In flight tonight I noticed that while making small forward and aft inputs the heli will almost jerk forward or back, not smooth like the left and right inputs are. In other words it is hard to keep the bird level. This makes it very hard to maintain a smooth hover. Any advice on what this could be or how to adjust?

Your heli is operating smoothly. What may be happening is that you have yet to develop the smooth touch REQUIRED to properly fly the heli. Can't hamfist the controls on a heli, just too sensitive. You could try to add some flybar weights to desensitize the heli or you could force yourself to use smaller, smoother control inputs.

You can try dual rates (less than 100%) on the elevator channel.
Wb