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Toured Nighthawk Custom Yesterday

drobs
Went down to Eureka Springs, Arkansas to look at a house for a possible VRBO / vacation home purchase. Turns out the city bans VRBO from the city limits. The house was kind of scary as well. Smelled like something died in there. 

On the drive back stopped at Night Hawk Custom in Berryville, AR and got a tour.
https://www.nighthawkcustom.com/

Each gun is more or less handmade. All parts are manufactured in house. No MIM or castings. Their motto is 1 gun 1 gunsmith. Each gun they produce is worked on by hand by 1 gunsmith the whole way through. Got to shoot one of their pistols in their test range - wow! The slide feels like it's on ball bearings!

I've handled some Wilsons in the past and recall their slides being difficult to pull back from being so tight.
I didn't get that feel with the Nighthawk Customs I handled. I could easily manipulate the slides on the guns I handled.

Spendy guns but awesome! I really like their smoked nitride finish as seen on these Colts:

I'd say the tour was about an hour. Neat stuff talked with a couple of their gunsmiths. 5 of which are members of the American Pistolsmiths Guild.


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Comments

8 comments

Date Votes
  • diver-rig

    I just bought one of the aforementioned Colt Nighthawk custom with the smoked nitrate.


    Beautiful pistol. Haven’t had a chance to shoot it yet.

    3
  • Ricci.Wright
    Never had a Wilson that I remember being hard to rack. Les Baer's guns?? The first one I ordered for a customer back around 2000 was so hard to rack I knew it would never run. Back then they came with a liberal coating of white grease and instructions to fire either 100 or 200 rounds, I can't remember which, before removing the grease. I got permission from the customer who was leaving soon for a pistol class at Gunsite out in Paulden, AZ., to shoot the gun. I grabbed a box of .45 ball and went back into the range, knowing damn well there was no way a 1911 that tight would run.  That pistol never missed a lick. Since then I have sold, shot, and owned a number of Les Baer's guns and they have all been excellent guns. I have personally owned six of Bill Wilson's 1911's and they too have been great guns. I have little experience with the Nighthawk guns but I'm sure they are great as well. Nighthawk did send a dozen of their guns to the shop a few years ago and I looked them over as I was booking them and was impressed. They were having a commercial shot here in Wilmington and the production company picked them up and that was the last I saw of them. I never shot any of them.
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  • nononsense
    I've built or worked on more 1911s than I care to remember. Every shop has their own set of practices and tolerances which create the reasons for clients to buy them. 

    I worked on a couple of dozen Nighthawk rifles when they got out of that portion of the business. We contracted with them for a limited run of custom pistols. Nice guns but way above my pay grade...
    This was the first pre-production model for testing and evaluation so I didn't clean it up, just documented it as it came in to us.

    Best.
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  • Warbirds

    Glad you didn’t buy a haunted house.

    I really enjoy Arkansas. I actually had a rental place there for a year or so when I lived in TX as my employer does quite a bit of work in Arkansas. I was further south though.

    Nighthawk must have been a Very cool stop.


    If memory serves isn’t Wilson Combat also in Barryville, AR or at least Arkansas I’m pretty sure.

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  • nononsense

    Wilson Combat® & Scattergun Technologies™
    2452 CR 719
    Berryville, AR 72616

    Order Toll Free: 1-800-955-4856
    Technical Questions: 1-870-545-3618
    Fax: 1-870-545-3310
    Office Hours: Monday - Friday, 8 AM to 4:30 PM CST


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  • yoshmyster
    I liked the one with the blast shield on the Nighthawk. A bit of a compensator built on the barrel. Should've bought it way back when but there was no way I was gonna pay what my car was purchased for at the time. Also if I remember it wasn't stainless.
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  • mogley98
    That's pretty cool did you have a connection for the tour or they just offered?
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  • drobs
    mogley98 said:
    That's pretty cool did you have a connection for the tour or they just offered?
    They just offered.
    I walked in and spoke to the lady at the front desk.
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