Aloha all!

I purchased this combo at the last GTG from a forum member.  Several people seemed envious at the time, so I thought I'd work on a review.  This first portion just deals with fit, finish, and whatnot.  No firing.

The combo came packed in a fitted case.  The case itself is that thin, semi-rigid plastic that cheap cases are made of.  I'm not completely happy about that.  The interior is foam-lined, with cutouts for nearly all of the pieces.  The way the foam is cut, they expect you to store the gun with the .45 slide attached and the .22 slide loose.  You can do it the other way, but the .45 slide doesn't fit properly in the foam cutout.

Notice I said "nearly" all of the pieces.  There is an extra mainspring housing assembly (MHA) with no dedicated place to live.  More on that later.

There were two included manuals in the kit:  one is a standard 1911 manual; the other, a dedicated XT-22 manual.  Neither addresses how to interchange components.  A quick YouTube search shows you how, and RIA has its own videos on the subject.

Fit and finish are good.  Not Kimber good, but better than usual RIA good.  The action out of the box was quite rough, but since the gun had apparently never been cleaned or lubed, I wasn't too worried.  Skeleton trigger, commander hammer, extended beavertail grip safety are standard, as are enhanced profile sights on both slides.  The sights are adjustable for windage only.  We'll see if that's an issue.  Parkerized finish seems nice.  Both slides are steel, so even as a .22, this thing feels like a 1911 

The .45 slide utilizes a full-length guide rod, which I hate.  Full-length guide rods mean hollow recoil spring plungers, which means you can't disassemble this thing with your thumb.  You need something hard and flat to press the plunger.  I'm seriously thinking about replacing that with a standard guide rod and plunger, but I'll wait a while to make that decision.  Also, the bushing was really quite difficult to rotate and to remove, even after I removed the recoil spring.  I'm hoping that loosens up with a little use.

The .22 slide uses a captive recoil spring, and the assembly/disassembly requires some deft manual dexterity.  It's much easier to do seated at a table.

I emailed RIA to ask about the spare MHA.  Turns out the two springs have different weights.  One is 17 lbs, intended for use with the .22 slide; the other is 20 lbs, intended for use with the .45 slide.  Both housings are polymer, not steel, which is the only "wrong" thing about this pistol.  Exchanging the MHAs requires tapping put a pin then driving it back in, something I am not keen to do often, and doubly not keen to do at the range. 

I emailed RIA to ask about the advisability of leaving one spring on for both calibers.  They advise that I do not risk damage to the gun, but using the improper MHA increases my chance of malfunctions.  Looks like some brutality testing is in order!

 Also, the MHAs are virtually identical, and are not marked.  Can I get an honest WTF?   

Overall, I like this gun.  It's solid, the action (after cleaning and lubing) is firm and positive on both slides.  The trigger break is clean, the wood grips are nice.  I can't wait to put some rounds thru it!

This buy was a score. I believe even gongho was shocked at the selling price!

Took it out to the range today for our first date.

I decided in advance to put the 17# spring on and just leave it.  I wasn't crazy about the idea of drifting pins in and out at the range.

I started at the pistol shed, punching paper.  I ran 45 rounds of CCI Mini-Mags thru with only 2 malfunctions, not bad for the first time!  Then I proceeded to test 4 other brands of SV ammo.  As anticipated, the gun does not like SV ammo, but it does like some less than others. 

Point of impact was about 4" high at 25 yards, but windage was dead on.

After maybe 65-70 rounds total of .22, I switched to the .45 barrel, but kept the lightweight spring.  10 rounds of Winchester 230gr FMJ fired with no problems.  POI was a little low and to the left, but I thought I was yanking the trigger, so I didn't attempt adjustments. 

I packed up and moved to the silhouette side.

Since the .45 barrel was already on, I resumed with that, finishing out a box of the Winchester.  Out of 50 rounds, the gun went into slide lock 3 times.  I had read on a forum about other people experiencing this when shooting .45 with the 17 lb spring, so I wasn't surprised.  Other than that, no malfunctions.  POI continued to be a little low at 50 yards, but windage was good.

I switched back to the .22 barrel and settled down to run a new box of Mini-Mags through it.  Holy crap!  Malfunction city!  Failures to extract/eject were neck-in-neck with failures to feed.  In the first 20 rounds, I had 10 malfunctions. 

What had changed since my experience at the pistol shed, minutes earlier?  Maybe I ran the lube off the gun while shooting the .45?  I scratched around in my range bag, looking for the grease I had used, and came across a can of Ballistol.  Ok, why not give that a try?  I cautiously sprayed a bit here and there.  Still had a lot of malfunctions, so I pulled the slide off, disassembled it, and Ballistoled the crap out of it.  Put it back together, toweled off the outside, and went back to shooting.  Some improvement, but still way too many malfunctions.

So, I gritted my teeth, and kept going.  Towards the end of the box, the malfunctions seemed to be a little less frequent. 

Final count for the Mini-Mags:
145 rounds fired
16 failures to feed
22 failures to eject (combined stovepipes, failures to extract, and failures to eject)
3 failures to seat

But keep in mind, out of those 41 malfunctions, only 3 happened in the first 45 rounds, a 7% failure rate.  In the last 100 rounds, the failure rate skyrocketed to 38%.  Obviously something changed.  My three theories are:
1 - I ran the grease off the slide, and the Ballistol was an inadequate lubricant
2 - A tight-tolerance conversion kit that got dirty
3 - a bad box of Mini-Mags

It's too early to be worried.  Guns, and in particular .22s, need to be broken in.  I'll tear it down, give it a thorough clean and lube, then go buy a variety of HV ammo for further testing and breaking in.

3/15 - second date

I decided today to shoot only 22.  The gun had been well-cleaned and greased, and I had 2 boxes on MiniMags left. 

Out of 200 rounds, this time I experienced 27 malfunctions, 100% of which were failures to feed.  About half of these could be overcome by a simple forward assist with my support thumb; the other half required walking the slide slightly back.  In every case, the cartridge has started into the chamber.  On those easy ones, it just didn't go into battery.  on the more stubborn ones, the rim seemed to be hanging up as it fed under the extracter.  I did notice a ring of black funk in that breech indent, so I'm wondering if maybe I neglected to get a dental pick after that.

It seemed like initially I was experiencing an average of 2-4 malfunctions per magazine, that lowered to one per magazine as the round count increased. 

I am feeling positive in that there were no other form of failures, and that the failures to feed seemed to be slowing down.  Seems to me like this thing is settling in. 

Accuracy was pretty decent, although I do find that clearing frequent stoppages diminishes my skill.  The one swinger i singled out at 50 yards definitely fears me after today!

It's not a pick!
 

It's not a pick!
 

It's an explorer

I know

It's not a pick!
 

Look, if I use it to pick at things, then it's a pick!

8/24/2014
Took it back out again today, still in .22 configuration.  Ran 200 rounds of CCI Mini Mags through with a total of 27 malfunctions:
2 - failure to extract
3 - failure to eject
22 - failure to feed

In the course of 20 magazines, each with 10 rounds, the sequential occurrence of malfunctions was:
3,0,0,4,5,2,1,0,4,1,1,0,1,1,0,0,1,2,1,0

Now, today puts me north of 500 rounds total, and close to 500 rounds of Mini-Mags.  I am officially verging on not pleased. 

Today, almost all of the failure to feed malfunctions were of the "bolt on top of the round" variety.  What am I to think?  The slide isn't going far enough to the rear? The magazine is slow introducing the next round?

It makes sense to try a couple of other brands of HV ammo at this point, I think.

Have you tried contacting RIA?  Their guns are lifetime warranty as far as I know.

Have you tried contacting RIA?  Their guns are lifetime warranty as far as I know.

Not yet.  It's on the list, though!