the germans and austrians must reload

[pelo801]

all my walthers and my only glock eject the brass not too far away and right into a nice little pile. and in contrast, my 10mm witness launches them from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock and anywhere from 5 feet to 30 feet away. anyone else have some guns that make finding your brass a lot easier?

[Dakotared]

That is so true. My witness 10mm flings the brass into the next zip code making it a a PITA to find them again.

[JohnKSa]

My guess is that it has more to do with the nature of the germanic engineer/designer who wants to keep slide velocity down to enhance service life and parts durability than it does with reloading.

[jimbob86]

anyone else have some guns that make finding your brass a lot easier?

All of my revolvers drop the brass right at mey feet!

[Lost Sheep]

I have many different autoloaders that throw brass in different directions. One even throws brass forward of the firing line with regularity and my Colt Officer's model throws them so they land on my head (I am tempted to put on a beanie cap with a bucket on top)

They build brass catchers for that.

Until I find (or build one) that has a better than 95% catch rate, I shoot a lot more revolver than semi-auto.

Good luck.

Lost Sheep

[Carne Frio]

My H&K 91 launches brass into the next county.

[oldandslow]

p-801

I had two EAA Witnesses in .45. Both ejected brass 25-30 feet to my 0300 position. I called EAA and talked to their "helpful" gunsmith who said they were designed that way and to live with it. So as long as I shot on the extreme right side of the range I was OK but otherwise the other shooters on my right would get really upset as I rained hot .45 brass on them.

best wishes- oldandslow

[Jim March]

Mine ejects absolutely straight back - so at the range I wear a net on my right wrist, drops 'em right in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZAGpJr5RsU



I'm seriously considering adding a screw-on shell deflector to the hammer so that when I'm NOT at the range it won't bounce .357 shells off my goatee .

The upcoming conversion to 9mm (with any luck in about six weeks) should mean they won't fly back as hard as 357s do. 38s won't reliably eject, not enough gas pressure. I've considered doing variable gas system but...meh, no, not when I'm going to switch it to 9mm for the magazine conversion coming up...

[AK103K]

My H&K 91 launches brass into the next county.

Both of mine did too. Same with my P7M13.

[Mike38]

My guess is that it has more to do with the nature of the germanic engineer/designer who wants to keep slide velocity down to enhance service life and parts durability than it does with reloading.

I agree, but…..

I got into an argument (a friendly argument but an argument none-the-less) with a well respected and prominent member of this forum on this very topic. He told me that you can run the subject at the time semi auto without a recoil spring and it will have no ill effects on said pistol’s service life or parts durability. Of course, he is wrong, as wrong as wrong can be.

Want to ruin a perfectly good semi auto pistol by battering it to death? Then run it without a recoil spring, or with a grossly under weighted recoil spring and watch the service life and parts durability drop dramatically.

My point being, it’s funny how beliefs / opinions can be 180 degrees opposite of each other, yet both are accepted as fact. In the original poster’s case, his Walther and Glock have near perfectly tuned recoil springs and actions. His Witness obviously does not. His Walther and Glock will out last his Witness many times over. Yet there are people that would defend the ill tuned Witness with their dying breath. I guess it’s what makes life interesting?

[B.L.E.]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

My guess is that it has more to do with the nature of the germanic engineer/designer who wants to keep slide velocity down to enhance service life and parts durability than it does with reloading.

The slide velocity when the bullet exits the barrel is pretty much exactly the same with or without a recoil spring. It's the mass of the slide and barrel verses the mass of the bullet and powder that determines that.
With a heavy recoil spring, the velocity will be all used up compressing that spring as the slide reaches the rearward extreme in movement so less hammering as the slide opens.
But, then there is more hammering as the slide closes. Also, a recoil spring that just barely allows the slide to completely open makes a gun very picky about ammo, limp wrist holding, and less than perfect cleanliness.

Maybe someone needs to design a pistol with a heavy recoil spring so there is minimum hammering as the slide opens and then have a hydraulic closing damper prevent that heavy recoil spring from hammering that slide back shut again.

[EdInk]

Based on the OP's logic, the Swiss must not care for reloading because my Sig likes to throw brass hard and far away from me. LOL.

[kraigwy]

With my Series 70 Gold Cup the brass just seems to roll out and land in a pile about 2 feet away.

My Beretta 92FS throws them about 6 feet but piles them in a nice little pile.

My Sigma scatters them over about three counties, all points of a compass.

I have a little Beretta Jet Fire 25 ACP that wackes me in the forehead with every piece of brass.

My 52 Smith piles them in a nice pile, like the Gold Cup, they just seem to roll out.

[dyl]

The engineers at S&W, Zastava and the old ones at Bernardelli must not be married because my wife says that they all launch brass at her no matter where she stands!

[Mike Irwin]

"anyone else have some guns that make finding your brass a lot easier?"

Sure I do.

They're called revolvers. I know EXACTLY where my expended brass is.

Your Witness only throws your brass 30 feet?

Depending on the load, my old 10mm Witness would toss brass upwards 75 feet or more. As it came from the factory it was horribly undersprung.

[Doug Bowser]

My revolvers dmp my cases into a gallon ice cream tub.

Doug

[C0untZer0]

It's because the Germans love order.

When I fire American made ammo from my P7M8 the brass goes about a meter to the rear and to the right, but when I fire German made ammo the casings land facing up and they line up perfectly single file. When the line gets ten cases deep, they form another line. When I'm done I have a perfect rectangle of brass 5 across and 10 deep.

Next trip to the range I'm going to put the empty ammo case there and see if they'll just go back into the box for me.

[JohnKSa]

Went back and re-read my post to see if I said anything about recoil springs without realizing it and was gratified to see that I hadn't.

Slide velocity is affected by a number of variables, the primary ones being the weight of the recoiling mass (slide/barrel combination in the case of a typical locked breech semi-auto pistol) and the muzzle momentum of the load being shot. The recoil spring must have some effect since it exerts a force opposite the recoil momentum. Exactly how much effect it has depends on the design of the firearm the strength of the recoil spring, how much compression it's under when installed, etc.

[Cheapshooter]

and in contrast, my 10mm witness launches them from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock and anywhere from 5 feet to 30 feet away. anyone

That may be in part the 10MM itself. My Glock 20 sends the brass into the next county most times!
I shoot so many different semi-autos that I just get used to the "Easter egg" hunt when I'm done.
Can't wait for my 18 month old granddaughter to get old enough to go to the range with Paw Paw. My son and I already have it planned. When the range is safe it will be "OK Kaylee, pick up all the bigger shiny yellow ones, and leave the tiny yellow ones, brown ones, and gray ones"

[603Country]

My Beretta PX4 9mm will throw the brass differently for different powder charges and bullets. I noticed that when I was trying out a lot of bullet/powder combinations. With the load the I finally picked for plated 125 grain bullets, I can stand in just the right spot that the empties fly back and to my right and into an area that's mostly free of grass. But I still lose some cases.

[mj246]

A bunch of people beat me to it, but I've never lost a case while shooting my revolvers.

[B.L.E.]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

Slide velocity is affected by a number of variables, the primary ones being the weight of the recoiling mass (slide/barrel combination in the case of a typical locked breech semi-auto pistol) and the muzzle momentum of the load being shot. The recoil spring must have some effect since it exerts a force opposite the recoil momentum. Exactly how much effect it has depends on the design of the firearm the strength of the recoil spring, how much compression it's under when installed, etc.

Yes, of course it has some effect, just like hitting a bug with my windshield has some effect in slowing down my car.

Consider the forces on the breech during bullet acceleration. A .45 ACP has a standard pressure of 21,000 psi. The base of a .452 diameter bullet has 0.16 square inches of area. 21,000 pounds/square inch X 0.16 square inch = 3360 pounds of force on the base of the bullet and exactly 3360 pounds of force exerted backwards on the breech. A spring strong enough to significantly interfere with the rearward acceleration of the slide and barrel during bullet acceleration would be so strong that Rambo couldn't pull the slide back to cock the gun.

What the spring does is absorb the kinetic energy of the slide as the slide moves backwards after the pressure is gone. The problem is, a spring that absorbs energy during compression also gives that energy back when it decompresses, so a spring that's strong enough to totally prevent the rearward hammering as the slide reaches its stop will hammer the slide as the breech closes again, perhaps hard enough to cause the inertia of the firing pin to slam-fire the round.
Unless, we can invent a 20 pound spring that magically becomes a 5 pound spring when it returns the slide.

[Mike Irwin]

All I know regarding the spring issue is that when I dropped a Wolff 22 pound spring into my Witness it stopped throwing the cases into the next time zone and started depositing them between 10 and 15 feet away.

I'm sure there's some mathematical formula to explain it, probably involving square pies and other assorted tasty pastries. But I was more intereted in the fact that I was no longer losing upwards half my expensive 10mm brass.

[chewie146]

Recoil springs are cheap, and that's the easiest fix for those guns. I remember helping police brass for a guy with an EAA 10mm in the next pistol bay during IDPA. There are 8 foot berms separating bays.

[10-96]

Slide velocity is affected by a number of variables, the primary ones being the weight of the recoiling mass (slide/barrel combination in the case of a typical locked breech semi-auto pistol) and the muzzle momentum of the load being shot. The recoil spring must have some effect since it exerts a force opposite the recoil momentum. Exactly how much effect it has depends on the design of the firearm the strength of the recoil spring, how much compression it's under when installed, etc.

Last week I finished up a Sig LE Classic P series armorers course. This was covered in quite a fair amount of detail. In fact, it is pretty much the basis of how and why the Sig P229 and heavier one-piece slide came into being. The old 228 and two piece (stamp sheet, breech block, and weld) slides were getting beaten to death when it started looking like Sig needed to field a .40 S&W, 10mm, and the other ctg in contention for the FBI trials. And curiously, it's why the recommended LE service life of the recoil springs are 3yrs/5,000 miles... er, rounds- to preserve the life and integrity of the frames.

Good call.