Insofar as I've noticed long and far across the web, there's a lot of questions and denigrating remarks about the tanfoglio witness line and the fixes are so spread out that ya have to be a detective to sort thru it all....so for the sake of putting as much as I know of in one place and to maybe amalgamate everyone's input into one place, I'm putting my 2 cents here
My gun is the Tanfoglio Witness Elite Match .40 calibur....at least, that's what it started out in life as....it's morphed into much more than that since then and there has been a fair deal of modification and tuning since then....of all their auto handguns, I think this particular model is the best entry level gun....reasonable price, works nice out of the box, cheap to shoot....however, shooting anything more than off the shelf ammo requires a bit of work that, in the end, is worth the effort and only improves the platform
So, the .40 is a good "ain't shot an auto" before round to start with....more poop to it than a 9mm and leaves some options open....the best option is an upgrade to 10mm without having to buy into a complete conversion with the slide....whatever the calibur one chooses is irrelevent and a personal choice, I just like that particular combination as I have a cheap plinking round and a high power trail round to choose from depending on the situation
now then, I don't wanna get longwinded here, I just wanna put the links to the fixes and let it go at that....I've done all the work on my gun myself and everything has worked out just fine
1. mags are sticky....feed & ejection problems....etc....looks like the work this guy shows is on an early model, but much of it applies to the Match and I've used it
http://tanfo11.com/
2. shooting more powerful rounds "+P" and handloads
http://www.buffertech.com/stores/1/CZ-75_85_Recoil_Buffer_P9C2.cfm
http://www.sprinco.com/recoil.html
http://www.gunsprings.com/SemiAuto/EAANF.html#RecoilLongslide
3. distance of ejected brass
http://czechpistols82792.yuku.com/topic/8209/t/Ejector-mod-post.html
Now then, I've polished the hell out of things with my dremmel and it helped with much of the feed ramp & ejection problems....factory mags are just sticky....best thing to do with them is run a lot of rounds thru them and they will loosen up with time....feed lips might need to be pinched together a bit and the base pads are a bit thick and need to be filed down so the mags seat in and lock....+5% mag springs help em drop out like they're supposed to....there's also some casting slag deep in the magwell that I had to file down, but a couple minutes of work make all the difference....I keep my gun clean and lubed and rarely get a misfeed....probably no more than any other gun
I've installed the Sprinco recoil buffer and feel it's worth every bit of the $80 bucks I spent on it....I called that order in personally and talked to the rep and I highly suggest doing the same....it insures that you'll get the right guide rod setup and they've shot the tanfoglio....it's very helpful to be talking to someone on the other end of the phone that is familiar with a particular gun
I haven't used the Buffertech thing yet, but at a mere $10 bucks, I'll try it out....if it turns out to be useless, I ain't out much for it
Wolff springs has a whole kit for tuning....I didn't get the kit, I just got the 20# spring and +5% mag springs....as a side note, the 22# spring for the standard slide and the 20# spring for the long slide is the same spring....shorter slide=higher rating according to wolff....they send ya a firing pin spring to match....the witness line is terribly undersprung and NOT suited for high power ammo without putting in heavier springs and the sprinco buffer....I shot Norma 10mm rounds last weekend and my gun is no worse for the wear....in my case, the 20# spring works just fine with the low power .40 loads AND the high power 10mm loads....I have a bad case of sometimers and if I had all those springs lying around, eventually one of them would find it's way into my gun and something would get broken....one spring for everything makes my life easy
The ejector modification is way simple....not everyone is up to the task of hacking a chunk off their new gun, but it ain't that hard....I just locked the slide back, sharpie marked it where the ejector pin protruded from the breach face, pulled the slide off and used a dremel cut off wheel to shorten it about 1/8th of an inch....it's not an exact match of the picture, but it does the job quite nicely....I angled it back a bit....I didn't get out the engineering tools to know how many degrees....what I do know is that my ejector now contacts the casing lower left....the .40's drop to my immediate right and the 10's go about 10-15 feet....and that's with all the heavy springs I'm running....Norma loads go the full 30ft or more, but if I got a bear coming at me, I'm not gonna give a damn where the brass lands....Tanfoglio made this gun to have interchangable caliburs from .45 to .22....this I did measure....the rim diameter on a .22 is just slightly larger than a large pistol primer and the .22 is gonna have a short cycle....so the factory ejector pin is overkill on behalf of the .22 round....if I want a .22, I'll just go buy one....for everything else, shorten the pin
So....hope that helps everyone that's got a lot of questions and no one around giving answers....these are just the results of my own experience....the Match is a solid gun with some factory custom trigger work that normally goes into their higher priced competition models....at any rate, it beats the hell out of any hi-point
My gun is the Tanfoglio Witness Elite Match .40 calibur....at least, that's what it started out in life as....it's morphed into much more than that since then and there has been a fair deal of modification and tuning since then....of all their auto handguns, I think this particular model is the best entry level gun....reasonable price, works nice out of the box, cheap to shoot....however, shooting anything more than off the shelf ammo requires a bit of work that, in the end, is worth the effort and only improves the platform
So, the .40 is a good "ain't shot an auto" before round to start with....more poop to it than a 9mm and leaves some options open....the best option is an upgrade to 10mm without having to buy into a complete conversion with the slide....whatever the calibur one chooses is irrelevent and a personal choice, I just like that particular combination as I have a cheap plinking round and a high power trail round to choose from depending on the situation
now then, I don't wanna get longwinded here, I just wanna put the links to the fixes and let it go at that....I've done all the work on my gun myself and everything has worked out just fine
1. mags are sticky....feed & ejection problems....etc....looks like the work this guy shows is on an early model, but much of it applies to the Match and I've used it
http://tanfo11.com/
2. shooting more powerful rounds "+P" and handloads
http://www.buffertech.com/stores/1/CZ-75_85_Recoil_Buffer_P9C2.cfm
http://www.sprinco.com/recoil.html
http://www.gunsprings.com/SemiAuto/EAANF.html#RecoilLongslide
3. distance of ejected brass
http://czechpistols82792.yuku.com/topic/8209/t/Ejector-mod-post.html
Now then, I've polished the hell out of things with my dremmel and it helped with much of the feed ramp & ejection problems....factory mags are just sticky....best thing to do with them is run a lot of rounds thru them and they will loosen up with time....feed lips might need to be pinched together a bit and the base pads are a bit thick and need to be filed down so the mags seat in and lock....+5% mag springs help em drop out like they're supposed to....there's also some casting slag deep in the magwell that I had to file down, but a couple minutes of work make all the difference....I keep my gun clean and lubed and rarely get a misfeed....probably no more than any other gun
I've installed the Sprinco recoil buffer and feel it's worth every bit of the $80 bucks I spent on it....I called that order in personally and talked to the rep and I highly suggest doing the same....it insures that you'll get the right guide rod setup and they've shot the tanfoglio....it's very helpful to be talking to someone on the other end of the phone that is familiar with a particular gun
I haven't used the Buffertech thing yet, but at a mere $10 bucks, I'll try it out....if it turns out to be useless, I ain't out much for it
Wolff springs has a whole kit for tuning....I didn't get the kit, I just got the 20# spring and +5% mag springs....as a side note, the 22# spring for the standard slide and the 20# spring for the long slide is the same spring....shorter slide=higher rating according to wolff....they send ya a firing pin spring to match....the witness line is terribly undersprung and NOT suited for high power ammo without putting in heavier springs and the sprinco buffer....I shot Norma 10mm rounds last weekend and my gun is no worse for the wear....in my case, the 20# spring works just fine with the low power .40 loads AND the high power 10mm loads....I have a bad case of sometimers and if I had all those springs lying around, eventually one of them would find it's way into my gun and something would get broken....one spring for everything makes my life easy
The ejector modification is way simple....not everyone is up to the task of hacking a chunk off their new gun, but it ain't that hard....I just locked the slide back, sharpie marked it where the ejector pin protruded from the breach face, pulled the slide off and used a dremel cut off wheel to shorten it about 1/8th of an inch....it's not an exact match of the picture, but it does the job quite nicely....I angled it back a bit....I didn't get out the engineering tools to know how many degrees....what I do know is that my ejector now contacts the casing lower left....the .40's drop to my immediate right and the 10's go about 10-15 feet....and that's with all the heavy springs I'm running....Norma loads go the full 30ft or more, but if I got a bear coming at me, I'm not gonna give a damn where the brass lands....Tanfoglio made this gun to have interchangable caliburs from .45 to .22....this I did measure....the rim diameter on a .22 is just slightly larger than a large pistol primer and the .22 is gonna have a short cycle....so the factory ejector pin is overkill on behalf of the .22 round....if I want a .22, I'll just go buy one....for everything else, shorten the pin
So....hope that helps everyone that's got a lot of questions and no one around giving answers....these are just the results of my own experience....the Match is a solid gun with some factory custom trigger work that normally goes into their higher priced competition models....at any rate, it beats the hell out of any hi-point
