Walther's Nighthawk
The Walther Nighthawk
When you open up the case containing your new Walther Nighthawk, you will be greeted by a sight similar to the one above. Neatly contained in its own little area, you will find a Walther Nighthawk, a flashlight, a pressure switch for said flashlight, two rotary magazines for the gun, batteries for the flashlight, allen wrenches for fastening accessories tightly to your gun.....everything you need to be up and running in short area......except for pellets. You'll have to buy your own!
Once assembled, your air gun should look something like the picture below, but with 4 weaver-style rails, you can designate where all the accessories attach:
Where you place the pressure switch to operate the flashlight is up to you, though the cord is short and will limit your options somewhat. However, once you have it mounted and powered-up with the included batteries, you are ready to do some fun plinking in dim light!
The mock silencer is attached to the gun, but unscrews readily. The exposed threads at the end of the barrel can be covered with an attractive thread-cover, if that look is what you prefer. One nice effect of having the mock silencer attached is that in warm weather, you get a slight smoke from the end of the barrel due to the CO2 gas working its way out. The silencer does not reduce the report of the gun, it is for looks only. But if you are into realism, this is an excellent choice for the hobby shooter!
To load the gun, first install a powerlet into the grip of the gun. Remove the grip by depressing the button that, on a real gun, would eject the magazine from the handle. On the Nighthawk, this serves to eject the powerlet chamber, and you have to install the powerlet in the holder. Follow the directions in the manual as the first time you do this you may be a little confused. You have to turn the bottom of the powerlet holder two different directions to make the CO2 gas flow as needed into the gun.
Once your CO2 is installed, take a practice shot with no magazine in the gun to see if you did it properly. Once your gun is firing gas, then open the slide by depressing the button you see under my thumb in this next picture. The slide will pop forward and you can install a loaded 8-shot rotary magazine. Close the slide, and you are ready to shoot!
The safety is found on the right side of the gun, and the gun operates in double-action only mode, meaning that each squeeze of the trigger has the same resistance, and there is no exposed hammer to cock. So squeeze off your 8 shots, pop open the slide, insert your next pre-loaded magazine, and you can fire off 16 shots very quickly indeed. As a can mangler, this air gun will please many a shooter.
I loaded a fresh CO2 powerlet into the Nighthawk and started placing holes in a can. I ran a shot or two across the chrony and came up with a velocity of 342 fps with .177 caliber wadcutters. This is more than enough for plinking and can-mangling at short range, which is what the Nighthawk is designed for. And it is SO real looking, it will amaze you!
The Nighthawk comes with a reddot sight already installed which includes 11 settings, and all you need to do is to center the dot on target and you are ready to go! A fun, realistic-shooting airgun that won't break your hobby budget, coming in at only $159.00 at the time of this article. So enjoy shooting this gun...but buy lots of pellets, cause you are going to need them!
