Fiber Optic Sights for the Witness

[Rod Slinger]

BurBoy .....Very nice work.  Our you going to do the same to the rear sight?  The steel should be easier to work with on the rear sight.   R S

[BurBoy]

Was the steel pretty tough or did the drill and dremel tear it up pretty easily?

Actually, it was pretty easy to cut. I took my time with both and didn't get in a hurry. The metal is not very hard.

I don't plan to do any work on the rear sight. It may be possible to switch it out with a factory fiber optic if anyone makes one that fits the dovetail or if the dovetail is the same size as some other handgun but I'm not worried about it..

Burboy

[hardluk1]

 I am new here so i will keep it short Henning is makeing several new sites. a  standard hight  hi vis typ along with the taller narrow one he already has and a future night site along with several rear sites to go with or blade inserts to work with the different fronts comeing.  Try henningshootsgun.com or brian enos eaa tanfoglio forums Lots of small goodies for witness line. I have a witness match 40S&W that i really likeafter about 1000rounds through.

[JJH]

R.S. I can't believe I have been on this site for over six months and never noticed this post.  Where did you find the carbide Dovetail cutter at 70deg?  I haven't had much luck finding carbide dovetail cutter period.

[eric0424]

R.S. I can't believe I have been on this site for over six months and never noticed this post.  Where did you find the carbide Dovetail cutter at 70deg?  I haven't had much luck finding carbide dovetail cutter period.

Brownells has a couple of 74* cutters but nothing in 70* or 72*.  There's some 60* and 65* as well.  I'm sure there are sights available for some of these cutters.

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=24924/Product/MEPROLIGHT_reg__DOVETAIL_CUTTER

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=20728/Product/CRYO_TREATED_DOVETAIL_CUTTER

[bobclevenger]

Hello folks,
In view of the difficulty in obtaining sight dovetail dimensions I post these photos with dimensions,


Above are the dimensions of the standard Witness rear sight.


Above are the dimensions of the CZ-75B rear sight.


Above are the dimensions of the CZ-75B front sight

Note that the Witness has a smaller dovetail than the CZ and therefore can be milled to the CZ dimensions.
Hi Viz makes a very adequate fibre optic sight set for the CZ-75B.

Dovetail cutters with a 40? included angle (to fit the CZ dovetail) are available from AB Tool and Harvey Tool (Google for website) in solid carbide. Using a standard 3/8" 40? cutter makes a slightly undersize cut for the CZ spec. Moving the cutter a few thousandths right and left opens the cut up to specs. I have done this successfully on my 10mm Witness Compact. Just cut very slowly.


Above is a shot of the Hi-Viz Fibre Optic sight for the CZ-75B installed on my 10mm Witness Compact's slide.

The front sight of the Witness will need to be milled off and a dovetail for the CZ-spec sight milled in. A standard 3/16" dovetail cutter with an included angle of 40? will work IN THEORY if you make multiple passes. My experience is that this tends to break tools that are this small, so I have ordered a custom-made dovetail cutter to make the front sight dovetail in one pass (after milling a plain slot). I ordered mine from AB Tools. More photos to come after the job is done.

The same process can be used to make any sight for another gun fit as long as the rear sight for the other gun has a dovetail that is LARGER than the Witness dovetail. Most are smaller    The S&W M&P has a larger dovetail, but I am unaware of the dimensions.

Note that the Witness and the CZ-75B both have their front and rear sights mounted on the same plane (there is no "hump" at the front or rear of the slide) and in order to properly align Point of Aim with Point of Impact the sights that you use should come from a gun that has a flat top surface on its slide as well.

[jwc007]

Very Interesting!    Thanx for posting this info, Bob! 

[1911texan]

so if I am reading this correctly..it would be easier to mill the slide to the CZ cuts..my Witness has front and rear dovetail cuts..the pistol was made in 2008..also it is a full size I think..I cant find anywhere that knows the sight cuts..?

[bobclevenger]

Just a quick update. The Hi-Viz setup shot very low, so I made a new rear sight for my Witness. I can only assume that the barrel to slide geometry is different on the CZ than on the Witness.

[bobclevenger]

so if I am reading this correctly..it would be easier to mill the slide to the CZ cuts..my Witness has front and rear dovetail cuts..the pistol was made in 2008..also it is a full size I think..I cant find anywhere that knows the sight cuts..?

I would take photographs and use them to measure the angles as I did in an earlier post here. 
Height, width, and such can be measured with any decent caliper.  I think actually measuring what is on your gun's slide is the best way to begin. EAA guns have been known to come with different sights from one model to the next.

If your front sight cut is longitudinal it may fit the CZ front sight already. Measure it and compare to the dimensioned photographs I posted earlier. If it's a transverse cut you'll have to measure it to see what it fits. You can use pretty much any sight that has a dovetail running the same direction (longitudinal or transverse) as long as the sight's dovetail is NOT smaller that the cuts in the slide. If it fits, you are good to go test it for point of impact vs. point of aim. If the sight's dovetail is larger, you can either machine the sight's dovetail smaller or machine the slide's cuts a bit wider to make them fit the sights dovetail. Take your pick, One's about as hard to do as the other is.

Hope this helped,
Bob

[LESchwartz]

Just a quick update. The Hi-Viz setup shot very low, so I made a new rear sight for my Witness. I can only assume that the barrel to slide geometry is different on the CZ than on the Witness.

You'll might be able to "MacGyver" something:  The blade on OE front sight on my EAA Witness compact is about 0.145".  The blade on HiViz front sight on a CZ is about 0.160" (+0.015").  The rear sight on my EAA Witness compact is about 0.405" overall.  The minimum on an LPA TTF86CZ rear sight on a CZ is about 0.445" (+0.040") overall.

Based on all that, I'm thinking that using the CZ HiViz front sight with the CZ LPA rear sight might just leave you with enough adjustment to get on target.

Larry

LPA TTF86CZ:




HiViz CZ-75:

[LESchwartz]

Postscript to my last post:  My response was specifically aimed at bobclevenger, since he had already modified his witness to accept the CZ sights.  LPA does make a TR90TA sight for the EAA Witness which is non fiber optic, but similar enough to their TTF86CZ so as to possibly be able to swap blade assemblies.  This may be another alternative for folks who don't have access to a milling machine.  Unfortunately, the LPA sights are on backorder everywhere I look (LPA is changing distributers), so I'll just have to be patient.

Unfortunately, that still leave the front sight to deal with.  It would appear that there's no way around machining when it comes to the front sight.  My EAA Witness compact is ported, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to cut a dovetail or not.  Prior to trying to cut a slot, I was going to try reworking my existing OE front sight to accept a fiber optic bead.

I'll post here in the future once I have all the parts and figure something out.

Larry


TR90TA:

[LESchwartz]

Witness Fiber Optic Sights

The sights on my EAA Witness compact are really BBBBAAAAADDDD.  The front post seems too high and the front dot is too dim to see in low light conditions.  The diagram shows three  traditional sight pictures, plus mine.  Lining up the tops of the blade puts me at least 6" to 12" low at about 20'.

After only about nine months, I finally have gotten around to replacing my sights.  Here's my solution:

1)  Order up an LPA TTF86CZ fiber sight used for CZ pistols AND a LPA TR90TA18 traditional sight used for EAA Witness pistols.

2)  Swap leafs of the two sights, giving you a fiber rear sight for the Witness.  To do so, remove the adjustment screw and drive out the pin with a 1/16" punch.  To reassemble, reinstall the screw and them tap the pin back in.  Exercise care when reinstalling, neither the screw nor the pin should require much force to install.  Note there are two small springs under the leaf -- don't lose them.

3)  Install the fiber rear sight as normal.

4)  Now for the front sight:  Order up a HiViz HSG1002 front sight for Sig Sauer P-Series pistols and a dovetail 3/16" 70 degree dovetail cutter Harvey Tool #977812-C3.

5)  Mill off the original EAA Witness sight.  The front sight sits on a slightly raised area of the slide.  With care you will be able to mill off the front sight and a couple thousands of the raised area, leaving the finish on the rest of the slide intact.  Note that the Witness slide is really hard -- take it slow and you'll be fine.

6)  Mill the dovetail.  I zeroed the bottom of the dovetail to the top of the freshly milled area of the slide, then lowered the cutter 0.065".  Set the cutter in order to position the dovetail so that the front of the sight will be just behind the front of the slide.  The dovetail cutter I used is about 0.005" smaller than the dovetail on the sight.  I was able to perform the cut in two passes.  If you take it *really* slow on the first pass you can use the dovetail cutter alone to cut the slot without the need to pre-cut a slot with a standard end mill.

7)  The dovetail portion of the HiViz HSG1002 is way too wide.  You'll want to narrow it.  My witness is factory ported, so I took about 0.100" off each side so that it didn't block the porting.  YMMV.

8 )  Install the front sight as normal.

9)  Cleanup with alcohol and blue using cold blue.

10)  There will be a small gap under the back of the sight blade and the top of the slide.  Using red Locktite or thin epoxy, fill the gap.  Note that I was able to use standard notebook paper to help coerce the Locktite into the gap.  Cleanup using a small amount of alcohol -- use a tiny amount since you don't want to flush out the gap.

Enjoy,

Larry


My original sight picture:



Front Sight:



Rear Sight:



LPA TTF86CZ:



LPA TR90TA18:



HiViz HSG1002

[LESchwartz]

Range Report

I was a little worried the rear sight would not go low enough . . . but no worries, as I had to adjust it close to the upper limit of the travel.  All-in-all, it looks like my original "factory" rear sight was at least 0.050" too short.  this leaves me to wonder if it was really the factory rear, or whether someone had replaced it at some point with the wrong one.  But never mind any of that now, as I can finally hit the center of the target!

I was also worried about the porting messing up the front sight.  But no worries here either, the sight stayed clean and undamaged.  However, it does seem that the HiViz sight is not a bright as the LPA rear.

[LESchwartz]

Range Report - Part 2

I decided to order up a AmeriGlo tritium front sight to increase the visibility of the front sight even further.  It's P/N SG-212-220-GR for Sig pistols.  Note that this is a "Sig #8 sight".  With Sig, higher numbers mean a smaller height -- so this sig sight should be slightly shorter than the HiViz sight.

Larry