New Rock Island Armory 1911 .45

[Rick the Librarian]

I decided to get a "working" 1911 .45 to take to the range and generally, be able to fool around with, so I bought one through Gunbroker for $347, plus shipping, which seems to be a pretty good price. I picked it up last night just before I went to bed. (Washington State has a 5-day waiting period for pistols sold within the state)

It looks like a solidly-built pistol. The first thing I did was replace the grips. The smooth ones that came with the pistol just don't give you a good (no pun intended) "grip" IMHO. I looked for some grips at the gunshow last weekend but was glad I decided to not buy any. I found no less than three sets of grips in my stuff at home, including a decent pair of wood grips. I decided to go with a pair of dark plastic grips (pictured). The mahogany smooth grips are in one of the pictures for comparison. The 8-round magazine looked a little cheesy and I'll probably replace with a standard GI one. I also include a "family" shot of my RIA with my two other M1911s 1) my M1911A1 Remington-Rand (below the RIA in the picture) and my 1918 Colt M1911. (above the RIA) The RIA seems to have (more or less) the profile of the M1911, not the A1) Now, I can keep the M1911s at home and just use the RIA. I'm very pleased!

Apologies for the pictures - taken at an early hour with a flash.

[Nick Riviezzo]

Rick, several years ago I lucked into a complete 1945 Colt 1911A1 minus frame. At a gun show I bought an RIA GI look alike and put ALL the Colt parts into the frame except the grip safety without any problems at all.I had to use the RIA grip safety to get the pistol to work without any fitting or filing.The pistol looked great[you really had to look to see it wasn't a real WWII pistol], it shot great[no malfunctions with WWII mags] and was totally reliable and very accurate.I subsequently found a Colt frame and put the RIA back to its' original shape and sold it [reluctantly] for more than I paid for it. I have since heard of an occassional problem with frame tolerances but I had none and if I didn't have a Rem-Rand that was ruined by BUBBA to play and experiment with I would still have that RIA. I was very suprised at the tolerances and the quality.I hope everybody has the same results I did.For what it's worth. Nick PS. the grip panel on the left side of your RIA looks like it was modified to fit a Norwegian! NR

[Rick the Librarian]

I haven't taken it to the range, as yet, and everything on the RIA does seem a little stiff. The slide release gets almost impossible to work with a couple of my magazines, but I have enough magazines that several work well. I may try a couple of really nice ones and see what happens. Regarding the left grip, someone asked if it was broken, but it looks too "smooth" to be so.

[Johnny in Texas]

A shooting instructor advised me not to use the slide release. Just pull the slide back and let go. Under stress in a combat situation you loose some of your motor skills like the thumb release action. FWIW

[Rick the Librarian]

Good hint - I'll remember that.