Rock island commander

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walking arsenal

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I resently purchased a rock island commaner 1911 and i can honestly say that so far im impressed with it.

Ive never owned a commander version of the 1911 so i could use a few pointers about it, i need to find a manual for it since it didnt come with one so if anyone can point me to one i'd apreciate it.

The gun appears to have a steel frame but ive read that commanders are supposed to be aluminum framed, is this a combat commander knockoff then?

The 50 rounds of 230 grn blazer brass i ran through it went well but all my empties have a slight dent in the side, dont know from what.

The barrel is a stainless bull barrel and the grips are some really nice looking sort of hardwood.

The gun has standard GI sights and the safety clicks on and off smoothly.

The trigger feels good and the mags eject clean and quick. There was some corrosion on the gun but that cleaned off niceley.

The mainspring was sticking (i think) but i pulled the capture pin and oiled it and it seems to be fine now the whole gun looked as if it had never seen oil when i got it.

So whats do you guys think about these, good gun?
 
no experience with that size but so far Iam pleased with my full size RIA. I am also interested in how these perform. cost is only slightly higher but does it have any add ons (beaver-tail etc.)?
 
I have an RIA commander. I believe the frame and slide are cast. Its not a true commander, it has a 4 in barrel instead of the 4.25 in in the colt commander. So far I have only added a High Rise beaver tail on mine (got very tired of the hammer bite), and added a Comonilli (SP) frame saver guide rod. In about 1000 rounds, not a failure one. Durable little gun, bullets go where I aim. What more could you ask for? And from what I hear, if you ever do have any problems, there customer service is A+.
 
Commanders can be of any metal. The aluminium-framed guns are known as "lightweight commander". My colt is all-stainless and my line partner's is a blue 70 series. I've really grown to like the commander, It's as near a perfect auto-pistol as I have had. The ding you are seeing in your cases is likely from the case hitting the rear of the ejection port as it exits. The "scallop" cut seen at the rear of the ejection port on many 1911's is supposed to alleviate this problem. I would imagine that a worn recoil spring or something causing excessive slide velocity might be causing this if the "scallop" cut is present on your gun. My understanding of the commander style is that is was to be more a custom gun in the sense that it incorporated many extra enhancements right from the factory(for it's time), like the wider rowel hammer, flared mag well, lowered and flared ejection port, etc. As they say...check it out and enjoy shooting a great idea in 1911's.
Josh
 
These Might Interest You

the first one is a midsize armscor and the other the compact with all the added features
 

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Changed out the grip safety on mine.

Be ready the reverse plug is going to break on you. Mine did around 600 rounds. RIA sent me a replacement and spring for it when it happened. Guess they are requiring you to send in your gun when it happens now.

Other then the reverse plug going down range on me I've had no troubles with it.
 
Other then the reverse plug going down range on me I've had no troubles with it.
Click to expand...

I have heard of that problem, that is why I installed the comonilli (SP) frame saver guide rod. Dont know if it will help. Does anyone know of an aftermarket replacement reverse plug that will fit the RIA?
 
I've the blue CS (3.5") Armscor carrying the Charels Daly label.


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Have shot 350 rounds of Wolf and another 75 of various JHP (Hydrashok, Golden Saber, Starfire) and my lead SWC reloads with zero problems with the factory ammo. Had one failure to go fully into battery with my lead SWC reloads on a 6+1 loading's first shot. My CD EMS (4") had the same issue with these bullets but it seems to have resolved after a little shooting, I suspect itts jsut a matter of needing a little break-in, but no isues with 6+1 or 7+1 (using Springfield/CMC officers +1 mag) loadings with the ball or JHP factory ammo.

I'd say it was perfect out of the box, but seems to shoot about 3-4" low at 10 yrds -- I'll suspend judgement until I get my new glasses as the astigmatism in the right eye has really gotten bad lately so I couldn't get a sight picture good enough to blame the gun at this point.

My EMS is up arround 5600 rounds now, extractor broke at about 5200 rounds (my Colt pre-series80 extractor broke 7-8000 rounds) so I's say they hold up pretty well. No problems with the reverse plug.

You can read my threads on my EMS:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=94564&highlight=Armscor
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=106541&highlight=EMS

And full size Armscor:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=113465&highlight=Armscor


I think the Armscor/RIA/Daly 1911s are a very good gun for the money.
IMHO if you plan on changing from the GI config, I'd look at the Armscor or Daly guns as these come with Springfield "loaded" features at GI model prices so may get what you want out of the box. If you want a GI style gun the RIA seems like a good choice.

--wally.

Edit: The black rubber grips shown in the photo are from my Kimber Ultra Carry which now wears CTC lasergrips. The "walnut" wood grips that came on the CS while not ugly, are nothing special, I like these rubber grips better and had them sitting unused so I swapped out immediately when I got home with the CD.
 
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775-537-1444 is the number I have for Armscor in Parhump, NV. I know it works because I used it to order my 1911-A2 9mm Widebody.

The "1" listed above is required in some locations where they've run out of phone numbers and need 10 digit dialing, it flags the 10 digits as not a local call. Confusing since it then looks like a international call's "country code" The "1" is not part of the number, but was probably required in Vernal45's calling location, as it is in mine.

They do have a website: www.armscor.net
Nothing much but a few gun photos so far though.

--wally.
 
The manual for one 1911 is pretty much the same as for any other beyond info about "firing pin blocking safties" and "Integral Locking Systems" neither of which your RIA has. If your gun didn't come with one, I'm sure in todays leagal climate Armscor will send one out to you quickly if you call. Expect mostly boilerplate safe gun handling info and a generic exploded parts diagram -- admittedly could be useful if something breaks and you need to know what to ask for to replace it.

Why do you think you need a recoil spring? If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
One from www.gunsprings.com for a 4" Kimber should fit and work fine.
The Commander spring might work, but you need to be sure the coils don't "touch" when the slide is all the way back, that extra 1/4" could make a difference with some springs.

--wally.
 
Because

The 50 rounds of 230 grn blazer brass i ran through it went well but all my empties have a slight dent in the side, dont know from what.
Click to expand...

And

The ding you are seeing in your cases is likely from the case hitting the rear of the ejection port as it exits. The "scallop" cut seen at the rear of the ejection port on many 1911's is supposed to alleviate this problem. I would imagine that a worn recoil spring or something causing excessive slide velocity might be causing this if the "scallop" cut is present on your gun.
Click to expand...

And i like to have spare parts on hand.
 
http://www.clarkcustomguns.com/head1911.htm

Check out this link for reverse plugs. Dont know if they fit, but it would be a good replacement if it does (looking at the picture i think it might fit, but I would call and explain to make sure). As far as springs, as wally suggested, wolff gun springs, get the spring for the 4 in kimber, I believe its rated at 20lbs. www.gunsprings.com

Also, you need to be sure, that the entire spring will collapse into the reverse plug, or else trouble will come your way. :what:
 
Could be springs causing dented brass, might not. We have the same problem with our GI. At the range yesterday we switched out springs left and right trying to alleviate the dented casings, but they did not do the trick. I'm sure it is a combination of things, including the springs, but not springs alone.
 
The dented brass on a 1911 is cosmetic and will "pop" right out when it enters the resizing die. The scalloping at the rear of the port is eyewash like front slide serrations are. Proper extractor tension ( and perhaps some ejector tweaking) will fix the issue if it bothers you, but if the ejection is reliable and the brass enters the reloading die, I'd ignore it as its really a non-problem. I think 1911Tuner has posted good instructions on tuning the extractor and how tweak the ejector if necessary if the problem really bothers you. Use the search.

That said, none of my 1911's dent the brass since I'd learned to adjust extractors with my first Colt. Lowering the the bottom of the ejection port (making the port larger by removing material from the slide to move the port bottom closer to the frame) will help but also makes the slide weaker, there is no free lunch. Most "modern" 1911s have the larger port, I think the RIA is more like the real GI deal so the dented brass is no big surprise.

If the recoil spring is too big for the space available when compressed, bad things happen when all the spring coils touch and the slide stops short of full back, this means the frame impact area which is designed to take the beating doesn't and something else does and will break rather quickly -- usually its the bushing or reverse plug or mabe the front of the slide cracks if you are really unlucky.

--wally.
 
I briefly had an RIA Commander. The beaver safety would not work properly though and kept me from reliably being able to fire it, so I got rid of it.

I might at some point however try out another one.
 
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