Witness is choking

[OkieCruffler]

I have an EAA Witness carry comp that I'm having issues with. I've run literally thousands of rounds thru it with my home cast 200gr SWC and 6gr of Unique. Up until recently it's never had a problem feeding, in fact I can't remember a jam. Now for some reason every round is coming just short of fully seating. A light assist with the thumb will put the slide back into play. I found some 230gr cast RN for cheap so I gave them a try and they do the same thing. The only thing that has changed in my reloading set up is that I somehow lost my old Lyman dies and replaced them with a set of Lee carbides. If I cycle the slide manually they have no problem going into battery. Only thing I can figure is somehow those rounds aren't compressing the recoil spring enough so that it has the return energy to seat the round. But I'm terribly ignorant when it comes to autos so I was wondering if anyone had any better ideas.

 

[Scimmia]

literally thousands of rounds thru it ...

Have you replaced the recoil spring? depending on just how many thousand we're talking, it may be time.

 

[dcody40]

I see one problem here !

You changed something in your setup, so this is where I would look, I'm also a reloader, I bet your new die's are not deep enough to resize the full length of the cases, do you have a chamber guage, this is the easy tell tail. And yep the recoil spring could be the culprit, but you told us you changed dies.

think about it. and screw the new decap/sizer die down some more, or read the instructions, for a Lee, I think it's all the way down touching the shell holder than back off a quarter turn. But check it out.

Duane USN/ret

Reloading with Blu/Red/grn/ora.

 

[Twoglocks]

I had Lee's steel dies for my 45 ACP reloads years ago and they could not resize the case properly. Carbide dies and check gage fixed the problem.

 

[Mello2u]

You might find a "Lyman Max Cartridge Gauge 45 ACP" useful.
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewProduct/?productNumber=594222

You can drop a completed round into it to see if the dimensions are all within specifications.

 

[Maxem0815]

Have you replaced the recoil spring? depending on just how many thousand we're talking, it may be time.

I agree. Get a wolf spring set and see how that works Lee dies are not your problem sounds more like gun trouble.
Mace

 

[Skans]

First, try some factory loads and see how they work. If they work, then, like others have said, your reload setup had to have changed. Second, I'd say that you might need a new recoil spring.

 

[OkieCruffler]

Well I finally got a chance to work it out. Instructions on the lee dies were to back off 3 turns with the seating die. I gave it another half turn in and everything runs like a charm again. Good thing since I'm having a fit trying to find recoil springs for this silly hybrid.