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I am considering a Rock Island Arms 1911 as my first 1911. I would like to hear about experiences with them, opinions, good, bad, quality of construction, etc, etc..........

Thanks in advance.

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If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
 
I have owned two of them. Well made, however they do often tend to have FTRB issues until worked in.....which is a good thing, because if you send it back to them, their customer service gunsmithing is sooo good, you will get a gun back worth $100-$200 more than you paid for it. They do everything from polish the feed ramp to dehorn the darn things.....Seriously. Go to http://forum.m1911.org/ to check out the feedback.
 
For a little more money you can get the Metro Arms Deluxe 1911. Great gun. Everything is upgraded for a little more money. Way more bang for your buck.

beavertail grip safety
extended safety
extended mag release and slide stop
lowered and flared ejection port..
around $400..............................RIA does not beat American Classic Deluxe. Look at my post in handgun discussion checkout my upgrade
 
For a little more money you can get the Metro Arms Deluxe 1911. Great gun. Everything is upgraded for a little more money. Way more bang for your buck.

beavertail grip safety
extended safety
extended mag release and slide stop
lowered and flared ejection port..
around $400..............................RIA does not beat American Classic Deluxe. Look at my post in handgun discussion checkout my upgrade

Extra features do not = quality...Taurus is a prime example. Who cares if you got 3 times the features if the features are crap. Gimme quality over features anyday and twice on the day my range is open. And gunsmiths who will make it right like RIA does. Metro has a far way to come to equal RIA satisfied customers.
 
Extra features do not = quality...Taurus is a prime example. Who cares if you got 3 times the features if the features are crap. Gimme quality over features anyday and twice on the day my range is open. And gunsmiths who will make it right like RIA does. Metro has a far way to come to equal RIA satisfied customers.

I love my Taurus 1911. What problem did you have with yours?
 
Bajablast, I have two Colt 1911's, Combat Commander, Gold Cup & a Rock Island Tactical, you can look up my posts and see the Rock Island. The Rock Island is one good buy, excellent service, and they are well made, same as a series 70 Colt which is good. Been shooting a Colt 1911 since 1974 and just bought my Rock Island Tactical and it is good. Check out the 1911 Organization forum about Rock Island. They are made by Armscor in the Philippines, who also make STI frames& some of thier pistols and a few others mentioned in the above posts. Check out thier website and forum. Spad
 
I have owned two of them. Well made, however they do often tend to have FTRB issues until worked in......

Pardon my stupidity, but what does FTRB mean?

Thanks.

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If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
 
"FTRB", From what I can surmise I think he means "failure to return to battery", inotherwards the slide not closing. Rock Island says to run 500 rounds thru the gun to break it in. I wouldn't worry about that,they are exellent pistols. Consider a lot of other branded pistols start off with a Rock Island and are slightly modified (different grips, or polished frames or slides) and stamped with a different name and a higher price, so that tells you how good they are. Bill
 
Thanks, I was all garbled up on that acronym.

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If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.
 
I just bought one, the guy who sold it to me said he had fired it five times, and it looked like it. Good price, $350 with two mags. One mag looked like a gunshow special, the other a Novak 8 round.

So I fire it within a few minutes of getting it home, factory 230 grn FMJ, three point jams! About 3 per mag.

So, I do the extractor workover, entry angles etc, and polish it. The tension is correct, hmm. The barrel ramp has an abrupt corner at the top, so I polish that (Since they were three point jams) and fire it again, down to about 1 jam per mag. I'm thinking about cheaper paper weights I've seen, pretty bummed out.

Next morning I wake up with "MAGS!" on my mind. (Duh!) I loaded up a Colt mag and viola! problem gone! Now, I'm thinking maybe the guy sold it thinking it was a paperweight.
Anyway, there are some burrs in the breech area of the slide that I would clean up anyway, but they weren't part of the problem. The breech face has the too common ledge on the left side (RH when looking from the front) that is marking the cartridge face, I'll smooth that out and polish it too. I expect the extra friction it takes to shine up the back of the cartridge has something to do with the initial three point jams.

But I'm pleased with the gun. I'll be buying more Checkmate hybrid dimple follower mags soon.

Oh yeah, the barrel bushing is looser than any 1911 I've ever owned, I bought an oversized one to fit to the gun. Also I bought checkered cocobolo grips for it, some of us don't like smooth grips.
 
Parts Production, probably was the magazine all the while. Hope you didn't screw it up by polishing to much:s0131:. Takes 500 rounds to break a Rock Island in. Good pistols. Spad

Didn't screw it up, everything I did was normal reliability stuff. I'm a noob to Northwest Firearms, but not to 1911's.

That ledge on the breechface is next, that's not good. It runs up the left side where the broach went a tad too deep, or the facing operation didn't go deep enough (Your choice) and left a raised ledge that rubs the left side of the cartridge face as it tries to ride up the breechface. I'd say it's .002", not much, but it's rubbing brass off as the case slides up. I've seen it in much more expensive .45's than this one. It catches the case just as it's sliding the last .050" to the raised battery position.
 
I looked at one today and was wondering about the feed ramp. The feed ramp I looked at, well it didn't look like a "ramp". I mean there was hardly an angle to the feed ramp. Is that normal? I've shot 1911's before, but this is one of the first ones that looked like it really needed some polishing/ramp work.
 
Usually the frame ramp doesn't need polishing, the bad thing is when the ramp is at the wrong angle, the 1911 is very picky about that, 31 1/2 degrees. I haven't gotten to the ramp checking stage yet, and probably won't have to.
 
Partsproduction. You seem very knowledgeable about 1911's, good to have you on the board here. Looking forward to your adventures with the Rock Island. Wish .45 ammo didn't cost so much, as I still enjoy shooting the old slabsides. Bill
 
+1 on the match-like trigger, once i swapped out the ugly smooth grips it came with and got it to the range i fell in love quickly. It has functioned great with everything I fed it ... LSWC, LRN, and JHP.
 

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