Odd wear on barrel ridges for EAA Witness Limtied .40 S&W

[Jeffdg]

Hello!
I have a EAA (Tanfoglio) Witness Limited .40 S&W in which I have about 1000 factory and 3000 reloaded (flawless) rounds. The reloads included used the following recipe:
5.1 gr AA#2
180 Gr FMJ (Montana Gold)
OAL = 1.160"
Fed primer

After a great shoot today, I was cleaning the gun and noticed some ridges on the barrel. I could spend quite a bit of time trying to describe what it is, but you'll see it in the picture. I cropped it to make the file size smaller, so the front of the barrel proceeds to the right of the picture. It's not entirely obvious in the picture, but it's only happening on the side of the barrel featured in the pic; if I turned it over, the barrel looks 'normal'.

Please advise on what is causing this (before it gets any worse!). One of my thoughts is it could be a mismatch between the load and mag spring. This recipe was advertised as a pretty light load, and the recoil speaks to this, very little snap. Other than that, I'm clueless. The fun has been functioning flawlessly, so it's a bit of a mystery.

The limiteds come with 3 springs - one installed and two with specified parameters. Does anyone know which is in the gun (hard to know if changing it will make it stiffer to less stiff)?

Thank you for the help!!!

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Your barrel lugs are peening. This can be caused by several different things. I'm not experienced enough to diagnose it over the Internet myself. However googling "locking lugs" or "barrel lugs" and "peening" will turn up lots of examples. It isn't an unheard of problem with pistols using that type of lockup and some peening may happen at first and then never get worse.

This is the only example I found regarding an EAA Witness:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=347989

 

[Harry Bonar]

lugs

Jeff;
I think the lugs are not timed right and I'd send it back for their evaluation. The springs "might" make a difference but I doubt it! It could be unlocking too soon or too late and there is other evidence of marks as it goes into battery!
There should be no lug peening or over-riding at all in a properly timed pistol. People are really misinformed about linkage and lock-up and un-lock.
ALL THAT THE LINK (or whatever method on lock and unlock) the system has it should happen with "TIME" in the mechanism to work without brinelling or battering!.
I know the 40 S&W, the 9MM Luger, and other hot cartridges work at around 30,000 to 36,000 CUP in these handguns and the timing is madatory!.
Harry B.