By Jim Dickson | Contributing Writer
Rock Island Armory, a division of Armscor, has produced a fine .38 Special revolver. Their goal has always been to offer the highest quality at the lowest price and they have outdone themselves with this one. With a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of just $275, they offer a gun with a limited lifetime warranty for the lifetime of the gun.
These revolvers are made in the Philippines where labor is cheaper and quality remains high. Years ago I reviewed their M1911 .45 auto and found a maker that I could recommend. I saw where they were making this revolver and asked them to send one to Reeves Ace Hardware in Clayton, Georgia where I could pick it up and review it and they complied.
Upon opening the package, I was stunned by the extreme difference in the low price and the high quality of this piece. If this gun had been offered in the early and middle 20th Century when .38 Special revolvers were practically the police standard in the U.S., I think it might well have dominated the market.
The Rock Island revolver is basically a typical 6 shot, full size steel frame .38 Special with a 4 inch barrel. It weighs 29 ounces. It is 8 ¾ inches long, 5 ½ inches high, and 1 ½ inches wide, according to my ruler. It is made from 4140 steel which is the steel U.S. Military firearms have been made from ever since it became available. This is pretty much the industry standard carbon steel gun alloy for high quality firearms in the U.S.
The finish is black Parkerizing, which is by far the most durable and rust resistant traditional finish. This was used on all WWII U.S. Military arms. This finish does not show holster wear easily despite daily carry over the years and it also provides a good surface for oil to adhere to.
The grips are modern design and made from molded polymer, which aids accurate aiming and absorbs a lot of the recoil. The trigger is wide and smooth for easy use without starting to wear on your finger when a lot of rounds are fired at once, while the fixed sights are easy to see and the gun holds steady on target.
There is a Colt-style cylinder release that you pull to the rear to open the cylinder and the cylinder rotates from left to right. All the parts interact as they were designed to although as you would expect with a $275 gun, the fit and finish of the internal parts is not as good as the big name revolvers costing over $1000.
The important thing is that these parts work and they work reliably and they do. The cylinder bolt lock mechanism is similar to a Smith and Wesson and the transfer bar is similar to the Iver Johnson.
The double action sear is basically the same as the Colt, S&W, and Ruger as they are all about the same for this part. No parts interchange with other makes of firearms, however.
Looking down the bore, it is mirror bright like it should be, unlike some new guns that I have seen in recent years, and the rifling is right hand twist with one turn in 16 inches. The timing is right and the cylinder walls are thick enough for any +P loads while the cylinder notches are placed where the chamber is thick so that they don’t reduce the strength of the cylinder.
Like the Colt D frame, it will eventually go out of time if fed a lot of +P loads, however. The longevity of the gun is about the same as a Smith and Wesson alloy frame model but when it does wear out you can return it for repair or replacement under the limited lifetime warranty.
I measured the trigger pull with a Lyman Mechanical Trigger Pull Gage from Brownells Gunsmithing supplies and found it within acceptable limits at 12 ½ pounds double action and 5 ½ pounds single action. I would have preferred the double action trigger pull to be under 9 pounds and the single action trigger pull to be under 4 pounds. This would be a great help for precision shooting.
For a comparison, I measured a WWII issue S&W M10 .38 Special and it had a double action trigger pull of 9 pounds, 2 ounces, and a single action trigger pull of 4 pounds, 3 ounces. This makes precision double and single action shooting much easier and coming on a military issue gun proves that this weight is not too light.
I also have a 1909 Colt Police Positive that was rebuilt by master gunsmith Alan Aaronstein of Interarms that has a 9 ½ pound double action trigger pull and a 5 pound single action trigger pull. As I normally shoot a double action revolver as a double action and go to a purpose built single action like the Colt Single Action Army when I want to manually cock the gun before each shot, a good trigger pull is important to how tight a group that I can shoot.
When you consider how many times more the weight of the trigger pull is than the weight of the pistol it becomes obvious just how disruptive a force this is and how critical even a small increase or decrease in the amount can be. A really light double action trigger enables me to shoot as good double action as I can shoot single action while a heavy trigger pull prevents that.
Despite a somewhat heavy trigger pull, the RIA M200 was easy enough to hit with and had very little felt recoil. I had 100 rounds of Armscor .38 Special FMJ ammunition and wished that I had 1,000 rounds because this was a fun gun to shoot.
Like most contemporary revolvers the ejector rod was not long enough to fully extract the empty cases. I think that wherever barrel length permits, the ejector rod should be long enough to make a loaded case completely clear the cylinder. Of course holding the gun with the cylinder perfectly vertical usually works but not always and I have an aversion to taking time out in a gun fight to claw my empties out of the cylinder.
The Armscor .38 Special ammunition sent was full metal jacket, which I prefer as it penetrates large animals and whatever cover your human enemy takes better than expanding bullets. The Thompson LaGarde Commission proved long ago that you cannot make a pistol bullet of less than .45 caliber and 230 grains into a reliable manstopper so why would you sacrifice penetration in a futile attempt to get it?
The gun fit perfectly in a police issue Bianchi holster for a 4 inch S&W M10. It also worked in a Sticky Holster from the Sticky Holster company. These are not sticky to the touch but are the best holsters for inside the waistband carry as once positioned they absolutely stay put in exactly the position you choose for best comfort and concealment.
Throughout most of the 20th Century the 6-shot full size .38 Special revolver was virtually the standard police sidearm and the most popular civilian revolver. Neither private citizens nor the police were worried about stopping fanatical attackers and this was the most power and recoil that the average shooter wanted to deal with. The guns that chambered it were usually light and easy to carry.
A big exception was the Colt New Service revolver. This big .45-caliber revolver was ordered by the U.S. Border Patrol in .38 Special, which produced a gun whose weight absorbed almost all of the recoil making it easier to train recruits in how to shoot a pistol. Today we don’t think of the .38 Special full size revolver as a kicker but it does show the prevalent attitude of the past.
The average full size .38 Special revolver was easy to carry openly or concealed. It remains a popular bedside burglar pistol to this day. The average man considered it more than adequate for protection in those days and indeed it was as we didn’t have the drugged up psychos we sometimes encounter today. The normal situation was that the criminal either went down or ran away when hit depending on the severity of the wound.
Country folk found the pistols accurate and easy to take small and medium game with as well as varmints preying on their livestock. In those days the coyote had not made it across the Mississippi river in quantity and the traditional barnyard with chickens, ducks, geese, and goats running freely was common. A .38-caliber revolver worked for the occasional fox after the chickens and also deterred the tramps of that day from helping themselves to the chickens, the clothes on the clothesline, or anything else their sticky fingers wanted. Many men became adept at potting squirrels and rabbits for the dinner table with these pistols.
The features that made the .38 Special revolver so popular in the past keep it popular today. Do not think the low price of the Rock Island Armory M200 revolver means low quality. It does not. This is a good gun backed by a lifetime warranty that will give good service.
