Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Rock Island 45 1911's?

Title says it all, are they any good? Major dissappointment?

I bought a used one in the classifieds and it's been great. Trigger at 4.5lbs or so. New grips and grip safety.

Dang Karnis, that's a nice pistola.....can't wait to get my 4506 in......

Thanks Karnis, I have found several lately that drew my interest. Sold my 44 Blackhawk and want a self defense/range shooter to play with.

Good solid guns at a reasonable price, they sell well for us.

That's been my experience. Very good pistols for the money and backed by excellent service.

Karnis, what are those grips? I like 'em.

Thanks guys, I've always wanted a 1911 45.

VZ grips. I bought the 320 slimline....

http://vzgrips.com/gun-grips

They are good. Reports and my experience indicate that you may have to do some minor fiddling and/or magazine swapping to get good reliability. Seems you will likely be learning to tune an extractor if you buy new. Nothing wrong with that, IMO. Mine had a measured 4.5lb trigger with a clean break - from the factory.

I replaced the too-loose-IMO barrel bushing on mine with a custom bushing from EGW (wasnt really necessary), swapped for a nicer trigger, fitted an oversize EGW firing pin stop (stock one was loose enough to allow some "clocking" of the extractor), changed grips, changed sights, and did some very minor "de-horning" on the grip safety. Made a real sweet shooter out of it without any large expense.

My son has it now, but I still enjoy shooting it.

I have played with many RIA�s and never had to adjust a single thing. All the one�s I�ve played with worked just fine right out of the box. I�ve worked on a grand total of one, installed some custom sights and other custom parts. There was nothing wrong with the gun, he just wanted to personalize it. Not only do they work well, but every one I�ve shot acquitted itself rather well in the accuracy department to boot.

I love mine.....I am hard on a gun and me owning a certain gun is basically a torture test. To date the RIA has faired much better than any out of the box 1911 in that price range and better than some that cost a LOT MORE $$$$. It is reliable and well made. You cannot beat the value you get in this gun.

Kevin, your experience is probably more relevant than mine. As usual, it is very possible that we tend to only see reports on the 'net when something isn't working. So, with the large number of RIA 1911 pistols being sold, there could be a corresponding relatively large number reported on the 'net with teething problems. I have to admit to overlooking that, and allowing my personal experience to color my bias.

Regardless - I wouldn't let any such reported minor "problems" keep me from buying an RIA 1911, since all that I've read of (and what I experienced) were simple little things to correct or adjust. Only thing that would keep me from buying an RIA would be the possibility that I don't mind spending more for something nicer at the time.

Having said that, and having recently bought an SR1911 that I am very happy with...I would certainly not rule out a future purchase of another RIA or other Armscor-produced 1911.

In line with what FreeMe said, there are relatively few RIAs for sale used on the net. Given the number that have been sold, I think it's a pretty good indicator of people generally being satisfied with their RIA pistols.

Here in Norcal at the gunshows a used RIA brings nearly as much as a new in the box gun....they are holding their value well and few come up for sale.

I call them a Diamond in the rough, a little tinkering and it is a sweet pistol. Can not beat the price.

What tinkering have you done to yours ... just curious???

I tinkered with my friends.

New Walnut grips, put on a Beavertail, new sights, and a commander hammer.

It was more for aesthetics.

I am thinking about buying a 1911 for my graduation present to myself.

There'd be far worse graduation gifts one could give themselves.

O M G, there's the friggin under-statement of the year

Oh I doubt that. Personal experience is personal experience and one person�s experience doesn�t trump another�s experience. When you take your experience and combine it with mine, what do you get? Well, you see that RIA is just like any other manufacturer�some are perfect, some are less than perfect, and I�m betting every now and then they produce an honest-to-goodness lemon�Just like most every other manufacturer. So it�s all relevant, and it�s all food for thought.

Most any time I�m on Gunbroker.com, I tend to wander to the bright nickel RIA�s in .38 super. One of these days I�m going to scratch that itch.