Fiber Optic Sights for the Witness

[stagesmith]

Yes I sacrificed a CZ fixed RAMI sight to harvest the male dovetail.
The RAMI has the same base dovetail as other CZ's, but the rear shelf is different.
The Kimber Compact has a similar disparity between the front and rear sight heights because it has a similar down tilted barrel when in Battery.
That is why I chose it.
I actually did it twice.
The first time it was a bit too tall, so I cut the upper section down and recut the dovetail.
The front sight just had to be peened to spread the dovetail until it fit in the RAMI dovetail slot.

[bobclevenger]

We must be a special kind of crazy to do this. 
Well, I finished installing the TFX Pro sight set on my Witness's slide and just have final zeroing at the range left to do. I think this will work.
Here are a couple of "shots" (pun intended) of the 9x23 Winchester Witness Semi-Compact with the TFX Pro sights installed.
First a sort of "shooter's eye view"  and yeah, I probably should have used something other than the magazine to prop up the pistol because the top round is right behind the rear sight and it is distracting.


And a view of the left-hand side of the pistol


The TFX sights work as described by Tru Glo. Nicely visible green front and rear at night and a quickly-acquired (even with my old eyes) orange front and green rear.

Note: anyone thinking of adding a CZ-75 front sight to a standard Witness should look closely at the cross-pin under the front sight. On my pistol it is larger than necessary (1/8" rather than 1/16") and it is located about 1/16" too low ( the reason I had to use a larger pin) and the lower edge of the pin binds on the barrel stopping it from fully going into battery. I had to machine off the lower half of the pin in the centre in order to clear the barrel. I chose to keep the cross-pin as I think it is a good idea, but since the Tanfoglio design does not use a bushing around the muzzle-end of the barrel you COULD do away with the crosspin if you secured the sight in the dovetail with Loctite or something similar. If you don't secure it, the front sight WILL come loose under recoil and go flying downrange.

[stagesmith]

Looks good.
I just picked up a used set of resizing dies for 38 Super.
I somehow think it is in my future.

My real obscure temptation is to convert a Witness in 10mm to 9x25 Dillon.
9x25 Dillon is to 10mm what 357 SIG is to 40 S&W.
Bottle necked and screaming hot.
Kind of famous for ripping the rifling out of barrels.
You have to find a gun for which there are 10mm and 38 Super barrels on the same frame.
I think the full sized Large-frame Witnesses will work.

[bobclevenger]

I believe you are correct. Get a .38 Super  or even a 9x19 barrel and ream the chamber to 9x25 Dillon. Mate it up with a 10mm slide and your Witness frame of choice. Voila! A 9x25 Dillon Witness. If the .38 Super barrels have a slower twist rate than the 9x19 barrels that would probably work better at 9x25 Dillon velocities.

Kinda makes me wonder about reaming out a .38 Super barrel to 9x25 Mauser -- but where would I get brass?

[bobclevenger]

Shot the 9x23 Witness with the TFX sights today. Rear sight was centered on the slide using the old "Mk I Eyeball" and seemed to be pretty close. 4 out of 5 shots into 1.25" at 7 yards (this is a combat pistol, after all). A range employee fired five at my request and the results were pretty comparable though a bit lower and with just a little vertical stringing. Came back home and applied Loctite to the sights.

Here is a photo of my 7 yard target:

[jwc007]

Good Shooting and Congratulations on all of your hard work coming together!   

[bobclevenger]

Thanks. 

[bobclevenger]

Here I am again on this "thread that just won't die."

I have noticed that Tanfoglio uses (at least) two different dovetail cuts on the Standard Steel Witnesses; one is about 3/8" wide at the bottom of the dovetail and the other one is closer to 1/2" at the base. The wider one is a "Novak-style" cut and today I installed an LPA adjustable fibre-optic rear sight. It fits the wider dovetail cut like a glove. By the way, the reason for the adjustable sight is that my pistol shot low and I couldn't locate a higher fixed rear sight for it.
The sight that I used was bought from Fusion Firearms and is LPA part number MPS2-FO.

My intention is to cut a dovetail slot in the front of the slide (hopefully centered this time!) for the Witness Match-type fibre-optic front sight from Dawson Precision (on its way to me as I type this) which should negate needing any cross-pin.

[stagesmith]

I have the specs for that dovetail if you want them.

You can email me direct at ernie@stagesmith.com

[bobclevenger]

I installed an adjustable LPA fibre-optic rear sight (LPA # MPS2-FO) along with the Dawson Precision fibre-optic front sight for the Witness Match. The dovetail for the front sight was intentionally cut deep since the pistol had a tendency to shoot low -- this should allow the most adjustment possible, and also position the rear sight as low as possible when zeroed. Heading out to the range tomorrow.

[stagesmith]

Ooh I really like the barrel porting through the slide.
How well does that work?
I put a hunter barrel in my Elite match and the Elite match barrel in my Compact so I could mount compensators on both, but I have been pondering porting the barrel through the slide on my RAMI.

[bobclevenger]

Ooh I really like the barrel porting through the slide.
How well does that work?

It is fairly effective, but it is no comp.

[LESchwartz]

Front Sight:

My trails and tribulations regarding the front sight continued.  I just wasn't happy with the brightness of the AmeriGlo tritium, the Meprolight, or the HiViz HSG1002 (shown in the photo above).  I finally decided to try the HiViz SGLW08 LITEWAVE Front Sight (Sig #8), and I'm impressed that the overall brightness is similar to the LPA in the rear.

I have a TLR-4 mounted to the pistol -- even in a pitch black room, the fiber sights light up like crazy from just the reflected flashlight light.

Larry

[jwc007]

Very very Interesting! 

I've been experimenting with the Hi-Viz Sights on other Pistols and have had issues with their lack of brightness, too!
Not sure how to cure that, but I'm looking for a solution.

[LESchwartz]

I installed an adjustable LPA fibre-optic rear sight (LPA # MPS2-FO)

Bob,

I see you've got the *new* LPA FO sight for the Witness (as opposed to the one I jury-rigged back on page two of this thread).  How did it work out?

I would be specifically interested in the brightness.  Also, some of LPAs earlier sights are listed as "low profile" and don't elevate far enough for some of my pistols.  So I would also be interested in knowing how high the sight elevates.

thanks,

Larry