Just a heads up for my gun loving readership, there’s a new series of pistols coming to market this year. I’m friends with one of the managers there, but I didn’t think I could say anything about their new gun yet.
But here is the press release: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/01/13/new-firearms-company-nite-owl-firearms/
So I can probably talk about them now. 🙂
This is their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/niteowlfirearms
MSRP is in the same range as most of the other striker fired poly pistols. There’s no MIM, no forgings, all the metal parts are machined. The entire gun is made in the US.
All they’ve got up right now are the 3D renders, but I know they’ve been shooting the hell out of the prototypes and the first production guns should be out pretty soon. The company has been around for a long time, but doing machining for military contracts.
I don’t know if I can say who my friend is there, but he’s been in the gun industry forever, knows everybody, and knows his stuff. He’s told me about what they’re working on, and it is pretty damned cool.
I’ve asked for one of the first ones, so I’ll let you guys know how it runs.
Sweet! Also first post! Immortality is mine!! 😀
Sounds good, are they previewing it at SHOT?
Production guns weren’t ready I don’t think.
Looking forward to meeting with your “secret contact” at SHOT next week.
Tell him hi for me. 🙂
Looks a bit like a Glock slide stuck on an FNH grip, with a hint of SIG P250. Looks comfy and functional at the same time. I’d love to test drive one, especially if they launch a .45ACP or .357SIG model.
Will they be offering a .40 or an MHI commemorative?
You read my mind.
I’ve heard people complaining about the use of MIM parts before – but I’ve never heard anything bad about forgings. In fact, in my corner of the engineering world forging is considered almost an automatic plus for a part, being stronger and taking less material to manufacture than a machined part.
I suppose it does add an extra process, so it may be undesirable for smaller manufacturers in that sense.
Is there another reason I’m not aware of that you might want to avoid using a forged part in a firearm?
MIM sucks.
Forgings, it depends on who is making it and what they’re doing with it. Forgings kind of got a bad rap in the gun business for a long time because the only people really doing them were Ruger, and it was primarily to make the really clunky P series.
Lack of forgings or not probably don’t make a whole lot of difference now, but MIM remains the devil.
But the nice thing about MIM parts is that if they’re going to break, they’ll break early, then you can replace that part and probably be fine. You sell enough guns, you see a lot broken things come back. I’m 6 years out of date now but I used to hate selling Kimbers (and before that I was a Kimber fan boy) because they had a tendency to come back with things like thumb safeties snapped off. But like I said, normally they’d snap it off in the first few times they used it, replace that part, and be fine, because the barrels, slides, & frames were fine.
Again, haven’t sold guns for 6… Holy crap. 7 years now, so my knowledge is out of date when it comes to which manufacturers suck at what.
I think you mean castings. Ruger does castings. Most of their guns, from the Mini-14 to the Super Redhawk, are made of investment castings.
Currently, my faves are 1911-based models, Sigs (love the P229) and the XD series.
Don’t own one, but I use one at the range once every couple months for fun.
I’d be interested to see how these compare.
Looks good. Sure would be nice if they could offer a non-rail variant.
Much shorter URL that works just as well: https://facebook.com/niteowlfirearms
Be nice if they offered one in 10mm…
20 bucks says that thing will fit a glock holster. Any takers?
Now if the grip doesn’t suck like a gen1-3 block and the trigger isn’t mushy like all glocks I would be very interested
Also another $10 that they cut the sights to accept the glock, xd, or M&P dovetails.
And I would love a nickel for every fanboy that will say they are just “knock off glocks” (the slide does look it for sure)
I’m seeing “Yet Another Glockalike” at their web site. Ho-hum. A pretty crowded arena already.
However, (Nite Owl 9mm – Right Hand) jumped out. If this implies that a left-hand model will be available, I will admit to interest.
From the first link Larry posted:
“The pistols come with a full lifetime warranty and are designed for concealed carry, home defense, competitive use and general hobby. Additionally, the pistols will include true right and left hand iterations”
This will probably sound like a silly question, but what is MIM and why is it bad?
Metal Injection Molding.
I think it has a bad rap b/c it has a tendency to break, which is made up for in how cheaply you can make parts. So, non-critical items (safety levers, mag release buttons, etc) are sometimes made via MIM by the big gun mfg’s in order to save money on high-volume firearms.
I see, that makes sense. Thank you.
And it figures you post this right after I bought my first gun, (beretta px4 storm compact) oh well, maybe next time. I definitely like the idea of a completely southpaw friendly gun