Colt 1911 Rail Gun 22lr made by Walther

[Allen]

Do any of you know anything about what is called the "1911 Colt Rail Gun" made by Walther? Is the frame aluminum? Can you install and shoot a 45acp upper? Are the parts interchangable with the real 1911's? Pro's---Con's ???

[Bayonet]

I presume you mean the 1911 Colt .22 made by Walther and imported by Umarex. These come in 3 versions, the purely military copy, a match grade and the rail gun.

If so, I am not sure of what the frame is, although it is fairly heavy and probably is some grade of steel. The slide is a lighter weight material necessary to get it to work with .22 ammunition.

The frame parts are mostly if not totally interchangeable with the regular .45 1911 series.

The upper assembly however is totally different and you CANNOT install .45 parts. The barrel is fixed and the gun is a pure blowback action.

Quality is not bad for the price. My grandson has one of the straight 1911 military versions, and at a couple of feet cannot be told from a .45. His shoots as well as most of the conversions or ACE types. There has been some problem with the 12 round magazine in that the first 3 rounds or so do not always eject well and it does not feed the next round. I believe this is due to friction from the top cartridge being under high spring pressure which retards the rearward travel of the slide when using standard velocity ammunition. High speed ammo does not have this problem.

Very nice gun for introducing the .45 to a new shooter as it points and feels just like the .45 but has less recoil and report. The price is quite reasonable, and although we have only shot a couple thousand rounds so far, we have had no problems except for the problem mentioned above. We now load 7 rounds in the magazine and have had absolutely no failures to fire or feed.

[Allen]

Thanks, they DO look nice. I have two 22lr conversion kits (along with enough frame parts) and was thinking of buying two RIA frames from Sarco to build into full time 1911's. I ran across the 1911 Colt/Walther/Umarex Rail Gun and thought for the money why go through the bother?

[da gimp]

thanks for the nice detailed & thorough report gary......