Looking at a full size RO 45

Hi Steve, and welcome to the forum.

Springfield makes exactly ONE off-the-shelf 1911. All the SA 1911's are essentially cosmetic variations of the MilSpec. The RO is the businesslike upgrade that comes with the extras that most folks consider necessary for range work, and does it at a price that would be impossible to meet doing the upgrades yourself.

The absolute minimum requirements for an off-the-shelf gun are a closely fitted slide, frame, and barrel (including the bushing). Everything else is gravy.

You should expect a trigger that breaks cleanly somewhere around 5 pounds. The sights are excellent, and are up to the task of precise paper shooting at 50 yards. You should find the frame and slide fit nearly perfect, though potentially somewhat tight until you have cleaned and oiled the gun and then cycled it smartly 20 times or so by hand, at which point it should be perfect. At lockup, sticking your finger in the muzzle and waggling it up and down should betray little movement.

With the magazines supplied with the gun, it should feed anything without a hiccup.

Finish should be very good, with few machining marks visible anywhere. The Parkerizing should be smooth and deep black.

Now for the bad news. Notice that I say "should" an awful lot. One of our forum members, who will I hope come and reply to you as well, had a very bad experience with his RO. So, you do need to realize that lemons do exist. For that reason, I would recommend buying the gun at a local walk-in store, and taking a good critical look at the gun before walking out with it. If the store gives you any grief over racking the slide and dropping the hammer on some snap caps, go elsewhere.

By the way, never slam the magazine home on any gun that does not belong to you. Magazines and mag catches need to be fitted, but seldom are, and you run the risk of scraping up or scratching somebody else's mags. Depress the mag catch button and slide the mag home gently.

Steve said:

How about accuracy, with the slide fitted to the frame as you say and a "match" barrel and bushing can I expect accuracy to be above par?

Click to expand...

First, let's kill off the "match barrel" myth. There's no such thing. If there is, you tell me what it means.

What is required for accuracy is that the frame, slide, and barrel lock up in the exact same position relative to each other every time. In order for that to happen, the barrel must fit the frame and slide, and the bushing must fit the frame and barrel.

There are two ways to accomplish this fit. One is to file, and sand, and hone (or mill - Alan Tanaka dials in and mills everything - Scary!) for hours, days, more days. The other way is to control the manufacture of all parts and strive to make them all identical so that they fit together within narrow tolerances.

I own a couple of recently manufactured SA 1911's, and I have shot and 'smithed a few more, and I can tell you that SA factory fit is as good as most custom fit.

I can also tell you something totally sacrilegious - A combat loose gun can be made to shoot with competition level accuracy by simply installing a Dwyer Group Gripper (Sold by Wilson).

I can also tell you that there are smiths who can improve your RO. You will be without your gun for at least a year, and your wallet will be lighter by $2k-$4k.

If you are at all handy I can tell you something else. If your RO doesn't already demonstrate surgical accuracy, you can often tighten up your groups by going to a stronger recoil spring and a link one size larger. It will reduce the life of the gun somewhat, but it's one of the tradeoffs that you can take advantage of to pick up a little extra accuracy.

here is a copy of the things I found unacceptable with my RO and when I sent it in, I got it back and all they did was put more tension on the extractor, but did not replace any of the defective parts. I have tried by email to get them to call me and tell me why none of the sloppy fitting parts are not covered under warranty

will have to say that I might have got a lemon it is real disappointing after all the good things i have heard about the RO , I will list the things that in my opinion have room for improvement .
#1 when they engrave the last three numbers of the serial number don't put it where the disconnected path is, mine was so rough it cut groves in the end of disconnector. I smoothed the slide where the engraving was.

#2 the center leaf of the sear spring should be smooth at contact point of disconnector, mine was sharp edge and had all ready gouged the disconnector just from people playing with gun at gun show. I smoothed both ends of disconnector.

#3 don't use a sander to remove burrs on breech face around firing pin. mine is not flat.

#4 the J cut on breech face should be same depth a the rest of face, mine had a step, I scraped it to remove step.

#5 should barrel to bushing fit should be less than .0030, barrel measured .5802 bushing measured .5832

#6 should bushing to slide fit less than .0030 the bushing measured .6975 to .6978 and slide measured .7005 to .7013

#7 the plunger for the slide stop was rough on end and to long there, on mine there was no way push slide stop in with out a tool to push plunger in with. I smoothed it up think it is still to long.

#8 the extractor is to long and is gouging the brass where the end is hitting angled surface before brass is flat against breech face.
extractor is also clocking be cause firing pin stop is to loose

#9 the firing pin stop also has .006 gap be tween stop and slide I would think it should be slip fit.

#10 slide stop had parting lines on both sides was .004 out of round I smoothed up.

#11 when they put the grip screw bushing in if they bugger one up change it out before putting wood on. I sanded burr off.

to say the least I am not very happy with Quality of RO
can I get any of this fixed under warranty?

Thank You from
Richard Cox

I found a used RO, NIB, a couple of years ago. I had been looking for a new one, and they were in short supply at the time. My local "drug" dealer had taken it in on a trade. I cleaned it, took it to the range, and ran about 100 rounds through it the first time. It was accurate beyond what I expected for an OTS gun. The slide-to-frame fit was very good, and the other parts were well fitted, and it ran both hardball and HP ammo with no failures.

After about a year, I decided something needed to be done about the front sights. My aging eyes had a bit of trouble picking up the font cleanly, especially when light conditions got to be variable. I solved the "problem" by buying and installing a Dawson Precision fiber-optic front. The difference was noticeable immediately.

Since changing the front sight, the gun is even more fun to shoot. It has fed everything I've put through it. While I like the standard grips, I did add a set of ivory polymers to it, simply because they look darned nice on it.

For me, it would be hard to find more gun for the money. It's very much a "finish follows function" type of gun. Everything I need, and nothing I don't.