My new RIA 1911 XT22 - .22LR

Finally had a chance to take some decent pictures of this thing. I picked this up on Saturday.

This is The Armscor/API/Rock Island Armory 1911 .22. Unlike the 1911 .22 handguns made by Sig/GSG and Colt/Umarex, this one is full steel, slide and frame. The frame is a full 1911 frame. You can convert this into a 9mm or .45 1911 for $285 direct from RIA, which requires replacing the entire top end, magazine, extractor/ejector, and mainspring housing each time you swap between the two. With some basic tools, I'm told it can be done in the field, but it's not something I would do repeatedly. There is a cutout in the foam in the case for an extra slide.

The slide is an open top slide like the Beretta 92 in order to reduce slide weight of a full steel slide for correct cycling. The sights are dovetail sights and can be replaced, with the rear sight being made of aluminum to reduce weight. I plan on replacing these at some point in the future. High velocity .22 ammo is required. The magazines are the same ones used by the Kimber 1911 .22 conversion, which are poly. I purchased two 14-round magazines for mine.

Price paid was $442 from budsgunshop.com. I paid an additional $5 for shipment insurance, and $23 to my FFL for the transfer, for a total of $470 out the door.

PICTURES WILL BE POSTED IN THE NEXT POST DUE TO POST LIMITATIONS.

To see how the gun works, here's RIA's promo video:
http://youtu.be/MQErZVT0TuI


I haven't gone out to shoot this yet, but will as soon as I have time to go to a range. Initial impressions are quite good. The gun is solid, heavy, and well built. It feels great in my hands. The beavertail feels very nice, and the safety snaps into both positions securely with a bit of effort but requires only your thumb.

Now, the issues. The 10-round magazine it came with does not lock into the pistol. You can slam it in with the butt of your palm as hard as you want, and you'll still be able to slide it right back out without hitting the magazine eject. I tried to file down a few spots that look like they were snagging against the opening of the pistol, but that didn't help at all. I called up RIA and they said they're out of magazines right now and are waiting on a new shipment, but will replace it for me. The ProMag 14-round magazines I bought from MidwayUSA.com locked in flawlessly.

The ProMag 14-round magazines I bought had one area where the slide rubbed against them, which had to be filed down. Being made of poly, this was very easy to do. Here are some pictures of what I had to file down.

In this picture, you'll be looking at the bottom left ridge of the top of the gun, where you'll see a strip that got rubbed by the slide:
http://imageshack.us/a/img821/3206/20121208194606.jpg

Here's that same part filed down:
http://imageshack.us/a/img10/4171/20121208194002.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img690/4995/20121208194501.jpg

RIA recommends 500 rounds of break-in. Can't wait to take this out to the range!
 
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If anyone wants to see any detailed pictures, let me know.
 
I almost bought one, but what threw me off was the 92fs design open port on a 1911............................................. Ugly!
 
The open slide threw me off a bit too, but I don't mind it very much. I'd rather have a full steel open slide than a lighter or weaker closed slide and run the risk of it cracking like some other 1911 .22s have.
 
I took this to the range today and fired off 285 rounds; 100 federal high velocity and 185 cci mini mags. I had zero failures to eject, zero failures to load (with the 14 round mags) and countless failures to fire. Surprisingly, the mini mags had more failures to fire than the federal ammo. I expected the mini mags to be of higher quality. The federals only failed to fire 2-3 times out of 100 but I had 1 or 2 failures to fire per magazine with the mini mags.

Surprisingly, they all fired if I re-cocked the hammer and hit the same round a second time if it didnt fire the first time. Anyone experience this with their rimfire handgun?

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2
 
Odd. I've never had a Mini-Mag fail to fire in all of my rimfires.

I'll be taking my XT-22 to the range for the first time in the next week. Hopefully it will run well!
 
Please report back and let me know. I may have just bought a bad batch of .22 ammo, since the federal ammo was great. If there is something wrong, I'm sure RIA will take care of it. RIA also recommends 500 rounds for break-in, and I only gave it 285, so I'll shoot a few more hundred rounds through it in the next couple of weeks to see how it does.

Another thing I forgot to note, my front sight was WAY off. I'll take some pictures of the groups I shot while aiming dead center, but it was quite annoying. I caught the gunsmith right before he had to leave for the day and he straightened it right up for me for $5 cash, so it wasn't too big of a deal for me, but check to be sure that it's aligned correctly on yours.

Does anyone know if standard 1911 grips fit this gun? I need to find something larger.
 
I called up RIA about this problem this morning and they said that it's just a break-in issue with the gun, with the bullet not seating correctly inside the chamber due to leading. The mainspring here is a 17lb spring, and he mentioned that I might have issues with failures to extract if I go up to an 18lb spring, so I should try to just fire off another couple hundred rounds and it should go away. He also mentioned to keep the breech face completely clear of oil, which I admit there may have been some of from the cleaning I did. He also mentioned to lubricate the slide lightly when I do lubricate it.
 
I took this out to the range again today. I bought a 500-round box of Winchester Super-X. I figured it would work, as it's high-velocity ammo after all. Well, it didn't work. I had a nearly 50% failure to fire rate with this ammo. I'm seriously thinking this must have been a bad batch because I've never seen something like this before. I tried 3 of the 10 50-round boxes in the big box and all had the same issue. I wanted to make sure there wasn't something wrong with my gun so I went back to the counter and bought a 375-round box of CCI mini mags, and those shot just fine. I got fewer and fewer failures to fire with the mini-mags compared to the last time I went to the range, so it seems that the gun is breaking in well. I just couldn't get the Winchesters to fire. I showed them to one of the old guys working there and he couldn't believe it. He said I was getting very good hits on them so there's no reason why they shouldn't fire.

They were extremely busy and supposedly I needed to talk to someone who takes care of returns and distributors so I'll be going back there on Friday to get a refund for this box of ammo. I kept the failed rounds in their respective boxes so I could bring them back as proof.
 
XtremeRevolution, How can I order the 9mm kit from RIA? its not listed on their website. do you know where I can get it online?
 
I figured I'd report back on my experience with the XT22. It really bugs me when I read a review where someone had a problem and they never report back on their impressions, so here it goes.

The gun does not lock back the slide on the last round with the plastic mags. I've heard there are metal mags that you can use that DO lock the slide back, but have not experimented with any.

The final straw for this gun was when I went to the range once and bought a bulk box of super-x. 50% failure to fire rate, if not worse. Solid primer strikes, or so it seemed, but no fires. In addition, the slide loosened up to where it rattled when you shook it left and right. I finally sent it back. They were unable to repair the gun so they replaced it. However, they noted that they did some reliability tweaking on the gun.

When I got it back, I took it do my dad's ranch and we shot about 300 rounds with only one failure to fire. Remington standard velocity bulk ammo. Perfect feeds, perfect ejects, and only one failure due to primer. Considering this gun now fires any ammo I put in it, I'm quite satisfied. It is quite a lot of fun to shoot and very enjoyable. I only wish it was like this when I first got it instead of having to send it back.

The slide on the new one is a bit loose as well after about 500 rounds through it, but it doesn't seem to have gotten any worse, and doesn't affect its accuracy. It is definitely not a high end 1911, but it feels like a true 1911 and functions very well. I won't be getting rid of it.
 
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