Nighthawk 1911 Enforcer .45 ACP

[Music] [Music] if you've ever been irrationally drawn to a historical firearm go and hit the subscribe button get down there in the comments section in common with what it was besides that the comment section is out of control check it out it's people just watch it they didn't they read that they didn't watch my videos so whatever liked the video guys if you're looking to support the channel I heard a couple ways you can do that you have gun mag war house big support of the channel this force monetarily I buy my gun max from them with my discount code so win-win yeah use a green thumb no spaces and then you have le xmo again grantham no spaces gives you like 5 or 6 percent off not a whole lot but it saves you don't chipping and everything that's more few time so get it alright guys today we're gonna be talking about a firearm which you know the moment I say it I think people are gonna start arguing that is going to be the 1911 specifically we're gonna be talking about the Nighthawk enforcer which is one of the models of 1911 that they make if you're not familiar with Nighthawk they are a family-owned company pretty small pretty uh pretty like strong moral values and ethos and all that type stuff so they're pretty cool you know I'm all about companies sticking to their guns and that type of stuff but you got him the worst but anyhow all their parts are made from solid you know bar stock steel and there's no cast no mi M parts so it's all really high quality products and also the thing that I like about Nighthawk is they have all these unfitted parts so like in a bin and then there's one gunsmith and he is the only guy who does everything for that gun so you have one gunsmith and building the gun to complete you know to completion so it's pretty cool a little bit about my relationship with Nighthawk I was contacted by the social media guy they wanted me to do a review on their pistols so I was very happy to do that I'm very familiar with Nighthawk they have a really good reputation I was like hell yeah let's do this so they sent me out a gun the enforcer along with 3,000 rounds of 40 I bought another thousand I ran all four thousand to do the gun without cleaning it because you know why not squirt a little Lube in there ya gotta have lube and then clean it off by thrown into a lake or when I went through like you know rain storm and all that kind of stuff so it's been cleaned I guess by environmental conditions but besides I have just kind of let it run the company didn't pay me anything I get guns from companies all the time and ammo from them it never influences my opinion I consider myself fairly non biased because I have so many guns at this point that I'm the humble rag no we're not gonna do that point is I'm not influenced but in us so enforcer let's talk about what I think of it so first off this is a full sized 1911 it has a government frame it's a full five inch gun and that is the way I prefer my 45 caliber 1911 I think you do run into some issues with some shorter ones I know they are very reliable it's just I prefer a full sized 1911 if you're gonna be running one in 45 ACP so a little bit history on the 1911 if you're not familiar again i'm not forgotten weapon so i'm not gonna try to flex on them that's impossible but um the 1911 was designed a way back when by John Moses Browning adopted 1911 by the United States Army it went through a pretty rigorous training reading process actually one of the last not the last test but one of the tests done on it was 6,000 rounds those run through the gun without cleaning it just was shot toll as hot and then it was dipped in water to cool it over the course of like a day or two so that's a pretty rigorous firing schedule and it had no malfunctions so 1911's are reliable firearms now that being said have there been advancements in firearms technology yeah there has in certain ways and we'll talk about the differences between the two and why you may might pick one or the other but in any case let's get into the heart of the gun right now two world wars okay so uh maybe barrel is a match barrel the thing about a 1911 is they're not mass production guns for a 1911 that's going to run forever and they will run forever if they're made well you really do need these to be hand fitted and to get a little bit of love from somebody knows what they're doing everybody's in love so especially what needs love is the barrel the barrel bushing fitting that is a very precise thing that you need to do to ensure that everything is smooth and locking unlocking in an accuracy so they did a really good job that the barrel and the fitting are superb I know guys getting one-inch groups at 25 yards with these that's out of control hand loads and all that kind of stuff could I do that maybe this gun could certainly do it but can I better question I don't know that I could do it but I definitely have made shots out to 200 yards with this gun at about 120 I'm very consistent at about 200 I it's kind of it kind of comes down to how precise I'm with the sights and that's kind of more on me than the gun but it is only accurate at close range I can easily just shoot a ragged hole with this thing so it is phenomenally accurate no issues there so you'll be very happy with the accuracy now high accuracy also comes down to another thing with 1911 some kind of comes on to that consistency and that comes down to frame to slide fit so you see you can make a 1911 uber super accurate by making this thing super tight but the problem can be is that it doesn't allow for lube and a little bit of play area for grit and stuff to move around so if it's too tight yeah SuperDuper tight tight groupings but you're gonna have some reliability issues so you know the old moniker was you know back in the day you know GIS would pick up 1911 and shake them and wait to hear that rattle and the reason was of course they wanted a little bit looser slide to frame fit to ensure that that that pistol would run in very austere conditions so Nighthawk has kind of taken a middle-of-the-road approach it's tight but I wish you guys were here so I could put my hand over yours and we could ghost this there is a good amount not a good amount but a perfect amount of my opinions of side to side play that allows that Lube and that grit to move around freely but not so much that affects accuracy or that it is just like rattling around like crazy and you're having some crazy accuracy issues and they do just a great amount of work there now that being said if for whatever reason you decide to use this as a duty gun in standby for later on that they can take this and they can loosen up the tolerances a little bit more and that will allow it to function in even more austere conditions that being said in all my time with this I don't treat my guns well I haven't had any malfunctions due to the gun the muffling so they've had or do to me or do to like a magazine that got bent or something like that and the guns been perfectly reliable pretty much anything that malfunction this gun would have malfunctioned a Glock as well in my opinion now that being said ice blocks are more reliable overall and that's not to say that this isn't reliable it's just firearms technology has advanced but that being said this thing is perfectly reliable speaking of the slide to frame fit we also should talk about the machining work which is absolutely superb my favorite thing about this I know it's so it's such a small thing but is the radius ball cut excuse me the ball radius cut right here on the front of the slide it's kind of a you know a throwback to early 1911 manufacturers excuse me custom manufacturers who would do that and just makes for a really seamless line between the slide and the frame and it just looks sexy in my opinion and I like my guns looking a little bit sexy and I think that's something that a lot of newer guns lack is just the aesthetic appeal that the 1911 has I love my Glock it's super reliable I carry this I shoot at a ton I'm very good with it but it's it's a brick on a on a handle right compare that to the 1911 which just has some really clean classic lines that just lend itself to just want to touch it and stuff you have front and rear serrations for your press checks if you want to do all your LARPing stuff those are very well made and with all the serrations that are made there dehorn so that means any of the sharp edges are removed that way this is very friendly for carry it's not gonna rip up clothing or anything like that or tear up holsters when you run your finger across the front serrations on the restoration it's very smooth feeling besides that there are a couple functional serrations on the top and the back so on the top of the slide right here we have serrations running from the front sight all the way to the rear sight on the back of the rear sight you have serrations running all the way down the slide and the reason for that is to kill glare that would come off the metal otherwise with 911 it can be a problem I think that this is more something that's just like IED it's just a nice thing that makes this a much more kind of pointable shootable gun it's just I pick up the sights much more quickly bright light and that time things haven't had any problem with glare because of the serrations there now how big of a problem is it I don't know but I think it's a nice little touch and it's just a it's just a tension to detail and it's something that I appreciate on this particular firearm so all that machining work is very nicely done now on the frame itself you notice that I have a light rail on here and that's an option that you can have it does add account a couple ounces out to the front of the gun to help balance out the gun obviously I have a surefire x300 you Bravo on there that adds a lot of weight to the front of the gun also makes this gun extremely controllable even with throwing 45 you know 45 ACP you know 230 grain slugs down the barrel and downrange so when it comes to reliability you have a really good slide to frame fit that allows for that amount of play also all the parts are high-quality I either made by them or high quality non mi em non cast parts that makes for a gun this is going to run for a long period of time now the question is going to be where does this gun fall in relation to some say something like a Wilson combat and Ed Brown a les baer which are all great 1911 manufacturers and it comes down to the fact that those are all great manufacturers and they all make great 1911's they're all a little bit different on how they do it whether it's one gunsmith or multiple gunsmiths on an assembly line so it kind of comes down to the options that you want and what you're looking for the pistol in the kind of overall style and look of a pistol personally I really love the look of the Nighthawks that being said I have a Wilson comm and I didn't love him that I absolutely adore again they're all great 9th 11th I can't I'm not gonna say anything bad about of them because they are all very functional reliable and accurate it's just kind of what flavour you want to get in this case we run the Nighthawk moving up the gun right here we have sights so we are running hiney sights unfortunate and hain but they've been in the site market forever some would say the original site makers so I have a tritium front and a blacked-out rear with a tritium insert right below the rear notch what that means is that when I'm lying in lining the sights up at night I have my front sight post with the tritium that's gonna be glowing and then I have that lower one right below it so I just line up those two dots and that allows me to shoot at night under night vision not really gonna work so much because those aren't projected and infinity they're just gonna look like fuzzy little dots so any of my low-light shooting or night shooting has been done using a width and light and it's been perfectly adequate as far as the sights are concerned besides that I do like the sights the front post is small enough in the rear notch that can be accurate and also fast the front tritium is a kind of a white dot at during the day and it's easy to pick up and shoot fast so good on them for using hiney sights I actually do prefer those sights quite a bit along with ten eights and a couple other great manufacturers but great on them for doing that [Applause] [Music] okay so safety safety is ambidextrous on both sides obviously I'm not shooting left-handed but you can do that the safety is stiff requires a little bit of effort to pop it down that's perfectly what I wanted I want this thing disengaging or being floppy or anything like that so the safety is the right amount of tension for me slide stop right there or slide release depending on how you kind of term things and then the trigger oh god the trigger so it's no secret in the firearm world that 1911 triggers are just the best I don't think that there's a better handgun trigger out there than in 1911 which is weird it's weird that a gun from so long ago still has one of the best triggers like you're to travel back in time to the year you know 1935 of the guy running like a 1911a1 and you know with a little bit of trigger tuning and you're like hey do you want to travel forward in time and you know try out a gun 20:18 be like well sure I do he travels forward you're like hey man here's the Glock so he goes and he goes to pull the trigger of course you do it one-handed right and he'd be like the hell is this so triggers a heavens fiscally involved I know that comes down to firing mechanisms and there's a lot of other good improvements but it's always been kind of ironic to me that even today that the 1911 trigger is still among the best I understand it's a single action it's a very simple mechanism but it works very well so what we're gonna do is we're gonna do my classic we're gonna go sit together I wish you guys could have your finger on there just like that pottery scene we pull this trigger together but we'll have to suffice so first off the trigger is a little bit wider and that allows you to kind of disperse that force over the entirety of the trigger and it's a little over three pounds was just perfect I don't want it to light but I want to just enough where I have to give it a little bit of effort to make sure I'm pulling the trigger it's it's a go button so let's do this together so teeny bit of take-up okay we snapped in check the mag racket okay and this field of reset we sit reset is at the point how far or the trigger has to travel forward before I can repol it and make the gun go bang again right there all right and fire again this is perfect so it's very little take-up just very slight bit of movement and that makes for a very controllable easy to fire weapon I'm easily able to get point 1 to point 1 3 splits with this particular 1911 that's due to an excellent trigger and a couple other things that come into play with it so triggers are just great now as a quick comparison there take a look at the Glock 19 so pulling that back so here's my take up hit my first wall and just kind of a mushy trigger at the end the reset on that on Glocks are pretty good come forward forward forward forward for there we go there's a reset right there and then they'll take up right there this trigger is pretty broken in this one has about 20,000 rounds on it so they feel pretty good but for a Glock but there is such a difference between the two triggers oh yeah this feels amazing there's nothing like a 1911 trigger so trigger is phenomenal okay moving down from the trigger we have the front strap and the mainspring housing both of these have checkering on them it's very subtly done it's not gonna rip up your hands or tear up clothing or anything like that it's also dehorned but it's just enough to give you that grip when you're firing this thing rapid that it just works well and the thing about it is you can go over aggressive but man that just really tears up your hands when you're shooting like a high round count class like fifteen hundred rounds like I much prefer this more subtle checkering that they have for this particularly gun so that works really well it's also done very high to ensure that you grip that gun nice and high like you should on a 1911 so the grips are g10 they are have the Nighthawk logo on them they're well-made they feel good they're pretty flat they're not very fat and because of that it just allows for a good grip on the 1911 so great job on the choice there if you want to switch them out you can swap them out with VZ grips or something like that which make excellent grips as well but these are excellent so magazine well right here is beveled make sure very smooth and easy mag changes or emergency mag changes and all that tough stuff you have a little notch right up here so you can use GI mags but why use GI mags I'm mostly using the act mag so that came from Nighthawk they are very reliable but besides that I've used the wilson combats I've used the chip McCormick's and they've all functioned perfectly reliably in this particular guy name including the ten rounders from Wilson combat and chip McCormack so they've all run very very well now when it comes to the magazine well we kind of have to talk about the reload so if you notice quickly this is gonna be a point of contention I'm sure you notice I'm not just letting the slide ride forward and slam into an open chamber so that's a big point of contention a lot of people were like well in the army needs to just let that slide right forward that was kind of a thing that they used to do so the army did it that's okay the army never does smart things we know this again I watched a combat engineer almost died during an airborne jump I I love you guys but why are you always sweating but anyhow with the with reloading on the 1911 you know you go to slide lock and there are two different ways that most people reload with the 1911 now for me I've got medium-sized man hands like if you're hit [ __ ] 45 man you can just reach your thumb over and get that because you're like 6 foot 1000 but for me you know just sitting at 6 foot with medium sized man hands I got to kind of gain my reloads a little bit on the 1911 so what I typically do is I'll fire slide lock I'll hit the release and then when I'm inserting my new magazine insert it and then with that same hand that I used to insert the magazine I'll drop the slide with that thumb right there and then I'll go up and no we are not power racking this is not 2004 so again magazine goes out and up drop it that's why I definitely done in practice now there is of course another way if you got those giant hands or if you don't mind breaking your grip you drop the magazine and then you can kind of break your grip a little bit and get your thumb the slide release so as soon as you give in you can just drop it right away it is a much quicker way however because of the size of my hands I prefer to do the thumb from the magazine type of release again it's just gonna come down to you and personal preference and what you're comfortable doing so 1911 reloads good times what does it feel like to shoot because that's kind of our big points with this channel you know what does it like to actually run this gun fast in unconventional positions to draw it and that's kind of where the 1911 is interesting because for whatever reason me and John Moses Browning must have been similar in size or something because every gun that he is designed has fit my hand very well and I hate I do hate when people say that hey don't be were like a Glock doesn't fit my hand I'm like I I get it it doesn't fit anybody's hand the angle of the grip makes that you have to kind of can't your wrist forward and I understand that does help with recoil control but I've always loved the straighter angle of the 1911 for me it just lends to pointing more easily and because of that shooting with this it just requires less effort from me the grip angle is just perfect to me combine that with a super nice trigger especially from Nighthawk about a three and a half well a little less than a three and a half pound Pole great sites and just a very nice recoil impulse you have a great gun now I want to say something about the recoil impulse obviously it's a 45 it's going to have more than a 9-millimeter right so a 9-millimeter is a little bit snappy in general the 45 obviously has way more push but it's a very gentle push it's a low-pressure round it's kind of hard to describe but I would I would describe as that a gentle but tough push against you the 1911 has a tendency when it cycles to as it pulls forward of the slide to just put your gun right on a target and I found that to be absolutely the case of the Nighthawk now comparing this 1911 to like a you know like a 600 $700 Springfield or something like that they'd buy or a $900 Colt what's the difference well the differences comes down to the hand fitting of the frame to slide you have a smoother recoil impulse and I can definitely feel when I'm shooting those two guns to where it just feels like this guns already got like a hundred thousand rounds on it and it is just smooth as hell now that being said is a you know a Colt rail gun is that thing you're just gonna work or a Colt and 45 yeah those things are absolutely reliable and what you get when you buy a Nighthawk or something like that is this that absolute reliability that I guarantee that it's using the best parts that's all hand fitted so do understand that I'm not advocating that you have to buy like a three thousand dollar 1911 because those other 1911's are actually absolutely going to be reliable it's just you're kind of paying for that extra reliability to know that this thing is just hand fit everything is just made to perfection and on top of that custom 1911's that's an American thing that's an American as like a lever action or a m1 grand or apple-pie well the m1 grand being Canadian but nonetheless its American still the some extent and that's kind of the reason why you might choose the Nighthawk over the others now when it comes to shooting this gun just the trigger the sights the grip angle everything make this a gun that can easily push the edge of my skill level and what I mean by that is there certain guns where the triggers are so long or so sloppy or not precise where I can't really push my gun as far as hard as I want to with the 90 eleven due to the light trigger the easily easy point ability I can easily push this about to the edge of where I'm comfortable running the gun about one point one two point one three splits are pretty friggin fast and with the Knights and a lot more with any handgun I'm not really comfortable going any faster than that at this moment so this allows me kind of pushed to the edge of my skill envelope and I can't say that about a whole lot of handguns out there now with all of that being said there are some problems with the with the 1911 with the Nighthawk in just the 1911 platform in general so we're gonna kind of get into those now before we do I know people are gonna asking about the holster I am using a safari lanham that's gonna read it off for you guys 6395 for a Springfield operator with a surefire X 200 light in this case I am running a surefire x300 and obviously I don't have a Springfield operator but it fits just as well I also have the organ trail nub mod right here to insure for an easier draw and that makes for a very smooth draw good lock-up ALS system is just absolute money this is on a lower not admit ride but a lower due to the way that this holster attaches I have a t-rex arms leg strap that goes around to keep this from pulling up as I'm drawing the weapon so that is my setup for uh for hole surfing all right cons capacity guys do you like reloading because the 1911 is going to make you reload eight rounds is just not a lot and I understand when people hear eight rounds with a 1911 they go well if you need more than eight rounds in a gunfight then you're a terrible shot you should practice more well that's absolute horse crap that's that's that's a stupidest thing I've ever little II ever heard no that's not true but um eight rounds is not a lot and I understand you can get the ten rounders and they do run reliably nowadays so you have a you know ten plus one but with all that being said it's just not a whole lot to have and some people argue that the 45 is gonna blow a man out of the boots or something stupid like that but when it comes down to ballistics 9 millimeter 45 are very similar obviously 45 has an edge with ballistic loadings I understand some 9-millimeter rounds performed very well but some very well engineered self-defense rounds in 45 are just absolute monsters so there's no doubt about it but at the same time 45 does offer you a lot more recoil than a 9 has so because of that I almost universally will recommend a 9 millimeter for most shooters because it's cheaper you're gonna probably practice more it's easier to manage the recoil and get more shots and Plus you typically have almost double the magazine capacity a Glock 17 will easily run just a standard magazine is like a 17 rounder so 18 rounds and you can easily run 20 or something like that so you're gonna run more than twice surrounds so I do typically recommend that because more rounds is always a good thing unless you get like crazy extendo clips another thing is that I know that some people look at the 1911 and they think to themselves I want to use this as my duty gun so I I want to if you if you want to use a 19 Leslie Duty gun we need to take a moment to step back and ask ourselves why we want to use a 1911 or duty gun you know if you're out if your argument is it's use it so it's worked for a hundred years okay pump the brakes a little air turbo there are very reliable weapons out there weapons that are much lighter than a Glock than a 1911 I know you guys will say well why don't you go work out more I work out plenty and despite all that I'd still have a lighter gun because you will feel it on your hip after a while something like a Glock 17 a Glock 19 is way way lighter while offering more than double the capacity less recoil just a great recoil impulse so if you're choosing the 1911 just think about what you're doing there's a lot of I won't say institutional inertia inertia I'll say thought inertia behind the 1911 because it's such a mythical gun at this point so really consider if you're if you've only fired if you only been shooting for a couple years really take a step back and look at what professionals are using professionals are using Glock 17s Glock 19's Glock 18s for a very good reason because they just run everywhere and they will just shoot themselves to death they just work compared to the next level which is very reliable but is much more of a tuned professionals weapon for requires a little bit more work and reliable yes but not to the reliability of current wonder nines on the market so if you use it for duty just consider all those things and know that I don't specifically recommend a 1911 for duty use now that being said are you in an area where you're limited to ten rounds well maybe take a look at the 1911 are you in an area where you want to do competition shoot you know hell yeah this thing will crush that if you just want to have a gun that's just fun as hell to shooting into harken back to a time when 1911's just rocked and they still do get a 911 it is a fun phenomenal gun to shoot there's no doubt about it just understand the limitations of the 1911 platform compared to more modern platforms I know a lot of guys say I want to buy one gun it's gonna be a 1911 cuz it will do everything I would disagree Glock 19 does everything very well the 1911 will do everything just not nearly as well again with this piece this is something that I look at as something to pass down customized 1911's are just an American thing this is something that's going to last for a long time there are well-made frame and slides of 1911 s that have a hundred thousand five hundred thousand rounds in military inventory currently the low-pressure round lends itself to these things just running for a long time and especially a well tuned well-made gun with all non mi m and non cast parts like the Nighthawk custom it seems gonna run for a very very long time so you can't go wrong with it so guess what it comes down to is just understand what your purpose is but know that when it comes to custom 1911's Nighthawk perhaps makes among the best along with many other great manufacturers out there so get it have fun biggest thing is shoot it if all you have is a budget to buy this but you can't shoot it no point go buy a Glock 19 go buy a couple thousand rounds of ammunition but if you're in a point financially where you can buy this and shoot the hell out of it hell yeah get to it but no matter what you're shooting this but you have no training this gun is not going to make you a better shooter becoming a better shooter comes with practice and training so when it comes to training they always always recommend and some great places like hilly strategic which is my debt which is Travis Haley's company of cog works I was I started a class with them phenomenal instructor former Ranger Barre solutions former fifth group guy just great dudes they also have esoteric and you have Darcy the direct action resource center lots of great places offering phenomenal training to ensure that you guys are gonna become better shooters and that's what matters axe exercising those constitutional rights so get out there guys do those good things I appreciate you guys watching we've got great stuff coming up take care okay one last thing for you guys I think in a lot of questions or people say things like I feel like something bad is gonna come or I'm really worried about this or that and so I want to impart to you guys a little bit of my kind of philosophy in life not that I'm the most successful person in the world I'm far from it I have all my own problems but um I've always been of the opinion that you need to focus on things that you can change or worry about things that you can change and not things that you can't change a great example of that would be camping and you see a storm coming you can't change the direction of the storm you can't change the fact that there's a storm coming but what can you do you can prepare your tent for the storm you can weather you get your weather layers prepared you could get a fire prepared to help keep yourself warm and dry yourself off the point is that you can do things that you can affect and you're not worrying so much about the storm coming but you're doing what's necessary so again focus on what you can change and not what you can't change and I think your lives will be a little bit less stressful a little bit more focused and that's what matters guys love you take care final note for you guys for my ultra fans out there it's going to be taking a look at Big Daddy limited I know I punch it in kind of every single video it's because of something that I believe in so they our subscription site where you can buy products at a lower price by subscribing so are you gonna save money it depends on how many products you're buying if you're buying no products you're not gonna save money if you're buying a couple products a year yeah you're absolutely gonna save money and the subscription is gonna pay for itself so it all depends it's a company that I support I have a link right in my description get in there check them out they make good stuff they have a very unfortunate name I've told them that multiple times but check guys if you've watched this far into the video and I want you to comment with your favorite give me your favorite action star hero mine is ash from Evil Dead hit it

Channel: undefined

Views: 504,295

Rating: 4.949698 out of 5

Keywords: garand, thumb, garand thumb, 1911, nighthawk, nighthawk review, nighthawk 1911 review, 1911 review, nighthawk custom review, are nighthawk 1911s good, best 1911, operator 1911, special forces 1911

Id: otDmR9vBgtc

Length: 32min 6sec (1926 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 06 2018