ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL COMMANDER .45

RIA “Commander”

(A Quick Test)

     Confession:  I love 1911s.  I used to not, thought they were “old,” was tired of .45 people shoving big-bore or go home talk down my throat, etc., etc.  Taking my share of lumps for carrying “that silly nine-millimeter” Browning Hi-Power the first several years of my career didn’t endear me to joining the 1911 club.  Oh, I bought a Llama before my sworn-in days, but that only got me derided even worse.  In truth, it was one of the Spanish company's less reliable efforts so the sale of it funded my duty gear needed for the police academy.

     Then, I started shooting .45s.  Truth be told, in my pre-Browning HP days, I got to shoot one 1911.  It was a tricked out competition Colt Commander with which a now sadly deceased friend of mine was getting ready to enter local competitions.  I was new to center fire police-style courses and didn’t shoot it as well as I wanted to but it gave me an idea what I could do with time and practice.  Fast forward about three years and I wound up buying a used .45 Sig-Sauer P220 that I carried until I literally shot it to the point it was so worn that the formerly one-hole-at-25 yards pistol began shooting shotgun-like patterns at half that distance.   An H&K USP .45 solved that problem for a bit until a firing pin malady laid it out of action as well.  Yes, I had both a SIG-Sauer and an H&K go bad on me. This just proves that there is no such thing as perfect.  There may be a curse involved too, as I've had other premium pistols fail as well.  I have shot a lot of handguns over the decades and a whole lot of ammunition, though so some bad luck was bound to happen.
     In any case, the U.S. Army via their 10-33 program (the same on Obama and his cronies vilified for "militarizing the police") loaned my agency a batch of WWII era 1911-A1s. I got my pick of the litter just as my H&K began sputtering and became as reliable as a liberal’s campaign promises.  That 60 year old warhorse shot as good as my H&K and I flat out LOVED it.  I carried it and though we weren’t supposed to modify it, wound up putting a Wilson Combat ambidextrous safety on it.  In a haste to get my office cleaned out upon retirement, I wound up not having time to get my safety back (my former training Lt. told me I can come get it so long as I have the original to put back on … but so MANY boxes to go through to find such a tiny part … so … MANY boxes …).

     And here we are today.  I had to turn in the Army’s pistol when I retired.  I went to a local gun show with money burning a hole in my pocket.  One of my favorite dealers was there.  I like to think I’m one of his favorite customers as I’ve said several times I need to find him first, hand  him a check and come back in an hour to see what he thinks I needed to buy.  Lowest prices and great service.  I don’t know if he wants his name mentioned or not, but his company is Jeff's Shooter's Supply in Adger, Alabama. Jeff's shop includes NFA items, so if you’re around his neck o'the woods it’s worth giving him a call (appointment only).  That’s my unsolicited, free advertisement for the day.

     So, where was I?  Oh, yes, at a gun show looking at one of my favorite dealer's wares. There in his case, as I knew there would be, were several Rock Island Arsenal (RIA) 1911s.  I saw the Commander next to the full sized Gov’t model.  Price for either was $436.  Yep.  You read that right.  Everything I’ve read about RIA indicates they rock and perform at least as well as the much more expensive ones.  Word has it that the prestigious STI uses RIA frames for their fancy expensive pieces.  RIA is located in the Philippines.  That they are made off-shore and come at such a low price compared to the usual $700 up of other company’s pistols turn many folks away from them.  But everyone I know with one (and many whose word I trust on internet forums, sucker that I may be) give it 5 out of 5 stars.

     I chose the Commander sized pistol for its slightly better portability.  This gave me the full size frame but a 4 ¼” barrel and slide.  Thus, it has a wee bit less length to poke out from under the hem of one’s covering garment when carried on the belt, or print around one’s rear pocket in IWB carry (remember, my attempts to be tall were one of my less successful endeavors).  I love the way Commander style pistols balance in my hands so for me at least I got an even better fit than I did with the full size 1911 A-1.

     The pistol came with the usual fat wooden RIA grips.  I don’t know why RIA puts grips on their 1911 lines that are so thick the gun feels more like a double stack than an elegant single stack masterpiece designed by John M. Browning, but they do.  At the same gun show I bought a pair of thin hard rubber Hogue grips for under $20.  They make the piece feel like JMB intended:  Perfect!  It also came with one 8-round, flush fitting magazine.  Well, it has a very slight pinky rest floor plate but if you can live with that (I can) it gives you one extra round, making this a 9-shot pistol when fully loaded.  The magazine looks identical to the two Mec-Gar 8-rounders I had on hand from my previous carry of the beloved and sadly now turned in Remington-Rand.  It comes with a flat, checkered mainspring housing (like the original 1911) and what looks like the short trigger of the 1911-A1.  It looks like the ejection port is lowered a wee bit, too.  All in all, I felt it was quite nice.  I can never decide if I prefer the mainspring housing arched or not.  I’ve not found one to feel or perform better than the other in my hands.  The flat one makes the grip feel a tiny bit smaller in circumference so I see it as a plus.  The trigger is grooved rather (IMHO) aggressively.  I don’t like the way it feels on my finger, but it didn’t affect my shooting one bit.  I grabbed two boxed of PVRI-Partizan 230 grain FMJ, ran home, grabbed some Federal 230 grain Hydra-Shoks (my JHP of choice) and drove to the range.

     Upon arrival I found two police snipers were doing their weekend rifle workout.  One used to work with me and the other is newer to the game and works in the city where I live.  We talked for a bit, and then they told me they were letting their bores cool so I had a few minutes to shoot.  Good manners required I only take a tiny bit of their time, so I ran 25 rounds of the PVRI-Partizan hardball through the piece.  It ran smoothly and shot very well.  I hammered Pepper Poppers with it.  It felt like full power stuff.  Speaking for my perspective, the .45 ACP, especially in the (to me) ergonomically almost perfect 1911 format has more of a push than a shove and I was easily able to land 4 hits on Pepper Poppers before they hit the ground (before they tilted back beyond 45 degrees, actually).  I ran rapid, Hammer The Targets drills seeking to really test the magazines, the ammunition, and the weapon.  All worked fine.

     The 230 grain Federal Hydra-Shok round I’ve found to be reliable in a lot of pistols that otherwise are essentially “ball only.”  For such an aggressively expanding hollow point, it has a very rounded profile.  Anyway, I shot some water jugs (1 gallon plastic jugs) from about 5 yards.  Yes, I got wet.  First water jug blew apart.  The second one flew off the table in only slightly better shape.  The third one was pouring water out of two rather impressive holes.  The forth one was leaking rapidly from a hole next to the third jug.  The fully expanded Hydra-Shok was in the third jug.  It appears it exited the third jug, knocked a hole in the fourth jug, hitting it so hard it blew the twist-off cap off, then bounced back into the third jug.  I’ve heard of bullets going through a body in a front-to-rear shot and stretching the back skin so much that the skin snaps back like a sling-shot, propelling the bullet back into the body.  In any case that’s what happened to our bullet.  Beautiful expansion.  A piece of one of the jacket “petals” was in the first jug and one in the second as well.  A second attempt was made to shoot three remaining jugs.  The first jug blew apart as did the third jug.  The middle jug had nice entry and exit holes, but remained more-or-less in place. I guess either the pressure of the two fore and aft jugs either kept the center one in place, or the bullet began yawing when exiting the second one and smacked the third one harder.  In any case the bullet then went on and was not recovered.  Water understates penetration and overstate expansion a wee bit, speaking very generally.  So, I think I can live with that degree of penetration.  Seems unlikely to exit but likely to get deeply enough that even a really huge, muscles courtesy of Club Fed bad guy can still get his vitals punched through.  The one mammal I ever shot with that round was a medium-large dog.  It was a vicious dog, wild, and had chased (and I believe bitten) neighborhood children.  I shot it once side to side.  There was an exit and it was a pretty impressive exit.  Not fist sized or anything, that’s all in fiction.  It was roughly quarter sized, maybe just a tad smaller.  The round seems to have hit the spine and between the expanded bullet, the bone, and the about half-human-adult torso size, methinks the exit was larger than it would be in a two-legged vicious beast.  A just-to-be-sure coup-de-gras in the back of the neck/base of the skull did not exit (was later found to have done what it needed to do, was fully expanded, and carried the impression of the heavy bones it had encountered and, again, done what was needed.  I didn’t feel good about killing a canine but a wild, vicious dog with a predilection for attacking children is not a pet and there was no safe way in our means to capture it.  Judge away.  Main point is that Hydra-Shoks impressed me then and everything I read about them continues to do so.  Like something else?  That’s fine.  Carry it in good health.  For me, it’s Hydra-Shoks.

     Insofar as accuracy, again I was a bit rushed so I fired at a shoot-n-see target from the 7 yard (21 foot) line (about the max distance in most houses from which you’re likely to have to shoot an intruder and the range within which you are in critical danger if the bad guy has a knife available).  I shot about one round per second so while it wasn’t “hail of lead” it was not careful bulls-eye shooting either.

     With both types of ammo I got most rounds into one big, ragged hole.  A few “flyers” opened both groups up but neither exceeded three inches.  For an out-of-the-box, no frills 1911 with tiny military sights (though on a bright and sunny afternoon) that is excellent. It speaks volumes about the master designer that was John Moses Browning and how he designed a grip angle that is one of the most naturally pointing grips I’ve ever held.  One of the SWAT Snipers had his elementary aged kids with him so the pair, at his request got a quick hands-on-dry-fire handgun safety lesson.  Both paid apt attention as I explained very simply how to see if a weapon was empty, how to hold a pistol and a revolver (I had my EAA Big Bore Bounty Hunter .44 mag with me, too).  They were both excellent students and I left the rest of the rules up to their dear old Dad.  :)

     You can easily customize this weapon.  Don’t like the fat grips?  Toss on something different.  You can go cheap, you can go fancy.  If you don’t like the flat mainspring housing, for a few dollars you can buy an arched one and they are very easy to replace.  Left-handed shooter like me?  Ambidextrous safeties abound, some more “drop-in” than others.  Some require a grip to support them, some require a field expedient modification of the right grip.  Some cost as much as a small backup piece, some are much more reasonable.  Some are so cheap I’d have to really wonder as to their quality. Let’s face it; there are more things available for the 1911 than just about any other pistol.  It’s a fun, and actually very easy gun with which to tinker.
     Once I got home I made myself a rather nice and serviceable IWB Kydex holster.  The weapon is so thin it virtually disappears under a one-size larger T-shirt (didn't try a smaller one) and is just plain invisible with a bulky "fishing" shirt (what we have in lieu of safari shirts here in Coastal Alabama).

     So, in conclusion, $436 bought me an utterly reliable, accurate, very comfortable 1911 “Commander” like I’ve always wanted.  If you are in the market for a 1911 (I mean, you are an American, right?  Just kidding, but … yeah … ) and you don’t want to (or can’t) spend a mortgage payment on some tricked out beastie that you’d be afraid to let out of the safe lest you scratch it, look at these RIA guns.  They have a lot of styles and configurations.  I have my eye on a couple other ones, to tell the truth … ^_^

     Since first buying this pistol I have added an after market ambidextrous thumb safety.  I found a manufacturer who machines precision parts and sells them via Ebay.  The cost was low and the quality high.  It installs simply and uses an extended and slotted sear pin (very easy to install as well) to hold the right-side safety on. Thousands of manipulations later and it's showing no signs of wear and still feels about as positive as it was when I first installed it.

     I've been buffing some of the notoriously sharp edges as well, particularly those around the underside of the minuscule beaver tail of the grip safety.  Yes, RIA could have done that prior to shipping but then it'd be a $600 pistol.  Of everyone who has handled it, I'm the only one who has complained about the sharpness of that grip safety (of course, I'm the one carrying it, so... ).  

     I've put quite a few more rounds through this pistol and it has not hiccuped once. Whether shooting ball or Hydra-Shoks it just keeps on running.  I bought a 7-round mag for the Ruger 1911 that of course works fine in it.  I bought two more budget "Mil-Spec" 7-rounders as well.  They needed a bit of work (but then they cost about a buck per round so I didn't expect perfection).  Mainly the followers were overly long and had a tendency to move forward with the last round, effectively locking them in the weapon. Great way to not lose a magazine in combat, but a pretty darn bad way to keep a pistol running. A bit of patience and some skill with a Dremel and all's now well.  Those are mostly range mags, anyway.  The carry magazines I have all work great.

     I have several plans for further light customization of this so far utterly reliable and accurate pistol (oh, scoring telling hits on Pepper poppers from 25 yards and further is boringly easy), but nothing that will adversely affect its reliability or (hopefully) looks.  It's a heavy beast but recoil is easy and in a decent holster it carries quite well.  This was one of my two retirement presents to myself.  The other is a hand-forged, clay tempered katana.  I can't conceal a sword and the .45 gives me a wee bit more reach.  Both are simple yet elegant weapons which, though arguably from by-gone eras and of dated design, still serve a knowledgeable user quite well. Again, the pistol is a bit easier to carry about.  Not a bad way to celebrate 25+ years of public service, eh?