Yay or nay? Was looking at the tactical high cap .45..

I've owned a couple of their single stacks in .45 and 9mm

Including one of their 9mm/TCM Combos. I shot the crap out of that thing. Gave it to a friend that fired a solid 5000 rounds out of it so far no issues. He loves that thing. Blazer Aluminum was a no go in it but everything else worked fine.

Neat guns, nothing fancy but an excellent value. They would be my first choice in their price range of 1911s.

This. I bought a 4" 5 yrs ago, 5400 rounds. No issues.

These guns are a constant embarrassment to the 1911 industry.  They are probably the most economical 1911's on the market, yet they work reliably out of the box most of the time and with reasonable accuracy.

This, I have a standard 5" GI parked Rock Island. Cost me 425.00. I use it for carry, it eats anything I feed it.

I about to buy a Baby Rock in .380, like the Browning .380 it's  about 80 % scale but it's all steel construction and about a 100.00 cheaper.

Lifetime warranty.

Am I in before the elitist claims they are junk then admits he's never handled one? Bought the FS Tac a few years back when Buds had them on the Black Friday sale for $359. 5k rounds with no problems.

I got an RIA GI model at my LGS for $300. Probably the best $300 I've ever spent.

Buy with confidence. I lost count of how many rounds I have through my RIA 45 tactical. Best $400 I ever spent on a gun.

I've got 2 cs and one full size, single stacks. All shoot well with no problems. I like the cs a little better though.

this is the best honest answer i have 2 an fs tact ll and a cs tact both are very reliable i say the best bang for the dollar i added an egw bushing to the tact ll it now shoots an inch and a half at 25 yards all for less than 450 bucks.

bought a tac model 45 had to send it back it was a jam o matic,bought a xt 22 three weeks ago it will not run either. It is back to them now and they are emailing me 4 to 6 week turn around and they will not answer their phone. this will be my last RIA that this guy buys.

Never owned one but a competent local gunsmith I know says they're GTG.  And this is one crotchety fucker who won't work with several brands at all.

If I were to get back into building custom 1911s I would be using them as base guns.  Nothing wrong with them at all, back in the day the banner style roll mark was a deal breaker for me.  Now with the small one on the rear of the slide I have no issues with them.

They are kind of rough around the edges and exhibit some obvious cost cutting, but if you don't overpay for one, they are a good value.

I'm looking for a GI-style 1911A1, myself, so this is an interesting thread. I confess that I prefer the more-correct looks of the Auto-Ordnance and High-Standard GI models, but they are considerably more expensive and difficult to find. If the RIA guns are close, then I may look closer at one of them. The Cimarron guns are pretty cool, except for having to replace parts to get them closer to the GI look, and having the ejection port too big and low.

I've shot my 5" .38 Super a bunch with no issues. My son just picked up a "Big Rock" (6" double stack 10MM) and I'm really looking forward to burning up his ammo.

I bought one of their first 1911's when they came out and were right at 300 or so, used it for several years, never had any issue with it, picked up a 9mm Tactical in trade a couple years ago, love that gun, haven't had any issues with it other than the extended ambi safety was so large that I had to file down the top of a set of grips to allow the safety to move into the off position, but no issues other than that.

Never had any trouble with my RIA Gov't 9mm.

Which evidently, according to internet theory, is the second-least reliable configuration behind an Officer-length.

It just eats whatever crap I feed it. Even Tula, by the case full.

I should probably be getting around to swapping the springs, actually.

The smooth wood grips look nice, but kind of suck.

It's still my EDC, until I get that Izzy BHP refinished.

I love my ria 9mm.  It is my favorite 1911 and I have owned a few including colt and springfield.

So my question is, what's a good price for a 4" 9mm with a rail? Buds has the model 51699 for $630. I can't find them local. I like the 4" and honestly like the rail and vz grips, just don't know if it's a $650 gun when it's all said and done.

Today I examined a NIB 9mm Rock Island Rock Standard FS, sku 51632.  I don't know which was sloppier - the slide to frame fit, the barrel to bushing fit, or the barrel to slide fit.  

I think that pistol would be reliable.  There was nothing touching anywhere to keep it from cycling!  

However, there is NO WAY that pistol would ever shoot where you pointed it, without a lot of part exchanging and fitting taking place!  

Now, this is only one example, and it might in no way represent the entire brand.  It only illustrates that we should examine any prospective purchase carefully!  

Only accurate pistols are interesting!

Interesting, I bought the same model a couple months ago and it's very well fitted. I love shooting it, dead nuts accurate and no recoil. Factory mag sucks but other than that I'd definitely buy another one.

I paid about that much for the 5" 22 TCM / 9MM combo.   I may have a hard time paying that for a single stack.

Yeah, that is what I expected, based on what I read in this forum recently.  I hadn't seen one that bad in a LONG time!  

Goes to show ya, better examine what EVER you are considering buying!  

I got a RIA 1911A1 GI for $380 last year, It has been accurate and flawless. With a lifetime warrenty and excellent customer service, you can't go wrong.

I had a pistol shooting challenge thread going a couple of years ago. It was just a fun thing, basically no standard target, whatever worked for you, but the guideline was basically a quarter that I circled and darkened with a magic marker. For me smaller is better. We started at 10 yards I think, maybe it was 7, but we were moving back. My health went more to shit, and I couldn't go outside and stand long enough to shoot much, so I sort of let it die off.

Anyway, we had some real good shooters, and I kept a list on the top shooters, top groups, and what they were shooting. The only rule is you had to be standing and unsupported, no bench shooting.

My little $350 RIA GI was in the top ten for a long , long time. It has the GI sights ( read terrible and tiny that I can't see good ), and I'm nearsighted bad enough that I can't see the target clear, and sometimes it would disappear when focused on the front sight, and sometimes when I didn't have the gun up at all. I'm about 20/200+++ with astigmatism so bad that the eye doctors have commented that it's about as bad as they've seen.

I will say this. I have fitted a custom EGW bushing on mine, and it's tight. I like them tight enough to have to use a tool, but not have to use any real pressure on it when it's fitted as long as reliability is there. It will wear in and get to where it's only finger tight after shooting a few hundred rounds. It eats anything and everything, and I only had two failures on the first mag, factory mag, back in 2011 when I bought it, and that was with the factory bushing. I have shot hand loads of 200-225 and 230gr LSWCs, Xtreme double plated 200gr Flat Nose and 230gr HP, Hornady 230gr FMJ and 200-230gr XTPs, 230gr Gold Dots, 230gr Magtech FMJ , 165-185-230gr Magtech Guardian Gold, and an assortment of others. I've fired probably 2500 rounds now with two FTFs on the first day, and none since.

My buddy has one, and the range I used to go to has a rental that are both pushing 40K rounds.  On my buddies I was around for about 15-20K of them being fired if not more. (Working at a range he put 100 rounds a day on it, almost every day he worked for the year I was there).  He was in charge of the shady back room loading operation the owners had, so a lot of the ammo was way too hot sometimes too, gun didn't care.

Mine, I have about 6K on it, and working towards 7. I stopped really paying attention.

OP, this is the thread I had. It was EDC guns, so no fancy stuff, but it was 25ft, and five rounds, unsupported. I'd actually like to get this activated again and get more people in. The plan really was to start at 25ft, and then move back. Anyone having issues with groups could post a video or something of them shooting, and then the better shooters could look at stance, grip, trigger control etc, and see what was going on, and could help correct them and make them better shooters. Anyway, there are pics of the guns and the targets with measured groups. We had a few participants, and the old eyes, broke body, and RIA did decent enough.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1523176__The_official_ARFCOM_Practical_Pistolero__EDC_thread__Part_II_begins_1_1_14___10_yards__.html

I have had a couple of there Fullsize guns both in 9MM and 45 and never had any trouble with them, good gun for the money.

Well, that pretty much settles it for me then.. RIA/Armscor is GTG... Thanks for the info guys!

I was shooting my RIA a little low and left this weekend.  I was kind of disappointed.

Then I paced out the range to the target, realized it was about 65 yards and didn't feel so bad.

Between me and my FIL we have a beat up RIA and a bought new ATI, both have run thousands of rounds for us without issue. The Rock Island was really beat up looking and we picked it up for less than $250, but it functions well and is pretty dang accurate for GI sights. Who knows how much it was shot before we found it, but it doesn't look any worse for the wear now than it did when we got it. Shoot mostly reloads through them, but have shot all kinds of factory stuff too with no issues.

I love my RIA Tac. Yeah, it may not be as pretty as other 1911s, but it cost $350 and keeps up with 1911s that cost 3x as much.


I used cold blue on the slide logo, added a Dawson fiber optic front sight, added new grips, and use Wilson 47Ds in it.


 

My RIA GI feeds pretty much anything except Blazer Brass. I never tried aluminum Blazer in it. It also choked with Wilson 47Ds, so all I use now are Checkmate magazines. It's my EDC when I can wear suitable clothes.

I got rid of a Glock 26 a few weeks ago and replaced it with a Citadel 9mm 1911, and it's been a really nice pistol so far. I got it used with Tru-Glo tritium sights already installed, and other than needing to move the rear sight over a tad, it's been trouble free. The billboard on the left side of the slide got some cold-blue on it, and it's made it a lot less noticeable. All I need for it is more mags and ammo, maybe a set of Pachmayr Classic wraparound grips.

I ended up with a FS citadel 9mm in a big trade and after having a rock it seemed about the same, damn billboard bugged me and dude and liked glued some skateboard tape on the front strap which led to me doing a refinish on it, after about a 1000 rds it has been flawless except now it's having a hard time extracting at times and have heard of the same guns having this problem, so now need to get a new extractor( any ideas?)

But I wouldn't hesitate to recommend one for a beginner, truck fun or just one to shoot the snot out of, expect to replace z few things

My citadel after some work and some of green and flat black KG Gunkote

I'd probably sooner buy a Taurus PT1911 for roughly the same money.  Not super accurate, but for the same $450-500, you get features like beavertail, dot sights, ambi safety, and (most important) a trigger that isn't abysmal like you will get with an RIA.  The Taurus looks good, feels good and appears to be quite reliable.  Taurus CS is also very good should there be an issue.

When you say appears to be reliable, you own one?