Rock Island Armory Steps Up For SHOTShow 2015

As many of you may have see from the interview posted by Armscor, I got a chance to try out some of the new Rock Island Armory offerings at range day. For me there were 3 stand outs in the line up and those are the ones I went to for hands on; the 10mm long slide, the 22 TCM and the new 22 TCM glock conversion kit.

The Rock Island Armory 6 inch long slide 10mm; this was the start of the showing by Armscor, in my opinion. There are several different offerings but I went for the single stack, 6 ingh with the Doctors reflex sight. (The story of the 10mm as I have understood it goes like this; the federal government was looking for a new high performance law enforcement round and the 10 mm was developed. It provided better velocity, capacity and penetration than a 45 acp and more mass than a 9mm. Seemingly perfect for the order. However, in testing they found that the recoil produced made it too difficult for most officers to control and follow up shots were a mess. So the S&W 40 caliber round was developed to tame things a bit. But the 10mm lingers in some circles, and with new offerings from RIA and Glock this year it’s gaining in popularity.) This match gun with the 6 inch slide does the taming you want in the 10mm and makes it a joy to shoot. I really have fun with it and look forward to some more hands on time with it in the near future. The gun is nice and tight, the controls feel good and the VZ grips RIA has adopted make all of these guns comfortable in the hand and lend a level of control that is fantastic.
The 22 TCM 1911; for you that don’t know about this little gem, its the ARMSCOR answer to the FN 5.7. No it isn’t piercing helmets or claiming other crazy feats. What it is doing it pushing a 40 grain .22 bullet at 2,00 fps from a centerfire round that fits in a 9mm magazine. Hmmm… got your attention now? It’s a fun gun for someone like myself that has always loved the .22 WMR and it’s fun to shoot to. They offer this one up in a 1911 package similar to the 10mm above but of course there are configurations offering, single stack, double stack, full size, etc. Lots to choose from. In the video you can see when I shoot the TCM it’s not moving things or hitting as hard as the 10mm but it certainly is a heck of a step up from a 22. I want to spend time with this and look at long range pistol shooting to see what the velocity does with trajectory.
More exciting news in the TCM market is the new conversion kit RIA is offering for the Glock 9mm. You can now order a new slide and barrel to drop into the G19 or G17 to make it a TCM and it works well. In order to make this work so well you will see the new slide is modified for reduced weight. I think it’s pretty cool. The kit fits generation 1-3 with no issue and will fit generation 4 but due to a change in the frame there would be a small gap.