Placing this in the Rock Island Forum, maybe it should be somewhere else, but I am a proud owner of a RIA Government and I am also a new guy here and not sure where to go with this. Wondering if any other RIA owners or any other 1911's have seen this same condition.

My pistol does not like the long recoil spring rod. With this rod, accuracy goes all to heck, and I am lucky to shoot 6" at 25 yards. With the stock short rod and the same spring I average about 2 1/2 to 3 inches at 25 yards, my best being 1 5/8 inch. Spring is a 18 1/2 Wolff. No other conditions and same ammo. Needless to say I am not a believer in the fancy SS long rods. Maybe it is just my pistol but I got a feeling it is not and others have seen the same thing. This RIA is a fun gun, about 1800 rounds with one hiccup which did not sound just right and I think was a short round.

Talk to me about the long rods. Thanks

Duke, you won't find too many friends of the Full Length Guide Rod. Most consider it a waste of money and obviously your gun doesn't like it.

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If your gun doesn't like it then you won't spend money trying other ones.
For the most part I find they do very little after the initial part of transferring money from my purse to the merchants wallet.

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Lynnie, "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. "
- Albert Camus

No, there will be no more full length recoil rods for me. I should have included in the original posting this question. Why do you think the full length rod so drastically affects the pistols accuracy? It does make a lot of difference and I guess I am assuming it has to do with the way the spring pressure is placed on the barrel.

Duke

Well there is probably some logic in that without a custom spring for the guide rod, the gun is slightly out of battery or something to that effect who knows. The theory behind it working, is the spring doesn't get kinked up. The problem with this logic is, it worked for 80 of the last 100 years without it, why wouldn't it for the next 100 years. Now with a custom job or a compact that's a diffent story but your also talking about a variant of the original design also.

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At this time I have two Rocks.
A Tactical with a FLGR, and a GI. without.
They both work fine.
I tried to put one in the GI, and it just didn't like it. So I left it alone.
I also Have two Springfields, The Black Stainless came with a FLGR, and my Mil-Spec, without.
I put one in the Mil-Spec, and can not tell any difference in it.
All I can see that it does is Transfer Cash to the Seller!!!

Rusty

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GOTTA CLEAN EM & KEEP ON SHOOTIN

If the guide rod was installed by you, then it is rather possible that you didn't install it properly or that it is interfering with the proper operation of the pistol. The guide rod shouldn't be affecting the accuracy of your pistol, at least not in such a way. Used in a pistol with very loose frame/slide tolerances, it could be of benefit, but I've never heard of a properly installed guide rod making a pistol less accurate.

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John Caradimas SV1CEC
The M1911 Pistols Organization
http://www.m1911.org

With either guide rod, long or short, there should be NO spring pressure on the barrel. The back end of the spring pushes on the recoil spring guide flange, which is seated against the impact abutment surface in the frame. The front end of the spring pushes on the recoil spring plug, which in turn pushes on the slide ... not the barrel.

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Hawkmoon
On a good day, can hit the broad side of a barn ... from the inside

And the slide breech face bears on the barrel hood with whatever spring pressure is pushing on the slide. The barrel stops it's forward movement under this spring pressure when it hits the slide stop pin and that pressure is maintained while in battery..

LOG

Agreed. To a point. But the spring is not pushing on the barrel. And I can't see any way in which a change to the guide rod could possibly significantly alter the way the slide pushed the barrel into battery. I wasn't trying to say that nothing pushes on the barrel, I was correcting the statement that the guide rod changes the way the spring pushes on the barrel.

And once the lugs lock up, there is often a gap of a couple of thousandths between the breech face and the barrel hood. In battery, it's the locking lugs that maintain the pressure between the slide and barrel, not the barrel hood.

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Hawkmoon
On a good day, can hit the broad side of a barn ... from the inside