Tanfoglio Witness 1911 Problems

[MikeTX]

My witness has been struck down with the problem where it fires 6 shots, then refuses to cycle properly then dumps its gas down the barrel.

I stripped it down and found nothing, so delved a little deeper and removed the blowback piston assembley, I stripped this apart as my brain was telling me it looked a little dry (as all problematic mechanisms do when you just want them to work) and out the piston fell a BB.

The piston consists of 3 parts, the piston, the cylinder and the insert for the gas tube (and a spring for closing the piston after the shot). The BB was not evident until both it and the insert fell out of the piston when I stripped it. I'm not sure where in the piston it was but it was definately in there.

Hope this helps anyone else who has seen this problem.

Thank you so much for posting this! I just got my Tanfoglio Witness two days ago. The day it came, it shot about 100 shots fine, no problem. The next day, about 10 shots and it started doing this exact thing. I was ready to return it, then I found your message here, and after dislodging two BBs that were stuck in there, it works beautifully now, another 100+ shots through it, no problems at all. So this is great news, saved me a return, and thank you very much! I joined this forum, in fact, just to say thanks.

[harvey_s]

They are quite a cool idea, badly let down by the choice of materials and the staggering flaw of unavailable magazines..
What is the point of making a semi-auto gun with an ejectable magaziine if you can't actually get another magazine to put in.

I suppose that if they are as unreliable as I had heard and this thread seems to support - that by the time you've bought a few - you've obtained a supply of magazines by default...

[blooregard]

They are quite a cool idea, badly let down by the choice of materials and the staggering flaw of unavailable magazines..
What is the point of making a semi-auto gun with an ejectable magaziine if you can't actually get another magazine to put in.

I suppose that if they are as unreliable as I had heard and this thread seems to support - that by the time you've bought a few - you've obtained a supply of magazines by default...

The guns themselves are not unreliable, there was (is?) a batch of magazines letting them down. Magazines do now seem to be available for them, Mcavoys and Solware have them listed on their respective websites.

Thank you so much for posting this! I just got my Tanfoglio Witness two days ago. The day it came, it shot about 100 shots fine, no problem. The next day, about 10 shots and it started doing this exact thing. I was ready to return it, then I found your message here, and after dislodging two BBs that were stuck in there, it works beautifully now, another 100+ shots through it, no problems at all. So this is great news, saved me a return, and thank you very much! I joined this forum, in fact, just to say thanks.

Glad it was useful! I wonder how many have been returned because of this!

[Benelli B76]

They are quite a cool idea, badly let down by the choice of materials and the staggering flaw of unavailable magazines..
What is the point of making a semi-auto gun with an ejectable magaziine if you can't actually get another magazine to put in.

I suppose that if they are as unreliable as I had heard and this thread seems to support - that by the time you've bought a few - you've obtained a supply of magazines by default...

Plenty of mags available between £23 and £35 depending where you buy them. Friend and I just bought 7 for our 5 Witnesses.

Baz

[Ric O'shay]

Plenty of mags available between £23 and £35 depending where you buy them. Friend and I just bought 7 for our 5 Witnesses.
Baz

You have five Witnesses.....that just greedy

[Benelli B76]

We were among the first guys to buy these when they came out in UK. As I have a .45 licenced overseas I recognised straight away the realism of these bb guns in looks, weight, strip-down procedure.We wrote about them last year on UBC. Since then many people have followed with dozens of forum threads.We already collect old pistols from the 1930's onward and think the Witness will be a future collectable, (for us anyway).They are cheap at £80 so we are keeping some boxed.

Baz

[Freeonthree]

I was recently shooting my witness when the hammer got stuck in between the cocked and uncocked positions. I re-cocked the hammer, only thinking that it would have just been a one off, but over the past few days, this same problem has been happening more and more. Also, just to top that, my Co2 capsules are leaking everywhere when pierced into the mag, thus me only shooting about one magazine through a single Co2 cartridge. I think it may just be the magazine that is broken because the BB's do not appear to cycle through the magazine aswell, making me look kind of weird because I am not hitting the target for the simple reason of nothing is ACTUALLY coming out.

Any help would be a life saver!

Thanks in advance!

Jack

The pistol is not at fault, it's the clip.
The spring in the clip has more pressure than the plastic feeder tube at the top of the clip can endure.
After a while, the feeder tube gets warn prematurely from the excessive spring pressure, and it starts double feeding or worse.
I've spent many hours figuring out the cure for this problem.
First of all, real 1911's hold 7 rounds, and these are replica's, so why not load 7 or 8 rounds, and make it more realistic ?
I've found that if only 7 or 8 bb's are loaded at a time, the pressure on the feeder tube is alot less than if you load 18 bb's, and I believe the feeder tube can handle the pressure involved with 7 or 8 loaded.
If you've been loading 18 bb's since the pistol was new, and the jamming has gotten worse over time, try loading 7 or 8 and see if that cures the problem.
If it still jams, then the damage is done, but all is not lost.
What you can do at that point is remove the spring retaining plate on the bottom of the clip, remove the spring, and cut 2 inches off the bottom (larger end), then reinstall.
Now your pistol with operate dependable, even with 18 bb's, however the auto lockback (when the last bb is fired) will not function.
I now have 2 clips with shortened springs, and they work great.
With any new clips, only load 7 or 8 bb's and you should never have any problems as far as I can tell so far, but im still testing that theory.
So far i've shot alot of rounds, and havn't had a single jamming issue with either of my 2 new clips.
So we have 2 options, 18 rounds and no auto lockback with the clips that have shortened springs, or 7 or 8 rounds with the stock clips,and the pistol fully functioning.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with these wonderful KWC made 1911 replica's, but the clips would be better if they had better quality plastic or even better, metal feeder tubes. I hope this helps alot of people experiencing problems with their KWC made 1911 blowback pistols.

[Freeonthree]

I was recently shooting my witness when the hammer got stuck in between the cocked and uncocked positions. I re-cocked the hammer, only thinking that it would have just been a one off, but over the past few days, this same problem has been happening more and more. Also, just to top that, my Co2 capsules are leaking everywhere when pierced into the mag, thus me only shooting about one magazine through a single Co2 cartridge. I think it may just be the magazine that is broken because the BB's do not appear to cycle through the magazine aswell, making me look kind of weird because I am not hitting the target for the simple reason of nothing is ACTUALLY coming out.

Any help would be a life saver!

Thanks in advance!

Jack

Here's a You Tube video I made about this particular problem...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYYi...ature=youtu.be

[Freeonthree]

That was an earlier video I made, before I knew about losing the auto lockback. Here's my updated video....
At the very end, I accidentally say "no blowback" but I meant to say "no auto lockback".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0vCmWlBdCA

[Aimstraight]

My witness has been struck down with the problem where it fires 6 shots, then refuses to cycle properly then dumps its gas down the barrel.

I stripped it down and found nothing, so delved a little deeper and removed the blowback piston assembley, I stripped this apart as my brain was telling me it looked a little dry (as all problematic mechanisms do when you just want them to work) and out the piston fell a BB.

The piston consists of 3 parts, the piston, the cylinder and the insert for the gas tube (and a spring for closing the piston after the shot). The BB was not evident until both it and the insert fell out of the piston when I stripped it. I'm not sure where in the piston it was but it was definately in there.

Hope this helps anyone else who has seen this problem.

Is the blowback piston assembly the item installed on the underside of the slide at the back end (where the gas from the magazine gets dumped)?

[shining_bullet]

Is the blowback piston assembly the item installed on the underside of the slide at the back end (where the gas from the magazine gets dumped)?

Yes thats it, plenty of vidz on utube showing a complete strip down, just take your time as the little spring in there can be tricky till you know what your doing.

[Freeonthree]

Here's a video I made about these and other similar magazines.
In addition to the video, always put your finger on top of the feeder tube and press down hard when you release the bb plunger. By doing that, if the plunger does get away from you, your finger will greatly dampen the blow to the feeder tube lips.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxVjipp6a74

[flatrajectory]

The reason these pistols get bb's stuck in the blowback unit is because they are designed as an airsoft pistol to shoot 6mm plastic bb's. The hole in the bb loading nozzle is designed for 6mm bb NOT .175 bb.
All the maker has done is changed the magazine and inner barrel for steel bb. What they should have done is made a specific loading nozzle for the smaller calibre. !....
Numpty's.

Pete.

[gingernut]

Simples!
Also my 6mm Colts (same gun different markings) work a little better than the 4.5 jobs.
Bit smoother and a bit more accurate.
No holes in bean tins tho!

[policetac]

BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH THE TAN WIT IS ..

.
.
cost of the co2& bb's that i get.....

Hello.

I was cruising through this thread and I noticed your comment about having to spend too much for your Tan Wit ammo.
I'm assuming since this particular thread mentions users running "metal" B.B.'s through their guns that you were referring to metal B.B.'s as well. If so, I may have a suggestion you may find beneficial.

I learned a long time ago that Airsoft guns really don't shoot 6mm metal B.B.'s at all. When I first tried to run metal B.B.'s through my Cybergun/KWC Colt 1911-A1 100th Anniversary I found this out the hard way. (A plugged barrel. Since I bought mine for plinking instead of for use on a tourney field, I was kinda disappointed when I found out the truth. (I was really upset when I discovered that the prejudice most Airsoft owners hold toward running metal through Airsoft ran so deep that even the metal ammo "sold" for the guns didn't work either. I went so far as to sand my first batch of metal B.B.'s down to fit, but that was too much work.

Not to be dissuaded, I broke out my micrometer and took a few measurements. As I'm sure you're already aware, metal B.B.'s actually measure approximately 5.8-5.9mm in diameter. Upon learning this, I did a search for ball bearings of the same size. Sure enough, the bicycle industry uses bearings of that size as a standard. It wasn't long before I found a seller on that had these in stock. (Here's the link) They sell for $5.00 per 100 and there is no charge for shipping.

I've now been running these through my KWC for almost a year now and I have had absolutely no problems with feeding, jamming, accuracy, or barrel wear. In fact, these things shoot so well I gave up plastic B.B.'s altogether.

Anyway, just thought you might find the info useful.