Which Rock Island 1911 should I buy?

[tmoore912]

joepa150,
You will not know how reliable the gun is until you get it and shoot it with the Self defense ammo you want to use. Of all 1911s, Government size models are the most reliable. If it has issues, RIA has some excellent customer service.

 

[skoro]

For carry, I'd think one of the compact models would work best for you.

 

[DasFriek]

I own two 1911's, A PT1911 full sized and an RIA CS Officers 3.5" and despite what ive read here ive found the Officers much easier to carry IWB.
Oddly enough the RIA compacts are well known for being some of the most reliable small 1911's that don't cost $1k.
Mine shot well but needed a tad heavier recoil spring to be 100% reliable.
Mine is the GI style with fixed sights, So i hope the tactical has some trigger work done to it as mine was completely coated in parkerization on all the fire group and mating surfaces making for a gritty trigger.
A $35 trigger and some good love and care and the trigger is 10x better now.

 

[Olympus]

I'm not a fan of the compact/officer frame models. I owned a Citadel Compact (basically the same gun as the RIA) and it wouldn't feed a single hollowpoint from 3 different makers. I've found that this little detail gets forgotten often when discussing the compact Armscor guns, but they are not guaranteed to feed hollowpoint ammo. It says in black and white in the manual that the gun may require modification from a qualified gunsmith before the compact models will reliably feed hollowpoint ammo. Now there are some people whose guns will feed hollowpoint ammo without a problem. But there are other like me, whose guns wouldn't. But it would be a shame to go into a purchasing situation without knowing all the information.

 

[joepa150]

Olympus
Thank you for the heads up. I just started researching 1911 so my knowledge is limited and only based of the in internet and not real experience.

From my understanding, the smaller 1911 are more prone to feeding and ejecting problems. And to my understanding, a 1911 wasn't made to shoot hollow points BUT the modern makers may have modified the original design a bit in order to be able to do so.

Also I dont know what a gunsmith would need to do in order to have the compact realibly feed hollowpoints but to my understanding a polishing of the feed ramp can help and the RIA tactical models have this done already. This is just some info that I remember reading from different sources but this may not be true.

I am also thinking of spending a bit more and getting a Springfield GI Champion BUT I can't find those or order them anywhere in my area. They are all back ordered for a unknown time period.