[Mrgunsngear]

First off---I picked her up for $469 at centerfiresystems.com, tack on $20 for the ffl transfer, added duragrips for $30, and bought a fusion fiber optic front sight on ebay for $16 (installed myself to save cash). So, a grand total of $536 for this gun.

My first impressions when I picked up this gun was that it has a much better fit/finish than I expected. The factory 'novak style' sights sucked (hence the fiber optic addition). They are almost impossible to see against anything but a light colored background. With the fiber optic, it was easy to put the dot on the target however. So, no issues with the sights overall. I'm still not sure about a full rail on a 1911 (I have the SIG Tacops 1911 so it's not totally foreign to me) but it's growing on me I think. My biggest complaint, not that I really have one, is the GIGANTIC name tag RIA put on this gun. It just looks a little funny to me.

So, took her to the range this morning. I brought two Wilson Combat 47D mags, a Chip McCormick 8 round powermag and a 10 round power mag, 300 rounds of white box I had laying around, and 20 rounds of Hornady TAP 200 grain +p ammo.

Shooting impressions: Wow. Awesome shooter. Very little recoil, even for a full steel 1911, and this thing was as accurate as any of my other 1911's if not more so. {For the record, I have two Kimber's, a Springer Loaded, Taurus PT1911, and the SIG Tacops at the moment. I've owned more but those are the current one's I'm comparing it to...} I really liked the safety on this gun. It engaged positively but wasn't hard to manipulate. It it also a 'tactical-style' safety, meaning it doesn't protrude as far from the frame as some others do, which I enjoyed since some safeties seem to start rubbing on my thumb after 100 rounds or so. Not the case with this gun.

Reliability: This gun was 100% with the wilson's and the factory ACT mag but it didn't seem to like the mccormick's. In 100ish rounds with the powermag's, I had four FTFs, but had absolutely no issues whatsoever with the other mags. It ran all 20 TAP JHP rounds flawlessly that I fed it in the wilson mags as well as the white box FMJs.

Final thoughts: IMO this is the best 'low cost' 1911 that I've ever put my paws on. I highly recommend it. As some of you have seen in my prior posts, I've been pondering getting a 9mm 1911 and the debate is over---I'm getting the RIA.