By Brad Fitzpatrick
When I got the assignment to review a new 9mm semiauto pistol from Rock Island Armory, I was neither surprised nor particularly inspired. 9mms are the lifeblood of the pistol market, and dozens of new nines appear on the pages of this magazine every year. But with so many 9mms being virtual doppelgangers of pistols already in production from other manufacturers, testing and evaluation becomes fairly routine.
Occasionally, though, something turns up that is totally outside traditional lines, and that’s the RIA 5.0 from Rock Island Armory. If you assumed this pistol to be a striker-fired, polymer-frame gun you’d be dead wrong on both accounts. If you imagined it was very much like something you’d seen before, that’s not likely. The RIA 5.0 is a completely new and revolutionary semiauto. It was designed and built in Cedar City, Utah—the first Rock Island/Armscor pistol made stateside.
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