A few months ago I purchased a Rock Island Arms 1911 Tactial. All I can say is this is one fine weapon. Out of the box it chambers anything from FMJ to Corbons with no feed problems. Not everyone can afford a Wilson Combat 1911, wish I could. For the guy who doesn’t have an endless stack of cash this is a good choice for just shooting or carry. I carry mine every day with full confidence in it to perform. Just curious as to anyone else who has bought one and their feelings on it. Charlie Mike
I know a few people that swear by them. I can’t pull myself to buy one just yet but every time I see their tactical model with the full length frame railed model I want to snag one up and work off of it. Colt is pretty much the standard here and I understand why but they are a little pricey for me as well as I have more hobbies than just 1911s.
Need to slow you down a bit, brother. Pleased that you have gotten good initial results from this pistol, but problems with these guns are widely-reported, and I’m not sure that we can infer much from a sample size of one and an unknown round count.
I’d readily-agree that not every 1911 shooter needs a Wilson Combat pistol, and a lot of Wilson owners these days really aren’t much into shooting (a separate rant), but there are admittedly much better options to be had in a production-grade 1911. We’re past that point here, so for purposes of this discussion, I’ll just focus on RIA/ARMSCOR.
At this price point, you need to be watchful for two things in a 1911: proper initial set-up and component quality. Many RIAs are compromised on the former, but not all, and it sounds like you may have gotten one of the better ones. All RIAs fall victim to the latter to at least some degree (springs, mags, extractors), but again, this may not take on any special relevance to you, depending upon how much you shoot the gun. Don’t feel too singled-out, though: SIG, Ruger, Kimber … they are all dealing with most these same concerns, and some are even worse. If you’re not already experiencing failures-to-fire, you’re probably well ahead of the power curve.
Fortunately, most of these issues can be addressed/corrected to at least some degree should they ultimately become an issue for you, but it can take some of the shine off of the apple if it means spending more money that could have gotten you a service grade (versus hobby grade) 1911 to start with. That’s why we point folks to Colt or Springfield in a production-grade gun – better setup, better parts, and generally much less to address later.
The RIA board at 1911Forum may be a good place for you to stay on top of the good and bad associated with your particular gun. We aren’t averse to having these discussions here, of course, but you have to keep in mind that we don’t really devote a lot of time to talking about Bushmasters and DMPS rifles, either, and a RIA 1911 is basically an equivalent product in terms of what it represents on the market. Low cost of entry. Relatively low quality. Often significantly-higher cost of ownership if you intend to actually use it, because there are likely things that will need to be corrected/upgraded to get the gun up to true service standards over time. All depends upon what you do/intend to do with the gun.
Not whizzing in your Wheaties by any stretch of the imagination, but you’ll be far better-served by knowing and understanding what you’ve actually got than by believing that it might be something that it just isn’t.
AC
Do you mean “Rock Island Armory”, or a different company named “Rock Island Arms”?
Never can tell, all kinds of variants out there in play.
I’ve owned a RIA 5" 1911 GI since 2006 and I have had fantastic luck with it. I’ve owned numerous different 1911s at all ends of the quality spectrum, and IMHO my base-level RIA has performed just as well as any other I own regardless of price point. No parts failures, no issues, works great straight-out-of-the-box – I haven’t even had to tweak the extractor. I haven’t felt guilty about thrashing it (picked it up for sub-$300), and it has put up with every bit of work I’ve sent its way. I highly recommend it.
It is important to remember, though, that as great as most RIAs do and as great as Armscor’s customer service is, they’re still budget guns. Lots of folks on the 1911 forums get a little overzealous about the RIA’s reliability and that they don’t break much in the way of parts and frequently start comparing them to Colts and Baers and the like. Just in the same way that “budget” ARs can look and perform a lot like their more expensive counterparts at the high end of the spectrum, there are notable differences in fit/finish and possibly long-term durability.
I’m pretty much a plinker and sport shooter. My idea of “hard use” is a day of 400 or 500 rounds of WWB and cast lead reloads at steel plates for fun. My type of use doesn’t really require the reliability and precision of a higher-end pistol, so YMMV depending on what your expectations and needs are.
My thought is, if you’re first post here is to defend another el cheapo 1911, you pretty much kill your credibility not even spelling the company name correctly or the word “tactical.” The Chief - per usual - covered the essential issues here.
You will find many threads here discussing the potential pros/cons of 1911s of different costs to give you an idea of where those who really know the 1911 fall on that topic. Search option is your friend.
Me, I feel the 1911 is not a gun that suffers cutting corners well, and if one can’t afford the good stuff, then don’t buy a 1911, when there’s so many solid choices in handguns costing less than that RIA, much less a Wilson 1911.
And I say that as an ex dedicated 1911 shooter who now carries an M&P
I got a Rock Island ARMORY Officers 1911 from my wife for my birthday 4 years ago. When I opened up the box, I feigned interest to please my wife. I took it out and shot a couple hundred rounds through it with no problems the first time. Mine has the GI sights, and I hate them. I started having problems with it not going back into battery, so I changed out the recoil spring with a Wilson Combat 24lb IIRC, and that fixed it. The ACT mag that comes with them are junk, throw it away and buy WCs, mine also likes Kimber mags. I’ve run mine in IDPA BUG matches, with excellent results.
Would I buy another? No. I wouldn’t own this one had my wife not bought it for me.
Would I carry it? Not until I get some trijicons installed. It is reliable enough that I know it will work when I need it to.
Is it my only 1911? No. My 5" is a SA RO.
I will not be buying anymore RIA 1911s, simply because I’m interested in higher end 1911s.
My 1st handgun was a RIA 1911 Tactical.
Junk.
Sold it and bought a Glock.
Happy you like your pistol. If I may ask, when you say that it has no feeding problems, does that mean that you’ve run over 1000 trouble free rounds through it? Trouble free being the key, which is why I ask the question. Also, something that was brought up in another thread is that reliability and durability are not necessarily synonymous with each other, which of course is worth consideration as well.
If it’s passed the reliability test and you’re comfortable with it as an SD gun; cool. I will say that your comfort level and mine aren’t quite the same. My $500 comfortable gun is a Glock. But that’s just me and everyone has a different threshold. If it works for you, enjoy.
THIS!
Except mine was a Para, sold it… Got a Beretta.
In what way, specifically, was it “junk”?
Failures to feed with multiple magazines.
Ball ammo and hollow points.
At least one failure per magazine.
I had a RIA Tactical for a little over a week. I had numerous failures to feed, failures to extract in each mag. All with factory 230gr ball ammo. It locked up so hard that I had to use a truck bumper to get the live round out. The thumb safety more slid into place than the sure click I have from my Dan Wesson.
In that week I shot about 100 rounds a day and it never got “broken in”. I sold it off as a project gun with full disclosure. Spend a little more and get a Springfield or Colt. Don’t get me started on Taurus PT1911s. :suicide:
I bought a 5" RIA Tactical last year just to see what all the fuss was about. Replaced the FLGR with a GI type and put in a single-side thumb safety. So far I have had no problems firing appx 100 rds per month. The gun is pretty tolerant of magazines with the exception of CMCs. I am not a fan of the ACT mags even though they have worked so far.
To date I have fired generic 230 ball, 200gr LSWC, Hornady 230 gr XTPs and some Gold Dots. I never expected it to be the equal of a high end gun or even a Colt, but so far I have been pleasantly surprised.
Things I don’t like:
Grip safety - the bump is too low. Why they did this is beyond me.
Sights - front too wide, rear too narrow just like pretty much every factory set on most handguns.
Ambi-safety - edges are sharp.
FTFs seem to be, by a wide margin, the most commonly-reported fault with these RIA guns. Others seem to run fine, at least for a time.
As with most budget 1911s (or pistols in general) though, it is often hard to tell what “mine has worked great since Day One” means, since almost no one ever reports an associated round count. When pressed, most of the guys that make these kinds of un-quantified statements tend to reveal that they consider a few hundred rounds to be reasonably-heavy use. That may be annually. It may be total round count. You never really know what they may be thinking.
At that point, you basically have to learn to recognize that most of these conversations are effectively over, as you are talking to someone with very different expectations of a gun, and very likely a sentimental attachment to whatever it is/was that they purchased.
AC
Well put post!
I was not impressed with the grips and ended up swapping them out for Ergo XTs. It just seemed the wood ones that were shipping with the pistol were fatter than normal. Could have been I was just used to the slimmer profile as well. And only issues I’ve had with the 9mm version were directly attributed to ammo (under powered Brown Bear).
And hate that huge honking ambi safety they throw on that thing.
One thing about the OP I’ll mention is the fact that the Rock Island is not a bad choice for someone on the fence about buying a 1911. Let’s face it, it’s a pistol you either love or hate, generally no middle ground and some time behind the trigger is necessary for one to either grow to love it or hate it. If one can’t justify dropping upwards of a grand on a Colt or Springfield just to try out to see if it takes, the RIA does give a decently priced option for someone in that market.
If you end up loving it, you can upgrade to another, higher quality choice in the future. If you hate it, the chances of you losing big on a $500 pistol aren’t great as they tend to hold a decent resale value.
Agreed, but I tend to advise people to look for a lightly used SA or Colt, etc product for that reason. My first 1911 was a slightly used S&W base model gun. I shot the shit out of it for a year or so (no exact rnd counts) with range time, weekly IDPA, a few courses, etc with not a single issue with the gun.
During that time, I researched 1911s a bit and learned what I liked abd didn’t like about the one I had, and what was the logical move up.
But, the times that I did have the chance to really push a 1911 in “hard use” fashion was a course that required almost 2k rnds in two days. I was using a Colt m1a1 and had changed only the grips ans the sites.
At approx 1k rnds in the course, the slide release level broke. The gun wold function after that, but slide will not lock back on last rnd. Had to go through the rest of the class like that.
To me, it indicated the difference between the stress put on a gun during “hard use” is quite different than when the rnd count is spread out, even though the total count may be the same/similar, and it stuck me again (in terms of advice from the BTDT types of the 1911 world) about what makes a hard use gun vs plinker, and one may find out at the worst possible time.
Nothing in the above is “proof” per se of one brand being better than another* but was learning op to me at least.
- = interesting, I posted my experience with the m1a1 slide release breaking, and a number of well known smiths told me that particular model and year there seemed to have a higher than normal slide release levers breaking (bad batch of MIM? Not sure) and they tended to replace them in that gun.
Can’t disagree with that logic. But Colts and Springers tend to hold a pretty high resale value as well which tends to be a few hundred above a brand new RIA. Being made in the Philippines where wages are absurdly low to keep the cost down doesn’t hurt either.
As a hard use gun? Can’t say it works for that as I’ve not put enough rounds downrange from mine to tell. But then again, most people on here steer you towards the high end 1911s as fighting handguns before anything else.
I purchased a RIA 1911 9mm pistol several months back and I have been beating the living daylights out of it. I had to make a couple of adjustments to the pistol when I first bought it, but I have not had to buy any parts or do anything to it since.
It is not quite as accurate as I would like, but it is not a target pistol. It will still hold under 4" at 25 yards with everything I reload or pick up at the store and that is good enough for now.
I am keeping track of every round fired and will post the round count when something finally breaks.
So glad of all the expert feedback. Some of you call my Rock Island junk, that’s your choice. If I carry a weapon every day knowing the possiblity might come along that I would need it to defend myself, then I better have 100% confidence in it. From the way my 1911 is being trashed you’d think I was better off throwing rocks. Sorry, I can’t afford a $3500 1911 like some can. But this piece has never failed me using factory loads or my own reloads. Thought this was a place where just plain gun guys got together and talked. By the way I also have a Smith&Wesson M&P 45 that I like very much. Now you can trash it as well. Charlie Mike.
Friend, nobody is trashing your specific handgun. Others have chimed in with their experiences with that particular model and some have expressed displeasure with same.
Lot’s of folks have bad experiences or other with a particular brand/model. And let’s face it, they are a hit and miss pistol as some will run them way harder than others. If it works for you, by all means, it works for you. But it may not be the be all, end all of the 1911 world for others.
Yes, this is a place where plain gun guys get together and talk. And furthermore, where you get plain gun guys as well as experts in the field telling you like it is. Can’t handle it? Might not be the place for you.