Dan Wesson ECO first impressions.

[quychang]

As promised, I finally got to the range with my new ECO and put 100 rounds through the gun. But I'm going to start with talking about the first tear down and cleaning.

First, the fit and finish on this gun is impeccable. I looked, and I simply could not find any fault with it, except for the grips. They're perfectly functional, I just think they're ugly. I watched a video on tear down and assembly so I thought, no sweat. And for the most part I was correct. Tear down was pretty simple, remembering that this differs from a standard 1911 by using a bull barrel, making disassembly a little different. I'm not really going to get into the nuts and bolts, if you want to know, there are you tube videos that can show you, much faster than I can explain it. I'll simply say, reversing the disassembly process is a good idea. Attempting to vary from it and do it in your own order can, and in my case did, result in wasted time and much frustration. After finally getting the jammed guide rod and spring free, I watched the video again. Assembling the bushing, spring, and guide rod, using the home made take down tool, allowed for quick and easy reassembly. So much for experimenting before you understand the process.

Freshly cleaned and ready to shoot, the wife and I headed to the range. I did fail to mention, that prior to cleaning it, I hadn't told her that I had purchased the gun. She took it in stride, so I have no physical excuse for my marksmanship. Once at the range, we signed up for two lanes, and I got her set up with her little Sig P238 and ready to shoot. I moved to my lane, and set up with the ECO. After loading, I took aim and pulled the trigger. Or attempted to do so, I should say. It felt like the safety was engaged. I verified that it was not and tried again. Same result. I dropped the magazine, cleared the weapon, and dry fired it, no problemo. Several times. Reloaded, assumed a shooting stance, same result. Locked up solid. Cleared the weapon again, ran through all the previous steps, dry fired no problem.

Well, I didn't really figure out what was wrong, so I'm looking for suggestions from the masters here. But what I did do, was out of frustration, I helped the slide ram home with authority when I reloaded again. Surprise! The gun functioned flawlessly. Ran through a full magazine with no misfeeds, etc. The trigger is butter smooth, recoil very manageable, sweet shooting. Switched magazines, again, helped the slide forward, and ran through a second magazine.

This went on over the course of an hour or so while the wife was having fun with her .380. I experimented with making sure magazine was well seated, that bullets were well seated in the magazine, etc. If I just racked the slide and let go, no trigger movement. Ram it forward, just a little, everything copacetic. The one thing I did not verify was that I wasn't impeding the slides return on initial loading. Honestly I didn't think in those terms until I was cleaning and reassembling the gun post range. Next trip I'll play with it some more. I'm hoping it is something minor, either in my mechanics, or something that will wear in on the gun. Again, opinions are more than welcome.

Oh, as for accuracy? Well, honestly, I'm currently more accurate with my Springfield RO, I assume because of the 5" barrel. The sights are different, and the 3 1/2 inch barrel are some things that will take getting used to. To be brutally honest, the first 25 rounds or so, I was on the paper, and mostly in the target ring with one or two flyers. As I got into the gun, with it operating as expected and me making corrections to my sighting, the next 50 or so rounds were much better. Some fairly decent groupings, even if not in the 10 ring, at least I was starting to see consistency. After that, it had been a fairly long day, and I was tired which equals shaky and those rounds were not as bad as the first 25, but they also were not showing any further improvement.

Oh, about the time I was done, my wife announced that she had finished with shooting 100 rounds and was ready if I was. I still had two rounds left of my first 100, so I loaded them up and let her take a couple of shots with the .45. She handled it flawlessly and her shots were at least as accurate as mine. She had no difficulty handling the recoil, and no limp wrist problems. Next time I'm shooting the p938 I'll have her give it a try. I think her 9mm problems during CCW class were more a matter of conditions and the fact that she was trying to shoot wearing gloves.

All in all, a fun way to spend Sat. morning with the wife. We need to do it more often, so the lessons will stay fresh in my wifes mind. Yes, the Purple People Eater did get another bite or two when she gripped wrong, but fewer bites than last time, and I imagine she'll get to the point where it doesn't happen. I'm happy that she's enjoying shooting, and still grateful for DJ and Crew and UCC for sponsoring another free CCW class. Now to convince my daughter that she wants to go shooting too.

Mel

[Snurd]

One guess is that the gun needs a break in period. Or, if not that, it might not like the ammo. Did you try different brands of ammo? Could be that you need to load the magazine to one less than capacity for a few hundred rounds until the gun wears in a bit. My dad has a Kahr 9mm that did the exact same thing. Every time he loaded the mag to capacity and tried to load the gun, he had to bump the slide forward. After 500 or so rounds, if I remember correctly, the problem vanished. If he loaded the mag with one less, it would work fine.


Sent from iSnurd

[Car Knocker]

I had a similar issue with a Hi-Power using ammo with truncated cone bullets; they were loaded just a tad long for the chamber and only the first round caused the issue.

[quychang]

One guess is that the gun needs a break in period. Or, if not that, it might not like the ammo. Did you try different brands of ammo? Could be that you need to load the magazine to one less than capacity for a few hundred rounds until the gun wears in a bit. My dad has a Kahr 9mm that did the exact same thing. Every time he loaded the mag to capacity and tried to load the gun, he had to bump the slide forward. After 500 or so rounds, if I remember correctly, the problem vanished. If he loaded the mag with one less, it would work fine.


Sent from iSnurd

Yes, I tried three different kinds of ammo, but it didn't occur to me to try one fewer round per magazine. My first thought was that the gun needed a break in period. How terrible that I'll need to shoot it more often until the problem goes away.

Thanks for the suggestions, both Snurd and Car Knocker, I'll keep plugging away at it, and won't get too concerned until I reach the 500 rounnd area,

[MarshallDodge]

My guess is that the slide may not be going fully into battery or the disconnector is dragging, or hanging up as that will prevent the trigger from engaging the sear. It is there to make sure the slide is fully in battery before the gun will fire.

The disconnector is the little bump that sticks up from the frame, between the hammer and the magwell. You will need to remove the slide to see it. Once you have the slide off. Take your finger and press on it to see if it moves up and down freely. There is a little indentation in the bottom of the slide which allows it to move upward. Make sure this is clear and that there are no burrs, etc.

[gskip33]

+1 to Marshall. Sounds like the gun was completely in battery.

Sometimes those 3-3.5 inch guns are finicky about needing to be really sent home or they won't lock up.

[quychang]

+1 to Marshall. Sounds like the gun was completely in battery.

Sometimes those 3-3.5 inch guns are finicky about needing to be really sent home or they won't lock up.

I had pretty much decided this was the correct answer, because that's exactly how the gun is behaving. I need to see if I still have any polishing paper in my machinist supplies. If so, it will be scraps, but I still might clean up the slide area with the indent, and take some micro mesh diamond paper to it. Guaranteed that I won't live long enough to remove a significant amount of stock, but it will shiny it up, and bring any burrs or imperfections to the surface. Sometimes I miss working in a machine shop. We had lots of cool toys.

Mel

[quychang]

Well, second trip to the range went much better, and perhaps a little worse, I'll let you all decide. First, before taking the gun out again, I opened it up, and went to my machinists chest and found a very very fine, hard honing stone. We used them for breaking edges or hand rolling very tight radii on cruise missile engines. I used it to work down the face of the slide where the indent is. No burrs, but what did stand out was a very slight amount of raised material on the back of the slide where the radius blends with the flat edge. It's slight, I'd say less than .003 of an inch, but definitely there. I worked on it for half an hour and improved it. Yes, there's still a mismatch, and based on today, I may work it down just a bit more. Reassembled the gun after reapplying slipstream grease to the surface.

At the range, the gun was flawless on the first 50 rounds of factory load fmj. Yes, I did make sure that I was racking and releasing without impeding the slide, but I didn't help ram it home either. So, looking better. Accuracy improved from my first attempt as well, I'll post a pic in a minute.

After shooting factory loads, I decided to try some reloads that I picked up as part of a trade. My Springfield RO and my XD compact tactical eat them just fine. DW doesn't like reloads. I had problems with failure to feed, failure to go into battery, difficulty ejecting, all the problems I had the first day, plus some. Oh, the reloads were all hollow points, just fyi. So, I went in, bought another box of fmj, PMC brand and a box of Federal factory hollow points. DW LOVES federal hollow points. I only shot one magazine, but it slurped them up and asked for more. I loaded up some PMC. I'm not sure if I was tired, or they just aren't as consistent as the Spirit brand, but accuracy went down hill. But no problem with going into battery, feeding, extracting, etc. The ECO seems to be working more or less flawlessly with factory rounds.

I did manage to shoot roughly 45 rounds of reloads, but they were a chore to get through. The gun did NOT like them, and one cartridge it refused to feed, and when I finally messed with it and got it to feed it would NOT go into battery. Nor did it really want to eject. The extractor worked fine, but the cartridge dragged all the way out. That one we disposed of.

So. all told, I'd say the gun is fine with factory rounds. It's more accurate than I am, but I'm improving with it after only two range sessions. Now if my IWB holster would just surprise me and come early.[img]

ECO.jpg

[/img]

Mel

[Snurd]

Looks good. Some guns just don't like certain ammo. The Sig P250 I had a while back would eat brass cased ammo. It would jam at least a couple times per magazine with aluminum ammo.

Were the reloads factory, or some dudes on the internet?

[quychang]

Looks good. Some guns just don't like certain ammo. The Sig P250 I had a while back would eat brass cased ammo. It would jam at least a couple times per magazine with aluminum ammo.

Were the reloads factory, or some dudes on the internet?

Some one local that does reloading for Tapehoser. The rounds were part of a trade we made awhile back. Like I said, the RO likes them fine, so does the XD. I have less than a box left, I'll save them for the XD. Or trade them off if someone is looking for a Springfield XD 5" barrel with a compact grip. I don't dislike the gun, but it's pretty much a safe queen at this point.

Mel

[Snurd]

Looks good. Some guns just don't like certain ammo. The Sig P250 I had a while back would eat brass cased ammo. It would jam at least a couple times per magazine with aluminum ammo.

Were the reloads factory, or some dudes on the internet?

Some one local that does reloading for Tapehoser. The rounds were part of a trade we made awhile back. Like I said, the RO likes them fine, so does the XD. I have less than a box left, I'll save them for the XD. Or trade them off if someone is looking for a Springfield XD 5" barrel with a compact grip. I don't dislike the gun, but it's pretty much a safe queen at this point.

Mel

My friend has an XD .45. We took it to the range the past couple days. It's a pretty good shooter.

[quychang]

My friend has an XD .45. We took it to the range the past couple days. It's a pretty good shooter.

Actually, probably a different thread, but yes it's a decent shooter, and I have a S*H*T*F gear IWB holster for it, but it's a little bulky to carry.

Mel

[gskip33]

Honestly I would call DW about it. It shouldn't be having any issues and my DW has been perfect with factory and reloaded ammo (doesn't care if hollow point or FMJ).

I think DW would take care of you.

[Photocell]

Have we already established what magazines you are using?

[quychang]

Have we already established what magazines you are using?

Whatever shipped from the factory, I'm not sure how to tell, they're stamped DW I believe.

Mel