Nighthawk Customer Service...

[Bad Voodoo]

Anyone have any stories/opinions you'd like to share re your personal experience with Nighthawk customer service?

Considering picking something up from them and have heard what 'sounds like' typically poor response/priority stories from 'around the interwebs.' Would seem strange to me for a semi-custom shop to exhibit any sort of frequent quality and/or related response issues, especially one operating in the rarified air of $3k+ 1911s.

Thanks in advance!

[L84CABO]

I have no direct experience but can confirm I've heard the same about their service. Spend a little time with Google and see what comes up. If you're talking $3K Wilson Combat and Guncrafter Industries both have excellent service reputations.

[RoadKing]

I have personal experience. The caveat being I absolutely LOVE their 1911's, I have 2. That said, the customer service is somewhat atrocious. I won't go into all the details, but I had to return my firearm to them so they could put the correct sights on it. I then had to wait because they would not ship it even though the circumstances were completely legal. In addition, I found out about 1.5 years later that the gun I got (one of the highest end ones they make, a Heinie version) had the rear sight cut done wrong. That's not me saying it was wrong. That's Heinie saying it was wrong. The sight came loose and to my utter amazement I found it had been held in place for that long due to a huge amount of loctite. Since I had already had so many issues trying to deal with nighthawk I sent the gun directory to Heinie to have the sight reset. I ended up paying to have the slide re-milled so it was correct for the Heinie sight that was on it when I bought it.

Again, I have owned a good number of high end 1911's, and shot almost every builder's guns who make 1911's and the nighthawks are the best I have shot. Unfortunately their customer service is crap. I would buy another nighthawk, but I wouldn't buy it direct from them. You are better off finding one that is used or for sale in a local shop and then having a competent gunsmith make any changes you want on it and not send it back to nighthawk for work.


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[heidad01]

^^^^^
No personal experience. A friend had to have work done on his T3 and was very happy with the service.

[deadcoyote]

I've owned 8 glocks with a combined 50000 rounds through them and only used customer service once, to ask for a quote on some replacement springs, which they mailed me for free.

Sorry to be such a dirty troll.

[Win231]

Today, you can forget about quality customer service that is based on the price of the products.

[kozumasbullitt]

My experience with them was great. I did a non-scientific test with Nighthawk and Wilson and in the end, both companies provided stellar CS. I own both brands and it is a coin toss in all honesty.

[Bad Voodoo]

Appreciate the comments, fellas. Just had an acquaintance who's opinion I value talk me out of the Nighthawk with only a few words about his experience with them. In short, beautiful guns, but quality control is all over the map for the money. I'll stick with Wilson.

[kozumasbullitt]

Appreciate the comments, fellas. Just had an acquaintance who's opinion I value talk me out of the Nighthawk with only a few words about his experience with them. In short, beautiful guns, but quality control is all over the map for the money. I'll stick with Wilson.

That is too bad, I think NHC is a really good company. I think they had some rough patches but that is what helps solidify good CS.

[Bad Voodoo]

Yeah, seems to be one of those 'your mileage may vary' routines with Nighthawk. Like I said, my influence w/ this decision comes pretty highly regarded and to be honest, I've had great personal experience with Wilson quality anyway so it's almost as if I may have been tempting karma by considering another semi-custom mfr.

[kozumasbullitt]

Yeah, seems to be one of those 'your mileage may vary' routines with Nighthawk. Like I said, my influence w/ this decision comes pretty highly regarded and to be honest, I've had great personal experience with Wilson quality anyway so it's almost as if I may have been tempting karma by considering another semi-custom mfr.

Agreed, but I heard on other forums that Wilson has slipped since their change in leadership. I only experienced top notch service from Wilson so it is one of those things like you said. The big plus I will give NHC is that they have more features for the money.

[Marquand]

I've had nothing but outstanding customer service from Nighthawk Custom. I bought a stock GRP over the counter and sent it back to NHC for some additional modification. Communication was terrific, my pistol came back ahead of the quoted schedule, and the work was outstanding.

A year later I was traveling through Berryville, Arkansas and decided to look them up. Upon arrival I was introduced to the head of the company, taken on a complete tour of their facility, and treated like royalty the entire time.

I couldn't be happier with the company or their product. Sorry to hear that other's experience has not been the same.

[drkphibr]

I'd have to say my experiences (3 visits to NHC for a T3) were mixed, but none that I would call negative. The quality of the work each time was excellent however.

First visit. Picked up a CA version T3 and called about having the barrel crowned (something I guess they can't do from the factory for CA because as soon as I said I have a T3 that I'd like the barrel cut/crowned, he asked if I was in CA). They said they'd do it for free (OMG, don't we all love to hear that) if I shipped (on my dime, no biggie as it wasn't warranty work) the barrel in. Very fast turn around (within ~2 weeks or so) and looked great. +1 for a positive experience with NHC CS.

Visit two. Was getting FTFire on too many rounds and noticed very light primer strikes. So replaced the springs and ordered a new firing pin. Same issues. Called NHC and asked about the MSH spring (as their website was a bit confusing on that part in particular) and when he asked why, I explained what was happening (again, used gun and no idea of round count or ownership trail), he said send it in (this time on their dime) and they would get it "fixed". Again, maybe 2 week or so and all was well. Another positive NHC CS experience.

Visit three. Had some FTE at the range (shortly after the firing pin repair) to the point of frustration and decided to bag the T3 for the day and focus on other things. Let it go for a bit and when I finally looked at the gun for a WTF look over, I noticed that the ejector didn't look right. Sure enough part of it had broken off. Called NHC and shipped it back (again on their dime). This time however, weeks and weeks went by, to the point of calling them to find out what's up as my previous two experiences were quite fast in turn around. They told me it was "being tested at the range). Okay. In total I think they had the T3 for over 6 weeks. Left a sour taste in my mouth as compared to the first two "visits". Again, not necessarily negative as the work was top notch and I didn't really need the T3 and wanted the work done right. Just a bit miffed it took so long for something I didn't think would be that big of a deal to replace.

No problems since, but when I look at my three experiences, I'd have to call my overall position neutral. This was a couple of years ago, so I don't know how things are currently. Went from very impressed to "meh"...but not enough to say bad/negative.

[SevenSixTwoNATO]

I think when you pay Up to $4k on a pistol, you expect nothing to go wrong ever, and when it does, then your gun is the only gun they should look at.
In this day and age of wanton internet forum bashing, many companies are rolling out "Keep them happy no matter what" mantra,I think that's an entitlement syndrome as 1000 potential customers can look away if one squeaky wheel complains about something.
I havent had to send mine in, but they never got around to answering my emails a few months back,
basically,just to answer the question, where does one buy a backup mainspring for a longslide?

[Seaweed02]

Great Experience

I had a great experience. I bought a beautiful NC GRP chambered in 10mm. It was one of my 2014 SSE buys around August I believe. Then it was just too beautiful to shoot. So although I took it out of the safe and played with it, dry firing thousands of times, I had never fired it at the range with live ammo. Well a couple of months ago I finally decided to fire it and I was shocked to find that it had a hickup. It would cycle fine, ejecting a spent case, picking up the next round, and locking fully into battery. But the hammer would fall back to the half cock position at least 3 times every single magazine. I emailed NC and they sent me a return label which I used to send it back to them. They gave it back to me a couple of weeks later and it is perfect. I have a Wilson Combat CQB, an Ed Brown Special Forces, and a Les Baer Custom Carry, but the Nighthawk Custom GRP is my favorite 1911.