Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Rock Island Arsenal 1911's.

might add another thing since i am on a roll. I think often people pay a lot more on a gun than they are actually capable of shooting to it's capability.

That's a good quote.

I thought so too.

Now you've stepped squarely into BSland.

Even the base-model RIA does not "require a lot of work". It may not have the bells & whistles you think it should have, but that doesn't mean it requires anything.

Might ask what it says about the gunsmith. He'd look kinda silly in the eyes of a fool with $4000 to blow on a gun that won't do $3700 worth of something the $300 gun will not do. Said fool might wonder about the whole business...if he got to thinkin'.

Seriously - those top gunsmiths don't want to waste their time on anybody who's looking to save money. By excluding (or dissing) an inexpensive gun like the RIA, they can weed out a bunch of those people (many of them with guns other than the RIA) and keep them from clogging up their in-box. Is it that hard for you to grasp that concept? The undertone (which is reasonable, BTW) that is there for all to see is "don't waste my time if you don't have deep pockets".

And on that note, anybody who spends $3700 on a handgun that is strictly for pleasure while his kids eat at McD's and his wife drives a 20 year-old car is, in my book, a fool.

Saw another piece of Filipino [bleep] at the local Emporium the other day. It felt nice and solid.
It was an ATI Government model made by RIA's competitor S.A.M. I understand that they
use bar stock for their slides with a cast frame. For $400 they are also worth a try.

Love the beginning of this clip.

Just curious how many here have had any interaction with smiths such as Yost, Hoag, Garthwaite, Christiansen, or any other of the top smiths in the business?

I have a real nice Nighthawk catalog I read in the john.

I have no dog in this fight, however, it has been related to me that some handgun smiths that specialize in the 1911 will not attempt to customize some particular guns because they are out of spec for the particular parts the smith likes to use. The holes and pins, ect. aren't exactly in the right place or slightly out of dimension compared to the standards of the 1911 as it was designed or as certain aftermarket parts are produced. That is a headache for the smith trying to match parts up or modify them to work if the gun is out of specification. At least that's what I've been told in the past... I dunno.

I sure would not spend $3.5K plus pistol and wait several years to have one of the name smiths work over a RIA. I would not want to spend any additional money on a RIA except for springs and magazines. If it proved worthy then maybe a trigger job from a local smith.

My one and only 1911 currently is a custom Delta Elite by D.R. Middlebrooks. Traded a like new Colt .38 Super Lite stright up for it 10 years ago. Nicely executed, but I would not have paid for the high cut grip, beveled slide, and various serrations.

Do you own any 1911's that are of dubious quality, but shoot surprisingly well?

After owning 20 1911's I am primarily a Colt or Baer guy, and think in their respective price ranges, they have the best batting average. I have owned several Colts made in the last 10-15 years, and really can't think of any of them that I would call a bad gun. The Colts from the 80's and early 90's? ummm....some did did have problems, some minor, some not so minor

The Springfield Mil-Spec guns seem to be fit a little looser than their "loaded" or "custom" models, and a more reliable, too. I had a .38 Super Mil-Spec and the silly thing would even run with anemic .38 ACP ammo. These are more expensive than the Rock Islands, but less than Colts or Kimbers.

Kimber's batting average seems to be about 40% problems. I do have a 10mm Target model, and it's pretty good, but not as reliable as my Colt 10mm's.

S&W and Sig are getting good buzz on their guns. I saw a Commander-size Sig 1911 this weekend - night sights, checkered front strap, $900. For those features, that's a pretty good buy.

The Norinco 1911's had a decent reputation, so it's certainly possible that RIA's run well, too. Honestly, I think if you use a good magazine, tune the extractor correctly, hit the major dimensions, and don't fit them too tight, it's not that hard to make a reliable 1911.

Another good buy for a shooter 1911 is a Sistema, the 1911A1 copies made in Argentina. They ARE 1911A1, mil spec guns in every sense of the name, and often have very attractive rollmarks on their slides, for what that's worth. Most I have seen have been carried (or stored in desk drawers) more than shot.

Nope, but I think you've stepped into fantasy land if you think a RIA is anything beyond a plinking gun at best.

You're just about as dumb as a f*cking brick. "Top gunsmiths" have incentive (get someone to explain "incentive" to you, little man) get their customers into a low up front price so they can pad the back end of a deal. Maybe you should get someone to explain that to you, because it's sure as hell obvious that you've probably never had the temerity to even have priced out -- let alone afford -- the services of a custom gunsmith for anything beyond nickel plating your trusty Hi Point.

I suppose the "McD's" -- I guess that's some kind of metrosexual/ebonics hipster bullshit for McDonald's, the choice of the better-dressed morbidly obese everywhere -- wife driving the beater must be drawn from your own experience. Your low-rent posts certainly point in that direction.

Since this seems to be a repeating pattern of failure to read, comprehend, and THEN post, allow me to reiterate. The Norinco was made from GOOD materials with proper hardness, that offered the ability to be machined. This is where the Filipino RIAs fall short. If the RIA was made from materials that could be reasonably welded without risk of cracking or peening, any "out of spec" holes wouldn't be of much consequence.

RIA: the Hi Point of 1911s.

Finally got to see all the clip. Looks like that el cheapo 1911 seems to do everything that is required of it.

Nope, BT - I never put my wife in a beater. Neither have I required her to work to pad my toy budget. I suspect that's more your style. If your reading comprehension was as good as your insult vocabulary, you might have caught on to that.

I have two RIA 1911s, both the 5" "Govt Model" clones with phosphate finish, one in 45 ACP and the other in 9mm. They aren't exactly M1911A1 clones because some details are different.

The 45 ACP version I bought used for $290 out the door. Using nothing but CMC Shooting Star mags I've put 1100 rounds of 230 gr FMJ reloads through this RIA in 2-1/2 years, and it has yet to fail to feed, fire, or eject. The only thing I did to it was tweak the extractor to stop the empties from hitting me on the head. As for accuracy, I can bust claybirds sitting prpped up on edge on the 25 yard berm, 7 or 8 for 8, each mag, if I'm doing my part.

Is it in the same class as a $3500 race gun? Not by $3200. Is it a great value in a plinker? I think so.

I liked the 45 ACP version so much I bought one in 9mm because I love the 1911 in 9mm. I have two other 9mm 1911s, a Series 70 Mk IV and an early 60s Lightweight Commander with the brown plastic grips and turning-plum colored slide. All three of the 9mm 1911s will also bust the 25 yd claybirds with boring repeatability. The RIA has 819 rds through it as of last weekend. Again, no failure of any kind, except for the slide fails to stay locked open with the SS Pachmayr 9mm mags. With Mecgar and Colt mags the slide locks back every time.

I own 12 different 1911s and clones at the moment, and for an inexpensive, apparently reliable plinker the RIA fits the bill in my opinion. I don't really care that top-drawer race gun builders don't use the RIA frame as a platform, because that doesn't really mean that much to me. They may use Norinco 1911s among others, but they didn't at first "back in the day." I was "present at the creation" in the late 80s and early 90s when the Norc 1911s first saw the light of day in the US, and there was much wailing and knashing of teeth w.r.t. "cheap Chinese junk" until someone tried to customize one and discovered their almost too-hard hardness. Lots of people in the 1911 community then quietly ate crow and started buying up $289 Norc 1911s.

Spot hardening is done because it imparts hardness and wear resistance at the localized points of high loading, leaving the rest of the slide/frame in a tougher, lower hardness state. The alternative is to harden the entire frame/slide but that can lead to brittleness.

I love the 1911. It stems from shooting my uncle's Colt back in the 60s when I was in late grade school, and as a 2111 (Small Arms Repairman) in the USMC/USMCR from '72 to '86. I've personally owned probably 30 or 35 different 1911s since the late 70s. I've worked on hundreds of M1911A1s in various stages of repair and disrepair that saw at the time around 30-35 years of use in a number of wars and conflicts. The 1911 may have it's (well-known) foibles but IMO the intrinsic design is brilliant.

IMO, the shift to modern manufacturing techniques including CMC machining and PLC-controlled heat treating and finishing processes has enable manufacturers to turn out a product that is much more in tolerance using little or no skilled labor. The days of the hand-fit firearm are on advanced life support; the hand-fit handgun manufacturers now have names like Wilson Combat, Les Baer, Performance Center, and Custom Shop. A CNC-produced product like the RIA or the Springfield "Mil-Spec" allows 1911 enthusiasts to acquire affordable weapons for now-and-again weekend plinking or just-in-case home defense.

JMO. The RIA "is what it is," fills a niche, can't be all things to everybody, and as such works for me.

Noah

A couple comments:

Norincos were decent pistols as is, and very good pistols after gunsmiths threw everything away but the frame and slide.

Spot hardening was done on Colts because they had yet to solve the problem of part warping and/or shrinking. Nowadays the only reason a manufacturer would spot treat is that it's cheaper or they don't know how.

Very good post. The Norinco was quite a pistol until Clinton banned their importation.