New Witness Hunter- Initial impressions

[8strings8rounds]

Last year, I finally got my hands on a firearm that I've been looking for since I could buy handguns, the s&w 1006. I have since fallen in love with the 10mm cartridge, like many of you.

For a few years now, I have been intrigued by the Tanfoglio Witness Hunter. I own a couple of their standard models for some time now and always appreciated how well built they were for what I paid for them.
Long story, short, some things happened, some stuff got sold and I ordered a Hunter
Though this will not be a full review having not shot it yet, I do want to go over my first impressions- good and bad.

First the good:
Everything about how this thing is packaged is good in my opinion. The hard plastic, molded case with latches and combo lock is easily the best case I have ever gotten a firearm in.
All the contents were as expected- paperwork, cleaning kit, different springs, trigger lock, a fiber optic front sight (this surprised the heck out of me) one magazine and the pistol.
Everything nicely bagged and an overall clean look.

The pistol: beautiful. This is one of the newest runs I believe, so it has the newest wood stocks on it. I liked the checkered ones in the pics, but I think these look a little more refined.
The fit is smooth and tight.
The barrel seats perfectly in the slide and every part locks up great with zero clickitty clack.
Overall great looking.
Now, with the magazine, they have fixed whatever issue it was that I was reading about. Something with the 'red' follower and only being able to fit 'X' amount of rounds.. This one is fine. To me, it looks like it's made by Mec-Gar and fits 14 rounds just fine. Even locks into the well without the slide back.

The bad:
As of right now? The trigger. That's it.
I do not love the trigger. The trigger on my Para 14.45 was better from the factory
A couple things about it that stand out is the crunchy creep and the seemingly useless adjustment screws.
I am going to do an action polish and maybe address the creep a little
But these adjustment screws don't do anything for me.
The stop screw does it's job fine, but looks kinda ugly hanging out the back of the trigger.. Not much that can be done about it, so oh well.
The other screw? I can only adjust it a tiny bit before the trigger no longer engages- I can't even get the slop out of the trigger before rendering it useless. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, but there's really no instruction.

Anyway, another report will come after I get a few boxes of ammo through this thing.

[Intercooler]

Trigger? I found that to be better than anything I have shot including the 1911. If adjusted properly you can take out any take-up and it's crisp. With a little wear it will get scary light in the 2.5lb range, or polish some internals and be there now. You would have to do a video of the two side by side to show me what you mean. If you want I can do a video of my Hunter set for kill. It actually doesn't have enough take-up before going bang really.

[8strings8rounds]

Trigger? I found that to be better than anything I have shot including the 1911. If adjusted properly you can take out any take-up and it's crisp. With a little wear it will get scary light in the 2.5lb range, or polish some internals and be there now. You would have to do a video of the two side by side to show me what you mean. If you want I can do a video of my Hunter set for kill. It actually doesn't have enough take-up before going bang really.

I plan on polishing the internals. I do it on everything and it's the fastest way to sweeten a trigger.
I'll try to explain this, so bear with me on my description-
It almost seems as though there's too much play on the pivot pin (the pin the trigger rotates on) like the hole through the trigger is too large, so the trigger doesn't just swing, it can ride around a tiny bit.
And you know where the take-up screw engages the frame on that small edge- when I try to tighten the screw a little, the trigger can actually move back enough to ride up over that edge and then sits in a position where the trigger bar no longer resets/engages.
I'll try to somehow take a video of it, but I can already tell it's going to be very difficult to capture.

[Intercooler]

You mean side to side movement? The Henning flat trigger cures that and takes it to another level. My style of shooting I never thought it was needed.

[Patriot]

Love mine. It's at the smith shop being converted to DA/SA. It will be my woods sidearm.

[8strings8rounds]

You mean side to side movement? The Henning flat trigger cures that and takes it to another level. My style of shooting I never thought it was needed.

It has a slight movement in all directions, but it's the front to back that's giving me an issue.
I took it all down last night and polished everything from the trigger bar to the sear and adjusted the best I could. It's world's better now.
Do you have a picture with the flat trigger? I see there's 3 versions of it.

[sqlbullet]

DIY trigger job here:

http://www.savvysurvivor.com/tanfoglio_witness_gunsmithing.htm

You are right about the uptake.   Nature of the action is that you can't adjust much out without ending up with a gun that won't reset.  I tightened mine in until it wouldn't reset, then backed it of a quarter turn.  Then I screwed the overtravel screw down all the way and then backed it off until the hammer would drop each time.  That was about it.

Dry fire it a ton with some good lube in there and it will smooth out a good bit.

[8strings8rounds]

DIY trigger job here:

http://www.savvysurvivor.com/tanfoglio_witness_gunsmithing.htm

You are right about the uptake.   Nature of the action is that you can't adjust much out without ending up with a gun that won't reset.  I tightened mine in until it wouldn't reset, then backed it of a quarter turn.  Then I screwed the overtravel screw down all the way and then backed it off until the hammer would drop each time.  That was about it.

Dry fire it a ton with some good lube in there and it will smooth out a good bit.

Thanks, that's essentially what I ended up doing. I loosened the take-up screw until it reset and still went a bit more because it was just barely resetting. The trigger can still move forward beyond the screw a tad, so eventually I'll probably go after market.