Transcription
So the last time I came out here to do videos, I brought this bad boy with me. I brought it out because I just wanted to put a couple rounds through it after we got done filming, and I'm an idiot and I forgot to bring nine millimeter. And that day, we were shooting five five six, two two three. For those who haven't figured it out yet, this is the Nighthawk Sand Hawk. It's actually kind of a mouthful to say when you think about it. It feels very redundant. Peter's laughing for some reason, so I'm assuming he's implying something very inappropriate, but Peter's a child, so we're not going to even entertain that.
So the Nighthawk Sand Hawk. This, this is a custom-built 2011, or a double-stack 1911. And Nighthawk sent this to me to do this video, and I gotta say, it's gonna piss a lot of people off. And the reason it's going to piss a lot of people off is because this gun is ungodly expensive, depending on who you talk to, and while you're buying a gun. So this gun is about five, that's a lot of money, even for me. I would still do it though.
Now, you have to ask yourself, why are you buying a gun like this? Who's buying a gun like this? If you're coming into this as, "This is the first gun I ever want to get," or "The first 2011 I want to get, and I wanted something functional," and you're looking at this from a logical perspective, you're an idiot. This is not a logical purchase. This is purely emotional, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I love emotional purchases. I do it all the time whenever I have the money to do it. And that's what the Nighthawk represents for me. I always kind of look at the Nighthawk as an heirloom gun. This is a gun that you hand down generation after generation after generation after generation because there is so much put into this gun.
When you start playing in this price point, you're really paying for very minor, minute things. They're not like, you're not going to get a gun that's $3,000, you're not going to get a double-stack 1911 that's $3,000, and then get a double-stack that 1911 that's $6,000 and then walk away like, "Oh my God, it was really worth double the price." That just doesn't work like that. The higher you get, the smaller the differences are, but you pay exceedingly more for those small differences. So, for instance, there are other 1911s out there, double-stack 1911s out there, and, and I'm avoiding comparing it directly to other guns. I'll do that in a different video. I just want this to be its own thing. But you really start kind of getting into a place where you're like, "This is a custom gun." Yes, it is a Sand Hawk, and it comes in a pre-established way, but you can customize this gun almost any way you want. And for instance, in this case, the Sand Hawk in general is all FDE, but I decided to add these black grips to this particular Sand Hawk and kind of make it my own. And the beautiful thing about Nighthawk is one person builds this gun. It isn't like an assembly line, and there's nothing wrong with an assembly line when you're building a gun, but there's something more organic and personal knowing that one person put this gun together and hand-fitted this gun. That's the type of things that you're paying for whenever you buy a gun like this.
So I'm not going to notice a functional difference in terms of shoot, how the gun shoots, to the degree of the price point that you're paying for. But there are other aspects to it, like fit and finish, material, that you really honestly can't really appreciate until you actually get it in hand. So, for instance, let's talk about this grip. I love this grip. This is my favorite part of the gun. And part of the reason is because one, I love the way it looks aesthetically. It's like somebody took a hole punch and just started hole punching around the gun a little bit, and then just made it even more aggressive. And it not only looks really good to me, but it actually feels as aggressive as it looks. I mean, you would not want to conceal carry this gun. This gun is going to be too aggressive for concealed carry. But to me, this is not a gun designed for concealed carry. I know people who do it, I'm not one of them. But a gun like this in hand, like it just grips like it to the point where, look, I'm gonna grip this really, really hard, and then look, like it leaves actual marks. And I love it because the gun just feels so planted in my hand when I'm shooting. I don't feel the need to want to over-grip the gun because the gun just sits in my hand very well.
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Um, on top of that, there's a trigger. It's a flat-face, very regular. No, actually, it's not a regular-looking trigger. It's actually a unique-looking trigger because it's just a flat-face trigger. This looks like somebody took a little square and just stuck it in the trigger guard. But this is probably one of my favorite triggers on a 2011. It's just, we're just going to be honest. And part of that reason is my ability to, it creates a because it's square and it's not, and it's your contact area on your finger is so much smaller, actually allows me to feel the trigger and what it's doing a lot more because it's a very acute point on my finger. And I know this sounds weird, but it's almost like it's taking all the nerves in my finger and forces them to cluster at one point, so I know exactly what the trigger is doing. So when I'm shooting the gun, I can feel there's that wall, break out there. So then under recoil, no matter how fast, no matter how fast I'm shooting, I know exactly where that reset is and get back to that wall on the recoil, and then I'm right back on it, which causes me to babysit the gun a lot faster.
Then there's the finish. FDE is one of those colors, right? FDE to me is not the most luxurious color. It's like a hard to use color, almost. Um, so initially, when some people see this gun, they're like, "That's five to six thousand dollars." And I'm like, "Yeah, but if you like FDE, it's everything to you." And for me personally, I love the way FDE contrasts off of black. Everyone knows I'm obsessed with the color black, but as of late, I've become a big fan of FDE, largely because of how well it contrasts against the color black. And so that's why I decided to do this Sand Hawk with a black grip, and I personally love it. Then I can accessorize it with all black features or accessories. So, for instance, you have your TLR, your freaking X300 Ultra. I thought it was a Turbo, it's not. And then you have my Delta Point Pro here. And that, of course, is another aspect of the gun from a feature standpoint, it's the ability to run an optic on here. Now, all of these things are custom, right? You can pick and choose. You can get one that doesn't have an optic, one that does have an optic. But by and large, you can make the gun what you want. It starts with a standard platform, but it becomes whatever you decide to make it.
I always said 2011s are cheating. They're cheater guns. They're cheater guns. And people will say, "Well, just because you buy a $5,000 gun doesn't make you a better shooter." Bullshit. I disagree. Absolutely disagree. I think 2011s make you a better shooter. Not a better shooter than somebody else, but you take somebody and you give them a polymer frame striker-fired pistol, and they can shoot that well. I promise you, you put a 2011 in their hand, you're going to be able to shoot that better than that polymer frame gun. All right, that's what I believe. That's what I've experienced. Some people may disagree. I disagree with them. I think 2011s, double-stack 1911s, whatever you call them, do make you a better shooter when shooting compared to other guns that you may shoot, period. I'm gonna stand by that.
Now, from a shooting experience, one of the prominent features on this particular gun is this island comp. Now, by island comp, what it is essentially is it's a comp up front that doesn't move. So even when I rack the slide, see here, it just stays there up front. It does move, it moves back a little bit, but other than that, it sits there. And what that does is it gives the gun the ability to sit pretty damn flat when I'm shooting, shooting the gun. So you get a recoil impulse that's basically, and you can just run this gun like a champ. And that's what I think adds to the whole experience right there. There's a fun factor that comes with shooting, right? It makes the gun exceedingly more enjoyable when you do go out to the range. So if I go out to the range and I'm struggling to shoot the gun and not shoot it well, yes, there's a training component and there's a better component, but then there's something about, "I just want to go to the range and just have a nice time shooting and shoot well." These are one of those guns. It makes for a perfect range gun in that regard because it's easy to shoot. All right, and because of the fit and finish, everything just feels great and solid and silky smooth in your hands.
Then you've got these other aspects to it, like this front sight. This front sight bead is literally is actual gold. It's not fake gold, it's not brass, it's real gold. Now, it's something you can only appreciate because you know it's real gold. And nobody told you or told me, I wouldn't know. I would just assume it was a brass bead, but it's actual gold. How much of that is incorporated into the cost? I don't know. But either way, it's just those little kind of Easter eggs about the gun that kind of add to it. Like I said, it's the small things. You pay exceedingly, you pay more for them, and it's a lot more. But to some people, it's worth it, especially if they already have a multitude of different guns. And for them, they're like, "Well, I already have this gun, this gun, this gun. So now I'm in a position where I can appreciate the smaller details that I get with something like a custom-built Nighthawk." And that's kind of where I'm sitting in my, from my perspective, because I do shoot a lot of guns and I do handle a lot of guns. And when I tell you this gun shoots so damn flat, and how fast I can run this gun from this distance on these small targets, and it's literally like nothing, it is incredibly. What this gun does is it allows you to shoot well easily. And that's the best way I can, I can put it. Because the gun just, like it just, it's just flat. You combine the grippiness of the grip, the usability of the trigger, and the ability to kind of measure it and know exactly what it's doing, on top of the comp allowing the gun to sit super flat, and then the weight added. I'm telling you, this gun is so fun and enjoyable to shoot. On top of that, it just feels like a high-quality gun that I just love shooting.
Now, I'm going to end on this note. The other aspect of this gun that I really enjoy is because of how high quality and the fit and finish and the way things just look and feel. And I'll follow this up with a more extensive video after I've gone through more rounds and shot it to more. But this gun makes me want to just keep it around the house. It's a gun that I want to bring with me from room to room because I just want to set it up there and just look at it because it just, it just kind of gives off a very elegant and just high-class feel that you really, really, really honestly can't appreciate until you have the gun in your hand and you just, you actually live with it for a day or two. I, I freaking love this thing. This thing is, is exceeding what I actually expected it to be before I got it. Now, that's the, that's the one problem. The weight. Period. Last I checked, it was maybe close to a year, six months to a year, something like that. Um, that maybe that might have changed. Um, I have to wait considerable by the top of this gun too. Um, so you got to factor that in there too. Is that something you want to do? Do you want to wait? For some people, it's worth it. For some people, I want more, they want more of a production gun that gets very, very, very, very close to this and without the wait time, and then they can say, "All right, I could pay less, wait less, and then still get a gun that I really, really like." Um, and then some people are like, "No, I want exactly what I want." And that's, that's kind of where the Nighthawk falls in. It's for people that know exactly what they want in the gun and they're willing to wait for it. And I gotta say, I'm, I'm already kind of in this like 2011 obsessive stage, and I've become a super obsessed with 2011s, and I love shooting them. And I didn't want to own every single one that I own. So the fact that I'm at a point now where I'm still impressed by another 2011 or double-stack 1911 says a lot. I really kind of want to really get a feel for this gun and run this gun so that I can do a fully linked video on it, and then also do the comparison videos that I know you guys want me to do with respect to the other 2011 double-stack 1911s that are out there, which I plan to do because I think a lot of y'all will be surprised about what I say. So the Nighthawk Sand Hawk. Hmm. Delicious. Delicious.
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