Dark Hawk - ArniesAirsoft - Review Archive

Author

Corkbulb

Registered: April 2007
Location: Long Island, New York
Posts: 298

Review Date: 9/5/07

Would you recommend the product? No | Price you paid?: �52.60 | Rating: 4

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Full metal, heavy, nice feel, ammo capacity.
Cons:	Bad design, it's a piece of junk.

Hello to all airsofters. I am writing this review on the HFC Dark Hawk. I write reviews for two reasons, to warn people about bad, defective, poor designed, poor performing, unreliable and simply no good airsoft products. The second reason is to inform people about good, well built, accurate, durable and reliable guns that I would recommend. I will write my reviews as a story from the day I got the gun, and will not base my review on any others. I hope somebody is searching for reviews on Google or Yahoo about the HFC Dark Hawk and finds this. I hope that this reveiw answers all their questions about this gun and sets their mind on whether or not they want to buy it. This gun I DO NOT recommend for a few reasons. I only had this gun for 3 days and fired it about 1000 times before it stopped working and I returned it. I shall start my review:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I ordered my HFC Dark Hawk from www.redwolfairsoft.com with a spare magazine. The gun was $105 and the mag was $27. The items were shipped out on March 30, and arived on April 3. The gun came in a foam padded pistol case. Inside the case was the gun with the mag inserted, a pack of BBs and a BB loader. The manual was under the foam in the pistol case. The pistol was very heavy, about 3 pounds. The gun is not completely full metal, the recoil spring guide and the mag catch are plastic. The slide, frame, barrel, trigger, disassembly switch, both sights and internal hammer are metal.

FUNCTION

I took the gun and racked the slide. It locked back solidly in place with the empty mag. The trigger did not retract, the gun is single action. The mag catch is right where it is on any other pistol, behind the base of the trigger guard on the grip, but there is a grip contour thet runs right behind it, preventing it from being pushed with your thumb. You either have to reach around the contour to press it, or press it with your middle finger from around the grip. The mag falls out easy and goes in smoothly and locks in place with a solid CLICK. When the hammer is fired, it is a quiet, boring TICK. The gun has only one safety, located on the bottom of the frame in front of the trigger guard. It is a long switch that when slid towards the trigger guard, locks the trigger, that's it. The gun fits nice in the hands and it is comfortable and easy to aim. The sights are the same as a Glock 17, being that the gun has a glock slide. The white dots on the sights make easy target alignment.

TEAR DOWN

The gun tears down just like a Glock 17. To field strip it, first take out the magazine, then rack the silde. Press both sides of the disassembly switch down, which is located on the frame above the trigger. While holding down the disassembly switch, pull the slide forward off the frame. The hop-up ajustment wheel is located under the chamber on the outer barrel and is accessed by field stripping the gun. To break it down furthur, take the recoil spring guide and push it forward and pull it out. The barrel can be difficult to take out, but it can be done. Simply push it forward slightly and pull it up and out. It may take some force, but be careful not to hit the BB loading rod on the piston, it is plastic and may break off, rendering your gun non-funtional. The inner barrel and hop-up unit can be removed just by pulling it out of the outer barrel.

THE MAGAZINE

The magazine is the same as an HFC Glock 17 mag. The mag is full metal except for the base cover, mag lip and BB follower. The mag has a plasic cover on the bottom that protects the gas fill valve. To open it, just slide it forward. There is a big arrow and OPEN is stamped behind it, so it's stupidly obvious how to open it. You cannot open the cover while the mag is inserted into the gun. There is a rubber gasket on the fill valve to prevent spills. The mag takes about a 5 second charge of green gas and holds 25 BBs. You cannot fit more than 25. The mags are very difficult to load or unload. The loader provided is horrible and jams alot. It's also difficult to load the mags with a speed loader, it also jams up. The only easy way to load the mag is to pull down on the spring and put the BBs in one by one. The only real way to unload the mag is to take a fork and dig them out. The BBs are fitted well in the mag and the spring feeds good.

GUN CARE

Airsoft guns are toys, but just like real guns, in order to work properly, they need to be maintained. Tear down your airsoft guns and spray silicone oil, which can be purchased at any hardware store, on the slide rails, outer barrel, trigger assembly, hammer assembly, recoil guide and on and inside the piston. It will not hurt the rubber and plastic parts. WD-40 is nasty stuff and melts rubber and plastic within hours, so DO NOT use it. I would recommend only silicone based lubricants and I'm too afraid to try anything else. The mags need to be maintained too. NEVER press the gas release valve on the mags to discharge the gas. If done, the gas will discharge all at once, releasing all of its energy at once, get VERY cold and could freeze the O-rings and they could crack. Its OK to to it once or twice, but never do it on purpose. Just shoot the gun until it's out of gas. The mags must be lubed too. If not, the rubber O-rings will dry out from exposure to the air, silicone will protect from that. Empty the mag and spray some silicone on the fill valve and let it seep in. Press the gas release valve in and spray some silicone in the top where the gas comes out and let it seep in. I would recommend that the spring chamber on the mag is lubed too, to prevent BB jams. Also, before storing the mag, leave a little gas in the mag, just a tap, not even enough for one cycle. This keeps pressure on the O-rings to keep them sealed and in place. DO NOT leave more than enough gas for more than 2 cycles, otherwise the O-rings will be squished and could deform from the constant heavy pressure. Just a little pressure is good, not alot. Most people say that a dry barrel is most accurate, but with me, silicone down the barrel gives me noticably better accuracy and slightly more power, so - your choice to lube the inner barrel or not. The barrel must also be cleaned periodicly. Take a small piece of cotton and soak it in silicone, then with a rod (I use a wooden skewer, try not to use anything metal or it may scratch the barrel) tightly jam it down the barrel but stop before it gets pushed into the hop-up rubber. Then push it out the other way. Repeat this with a dry piece of cotton and your done. If the cotton is coated in black gook, then thats good because that gook is on the cotton and no longer in your barrel! If there is a cloud of silicone surrounding your gun and blasting out your barrel when you fire, then your good! It will only last for about 15 shots, so don't worry. The silicone will even out. You will need to re-lube your guns every 200-300 shots, sometimes more often. The mags should be lubed every time they are filled and discharged about 3 times. And try not to drop you guns or mags! One drop may do your guns or mags in, so carry them with care.

PERFORMANCE:

Now, down to the goods. I loaded the first mag with HFC134a gas and TSD sports .12g BBs to break in the gun. I field stripped the gun and lubed it. I turned off the hop and let the gun sit while I read the useless manual. I took the gun and loaded up. I use 6 inch targets with a BB catcher in my gutted living room (it won't be a target range forever). My living room is 24 feet across. I have the target in one corner ontop of a box which is ontop of a garbage can, about 4 feet off the ground. I stand in the opposite diagonal corner for maximum distance. From where I stand to the target is 22 feet. Pulling the trigger (with a cloud of silicone) POM! The gun had a quiet sound with HFC134a gas and the slide cycle was very smoothe and quick, but noticable. The gun had very little kick with HFC134a gas. I emptied the mag and the slide locked back in place. I reloaded and continued fire. When I was out of 134a gas, I had fired about 100 shots on one gas charge. The gun was nicely accurate, about 2 1/2 inch groupings at 22 feet with 134a gas and .12g BBs. While I was firing I has experienced my first problem with the Dark Hawk. The BBs would sometimes roll out the barrel and leave the chamber empty. See PROBLEMS below for more on this. After I was done with .12g BBs, I loaded the second mag with HFC134a and Crossman .2g BBs. The gun had little power and was shooting way low. With the hop-up all the way on, I could get the same accuracy with .12g BBs, 2 1/2 inch groupings at 22 feet. After I was done with HFC134a gas, I had fired about 200 shots out of my Dark Hawk. I then moved on to green gas and .2g BBs. Firing... BOOM! The gun was extremely loud and the slide cycle was almost instant. The gun is almost as loud as my WE 1911. The gun had a light recoil and was easy to rapid fire accurately. The cool down effect was surprisingly minimal, the mags did not need to be warmed up after a rapid fire mag. I could get about 80 shots on a single gas charge of green gas! However, rapid firing reduces that to about 55-65 shots.

PROBLEMS

I had my first major problem as soon as I got serious about getting accuracy results. I eventually got the hop-up setting right and the gun was shooting accurately, but the main grouping was up and to the left by 1 inch! I I cleaned the barrel to no effect. I asked my dad to shoot and he had the same problem, so it wasn't my aim. The sights are fixed on the Dark Hawk so I just decided to aim down to the right. I took the gun outside and took several shots in the distance. I watched in horror as the BBs curved up and to the left as soon as they left the barrel and got more off course the furthur they went. I aimed at a tree 60 feet away and the shots missed by 5 feet! I figured there was something wrong with the hop-up unit and I was correct. Looking down the barrel I could clearly see that the hop-up rubber was crooked and was tighter on the left side by ALOT! I promptly took apart the hop-up unit and was horrified how badly designed it was. The rubber was way too small to fit in the hop-up unit. I figured out how it adjusts:

HOP-UP

The adjustment wheel has a hollow groove that runs about halfway down the outside of the wheel. There is a piece of spring steel that is the shape of a bracket. It fits inside the groove in the wheel and is pushed up and down when the wheel is turned, in turn, pushing down on the top op the hop-up bucking. The hop-up unit in the HFC Dark Hawk works the same as the WE 1911 and they have the same hop-up bucking. The WE 1911's hop-up unit is much better built and assembled. The bracket, since it is not secured on the right side, pivots up to the left, where it connects to the wheel. This causes it to be tighter on the left side and shoot to the left. There is an easy way to fix crooked hop-up units of this design. I took pliers and simply bent the right side down which surprisingly worked. The only problem is since I bent the bracket down, I also increased the minimum hop-up setting, as in, It can't go off as far as it used to. To compensate for that, I also bent down the other side of the bracket which fixed that little trouble. If you are to do this on your hop-up unit, be VERY careful. The bracket is fragile spring steel which snaps VERY easily.

BACK TO PERFORMANCE

Alas! The gun now shot straight and accurate!
2 inch groupings at 22 feet, and that tree doesn't stand a chance anymore! Now I have fired my Dark Hawk about 500 times and unlike my KJ P226, it made it back in the box after a days shooting!

SECOND DAY'S PERFORMANCE

The HFC Dark Hawk performed just as good the second day as it did the first. Now shooting straight I was very satisfied. Encoraged, I then attempted to figure out how powerful the Dark Hawk was. It would only shoot through one side of a soda can and leave a large dent on the other side. At the same distance, my WE 1911 and KJ M9 would shoot right through both sides. I didn't have a chronograph at the time, but later chroned the WE 1911 and KJ M9 at 300 FPS. I can only assume that the HFC Dark Hawk shoots around 280 FPS. The gun was accurate, but not as accurate as my other guns. It was difficult to hit ketchup packets at 20 feet, as where my KJ M9 would make them a "can't miss" target. Prolonged shooting had revealed some more problems. The gun would shoot low and inaccurate and BBs would roll out the barrel. I knew what the culprit was - *THE* most annoying problem in any airsoft gun - resetting hop-up.

MORE HOP-UP TROUBLE

After about 150 shots, the hop-up, from where ever it was set, would turn completely off, resulting in loss of range, accuracy and BBs rolling out the barrel - another annoyance. This could be fixed by putting modeling clay on the outside of the adjustment wheel at the end of the off turn side, towards the back. This prevents the wheel from turning off while being fired. To make other adjustments, just put more clay on after turning wheel. Easy fix. The hop-up didn't change for the rest of the day, about 400 shots. The gun made it back in the box for a second time after day two.

DAY THREE - MAJOR PROBLEMS

Besides the hop-up trouble I had no other problems with it, until I had fired the Dark Hawk about 1,000 times. I was firing as usual and the slide got stuck back. I don't mean locked back in place by the slide lock, I mean WEDGED halfway back, with the piston still in the chamber. The slide was REALLY stuck. It took a smack with my hand to close it. I laughed and aimed back at the target. When I fired again, the same thing happened. Again and again, It would get stuck and not cycle. I took the gun apart, figuring I put something back together wrong, but the gun was fittet together properly. I re-lubed it to no effect. Again and angain, my Dark Hawk was now as useless as a spring pistol. The chamber was getting wedged along the inside top of the slide, as if the barrel was supposed to drop down but didn't. I greased the whole gun with silicone grease, but no amount of grease was going to help a wedge that was that tight. I examined the barrel drop-down mechanism and it was funtioning normally. I could cycle the slide by hand just fine, but when fired, the slide would get stuck . I fired it and un-wedged it about 100 or so times, figuring it would wear itself out, but it wasn't getting any looser. Apparently, the piston would expand forward as it's supposed to, push up on the barrel, prevent it from dropping down and get the barrel stuck on the slide. I don't understand why this problem would start after I had fired so many rounds and not happen when I first had the gun. I could not seem to fix the problem. The gun's poor design had lead to this. I contacted Redwolf and informed them of my problem. They told me to ship the Dark Hawk and the spare magazine back and gave me a full refund. I was extremely dissapointed because the money that had been refunded to me for the broken KJ P226 had been used to buy the Dark Hawk! Two pistols that didn't make it to my armory. It seems to be very difficult to buy full metal gas blowbacks that are not junk.

PROBLEM OVERVIEW

Here is a list of the problems I had with this piece of junk:

1) Even though the gun is full metal, the metal is of poor quality. The cast is poor and the resulting product is lightweight, cheap metal. I don't know what metal it is, but I can see the slide guide on the pistol breaking right off over time.

2) The gun has no rubber chamber. The BBs are held in by the hop-up bucking itself. If the hop-up is completely off, then the BBs will just roll out the barrel, so you need to run the gun with some hop-up.

3) The gun shoots crooked due to the poor design of the hop-up unit. The hop-up bucking is crooked, tighter on the left side, causing the gun to shoot up and to the left. At a distance, the effects increase, causing BBs to spin up and away far to the left and high from your target making long range accuracy impossible. This can be fixed, but is a modification right out of the box.

4) The hop-up resets over time. By far *THE* most annoying problem in any airsoft gun. The hop-up will gradually turn completely off over the course of 150 shots. Modeling clay on the adjustment wheel fixes this problem

5) After 1,000 shots fired, the slide started to jam halfway back, as described above. I could not fix the problem and don't see how it could be fixed. This problem is the main reason I have given this product a negative review.

CONCLUSION

The Dark Hawk is just an ugly, poor quality, made up idea that turned out to be a piece of junk. I gave it a 4/10 because of it's full metal design, heavy weight, nice feel and ammo capacity. It lost 6 points because it's a piece of junk, first the hop-up troubles and now it stopped working properly for no reason. I bought the HFC Dark Hawk after my KJW P226 was refunded, and now I have another non-funtional gas blowback handgun. I would never recommed this gun to anybody looking for a good gas gun. Just buy a KJ M9 or WE 1911 and you won't ever have problems. Again, I will be using the money refunded from the Dark Hawk to buy another gas blowback and write another review! I hope this review has convinced somebody not to buy this gun, it's just not worth the money.

Silas5150

Registered: January 2006
Location: California
Posts: 482

Review Date: 8/7/07

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Heavy, FULL metal, shoots straight
Cons:	Hard to load bbs fast

Okay, so about a month ago I managed to get to HFC guns for $40 shipped off of ebay, one being the ABS version of the M190 (semi), and the other being an HFC Darkhawk with chrome slide. I thought I should just provide another, more positive testimonial of the pistol than the one given.

NOTE:

To date, I have not had one problem with the pistol.

Okay, on to the ergos....

The gun is full metal. When I say full metal, I mean, FULL metal. While it may resemble some weird cross between a Sigma 40 and Glock, I had assumed that the lower frame would be ABS or some other form of polymer. It isn't. It's actually all metal, which contributes tremendously to the heft. The pistol fits nicely in the hand, but is molded for right handed shooters, so southpaws may have a bit of a problem with it.

Shooting Impressions:

This thing fires straight and fast! I've owned my fair share of pistols in the past, starting off with my old Y&P M9 NBB, then going through a TM MK23 NBB, KJW M9 GBB, WA M92FS, WA Kimber TLE/RL II, and a KWA G19, I can honestly say that this kicks harder on green than even my WA TLE/RL II (with metal slide), and that kicked HARD. The only niggle I have with its performance isn't really related to its performance, but instead its preperation. It has no means of loading bbs quickly, most magazines have some slot where bbs can be poured in, but, unfortunately, each and every bb needs to be fed by hand. Then again, a hard kicking, 300 + fps pistol makes up for this.

All in all, while not the prettiest thing on the planet, this little wonder sure seems reliable, and at about $80 retail, can't be beat for its value.

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ezspooner

Registered: March 2006
Posts: 3

Review Date: 26/3/09

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 8

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Heavy feel, Hard kick, Satisfying action.
Cons:	less than perfect fit of slide, internal components wear out

I have owned this pistol for years (since 2006) and it has served me very well. I find the hop up unit is reliable and the pistol shoots straight. I love the weight of it (make sure you have a strong holster). It has a simple yet very realistic feeling slide lock and release mechanism, the magazines fit snugly and the angle of the cover on the mag release catch means you are never going to drop a mag while drawing or using the pistol.

Slide Jamming:
This has happened to be recently (after 000's of BB's) and was a frustrating problem, however upon examination, it was caused by contact wear between the plastic hop up casing and the metal outer barrel.
The issue is that the slide and outer barrel need to move back together before the outer barrel can drop down and allow the slide to pass it. The contact between the slide and outer barrel is the front edge of the ejection port so if the outer barrel is not in the correct position, the slide will not pull the outer barrel back with it and therefore the outer barrel will not drop and the slide will jam.
It is hard to explain without photos however a dab of epoxy resin in the correct place has fixed this problem. I am happy to provide more details if anyone requests them.

Power:
as an afterthought, I've just chrono'd mine with 0.2's and the results where 255, 257 and 248 fps with the hop up set. so there are more powerful pistols out there but it's a price I'm willing to pay for one that feels and sounds this menacing (mine is the one with the nickel slide and it doesn't have the red rubbish at the muzzle)