Rock River Arms 1911 Bullseye Wadcutter

My new RRA arrived on Saturday after an eight month wait. The Aimpoint 9000sc scope hasn’t arrived yet, but I was so eager to try it out that I took it to the range anyway to point shoot it at 25 yards. All shots were on paper and the trigger is awesome. Verdict: worth it.




I’ll post again when it’s scoped and I can really put it through it’s paces.

Very nice!  Congrats

Richard L wrote:My new RRA arrived on Saturday after an eight month wait. The Aimpoint 9000sc scope hasn’t arrived yet, but I was so eager to try it out that I took it to the range anyway to point shoot it at 25 yards. All shots were on paper and the trigger is awesome. Verdict: worth it.




I’ll post again when it’s scoped and I can really put it through it’s paces.

beautiful Rock River Pistol!!!

Amazon just delivered the rings I intend to use with it:
Leupold PRW2 30mm Low steel rings. 
I’ve used these before and like them.

They are pretty heavy. I ran a set on my Gold Cup with a Ultradot but the 9000 is a lot heavier. If you have trouble with function I can recommend some light weight but strong aluminum rings if needed. I also found some lighter steel ones that are strong. Picture of the steel rings.

Yeah I run a lot of 9000sc dots and never use steel rings on 45's, they are already heavy and you'll start having to run really hot loads to get good function. Good looking pistol, I'm curious to hear some feedback about the mee RRA pistols.

Thanks LenV and zanemoseley. 
I have a bunch of handloads stockpiled that I used in my other 1911:
4.5 grains of Bullseye powder behind 185gr Zero HBWC bullets.
Do you think it likely that I’ll have to load hotter now?
Or go to lighter rings? Or both? 
I think I’ll load up some test loads from 4.6 to 5.0 and try them out.
Just in case.

Nice Pistol

Well that's a pretty damn hot load. I bet it will actually run it.

4.6 - 5.0 grains of Bullseye is a bit much...

In my super tight pistol built by Jon, with a 9000SC in upgraded aluminum rings, with a 10# spring, it took 4.2 WST to get get reliable function with a Magnus #801 which had a lot of bearing surface which increases pressure. This was with .469" crimp, when I tightened to .463" I can shoot 4.0 grains.

So it depends on your recoil spring, how tight the RRA is fit, how much you crimp and how hard you hold. I would start with 4.0 BE with a .463" crimp and load in .1 grain increments.

Pretty! Congrats and enjoy!

Richard L wrote:Thanks LenV and zanemoseley. 
I have a bunch of handloads stockpiled that I used in my other 1911:
4.5 grains of Bullseye powder behind 185gr Zero HBWC bullets.
Do you think it likely that I’ll have to load hotter now?
Or go to lighter rings? Or both? 
I think I’ll load up some test loads from 4.6 to 5.0 and try them out.
Just in case.

Might be a typo. What bullet are you using? Jacketed HP, L-SWC or L-SWCHP? Load just right for the jacketed but a little hot for lead. Not much though. I would have no problem shooting them in that pistol.

Correction: 
I use Zero 148gr HBWC in my .38spl loads (3.6gr of Bullseye) in my 
Model 14-3
I use Zero .45 180gr L-SWC with 4.5gr of Bullseye is the other one I’ve been using for my 1911 for a while now. Doh! Sorry about that. 

Got the idea now I should just from start from scratch for the new gun.
I can still use the old loads for the old gun which liked them just fine.

The RO is not super tight so I get away with a 12# recoil spring. It also has aluminum rings. I knew I had a picture of it somewhere. Bullets came from T&B in Sweet Home OR.

zanemoseley wrote:In my super tight pistol built by Jon, with a 9000SC in upgraded aluminum rings, with a 10# spring, it took 4.2 WST to get get reliable function with a Magnus #801 which had a lot of bearing surface which increases pressure. This was with .469" crimp, when I tightened to .463" I can shoot 4.0 grains.

So it depends on your recoil spring, how tight the RRA is fit, how much you crimp and how hard you hold. I would start with 4.0 BE with a .463" crimp and load in .1 grain increments.

In answer to Richard, I am running 4.5 grn BE w/ 185 Zero JHP, .469 crimp for reliable operation in my (used) RRA.  It is also quite fond of the ASYM 185 grn National Match ammo.  I have an ultradot mounted on the slide with aluminum rings.

The gun is used and I am getting familiar with it.  I found that ejection became weaker and the diagnosis was the gun was pretty dirty and dry.  Fixed those things and now that same load is ejecting much more robustly.  In fact, I was going to dial down the powder to 4.2 grains and see if that would work (I also put in a new 10 lb recoil spring).

Question for Zanemoseley (or others):
I'm a newbie reloader.  How do I decide how much crimp to use?  I've heard .468 to .4695 for 45acp.  As I wrote above, I try to hit .469.  I am gathering that a tighter crimp means less powder needed, I assume the bullet is held in the case just a tiny bit longer and thus pressure builds up with less powder?  How do I balance more or less crimp with more or less powder?  Is this lead bullets only, or does it also apply to copper plated?

Thank you,
Doug

Well I used .469 for years with ok results. I've had a few issues lately with light rounds. After inspecing my powder measure drops I feel pretty good about its accuracy. Then I was reading about crimp, turns out .469 is really on the upper end of what you should be crimping lead, some feel .467 is the minimum. You'll see lots of good results from crimping in the .463-.465 range, you'll even see some great results as low as .460. 

More crimp does lead to more efficient powder burn and less powder required to achieve the same pressures. I hope the more consistent powder burn will lead to more consisteny ammo.

Richard L wrote:I use Zero 148gr HBWC in my .38spl loads (3.6gr of Bullseye) in my Model 14-3

The typical bullseye load is 2.8gr with HBWC. Really soft shooting. Very nice RRA by the way!

desben wrote:

Richard L wrote:I use Zero 148gr HBWC in my .38spl loads (3.6gr of Bullseye) in my Model 14-3

The typical bullseye load is 2.8gr with HBWC. Really soft shooting. Very nice RRA by the way!

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