Hello smokeBONES,
I had the same issue as you ( or at least I thought so) with receiving always none-Pawns in the TryGetPawnOwner function. In my version (4.7.6) it seemed to be an issue when I had the AnimationBlueprint tab open during gameplay, that I received both correct pawns (not none) and none-Pawns, alternating. As if the tab in the editor also was somehow active. I am pretty sure you checked this (running the game while not having your AnimationBlueprint tab open), but I just wanted to let you know from my experience, because this caused me some real headache, also during debugging the blueprint.
Cheers,