56 PM MDT

I think many issues with feeding stem from magazines that exhibit what you are showing in the pictures. Some of the issues people have explained with Glocks slamming the rounds into the side of the barrel rather than into the chamber opening and last round remaining in the mag with the slide locked open could be of the same cartridge orientation as shown. $:-\$

DenStinett · June 29 2013 03:07:24 PM MDT

For those who are not familiar with the "All Tanfoglio And Witness Forum"
http://tz75man.forumco.com/default.asp
RodSlinger is one of the Gurus there
He's a great sources of Reference on the T and Ws
There's a Follower and Spring fix he uses for the older Witness Mags:
http://tz75man.forumco.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=170

Intercooler · June 29 2013 05:43:27 PM MDT

It looks like a nose dive ---> \ was the condition they were trying to correct with the grinding. These reds were the opposite from what I saw.

Intercooler · July 03 2013 05:42:22 PM MDT

I'm taking the mags in the morning to see if these efforts made a difference. Fingers are crossed!

Intercooler · July 04 2013 09:42:26 AM MDT

This worked for the feeding issue. I had to shoot the Match a bunch today because the Razorback busted.

This for sure kept the ammo from standing up and the magazines ran fine except the other issue with Witness mags. It seemed pretty often the magazines would drop down and kick the top round up without hitting the release. I am going to sand or file the pads down a little so they clip in easier. My old ones have a pretty nice groove from so much use, but not these! Sand or file?