I have been collecting and shooting semi-autos and having a ball. I just bought a .357 Taurus Model 65 and enjoy it...my second revolver, after the 1895 Nagant. Anyway, I saw an Armscor .38 spl revolver reasonably priced and did a google and found they are made it the Philippines, but are they any good? I like a deal and like inexpensive, but not junk that could be dangerous (I was going to try a Charter Arms but it had bad reviews on another forum. ) Thanks!
I've never seen any Armscor revolvers or autos in person, but I have three Rock Island Armory .45 M1911A1's. They're made in the Phillipines by Armscor as Rock Islands for the US market, and they're damn good guns. Don't let the prices fool you. Go to the Armscor website, they've got photos of everything.
i looked at a 38 sp with a 4 inch barrel earlier this year. I thought that the trigger was heavy, and there was a lot of spacing between the cylinder and barrel. I would have probably worked though. I bought a Hi-Point 45 instead. The HP has been very reliable although kind of cheap looking. It has a nice trigger. For a wheel gun I would purchase either a Smith or a Ruger.
Here is an article that describes how to inspect a used revolver. Revolver checkout: how to tell if a particular specimen is any good - TheFiringLine Forums
Hello all,
I am new in this forum hoping that i would learn more about the Rock Island's 1911 cal, acp, i am learning.
I wanted to buy a Rock Island 1911 acp pistol, the "Commodore" in 4"inch. barrel,! Iheard that Armscor made products are nice, dependable, durable and the lowest price you'll find in town, compared to other brand of same sexes, is it true? and what about using a high caps. mags in it like 15 rounds cap. after market for the 1911 pistols, would it take it too? any suggestions of the 15 rnds. high caps mag. available in the U.S market now?
I'll appreciate your informations, before I decide to buy the pistol in 45acp 1911 R.I.
Thanks,
Deep
Rock Island Armory makes an excellent, no frills 1911. My son's had one for about a year. Eats anything he feeds it, smooth, no problems. There are no bells and whistles but it does what JB intended the 1911 to do. Shoot, shoot, shoot. And their customer service is second to none. Check out The M1911 Pistols Organization and check Armscor/Rock Island Armory. You can read all of the users comments.
__________________
... ed ...
MAINE - The Way Life Should Be ...
NRA/C&R
I own Two Rock Islands and love them both! I have a full size GI style and a 3inch gov't style....I've put at least two thousand rounds through the full size with out a hitch! And I believe that Armscor is company... all in all lotta of bang for the buck!
I have been collecting and shooting semi-autos and having a ball. I just bought a .357 Taurus Model 65 and enjoy it...my second revolver, after the 1895 Nagant. Anyway, I saw an Armscor .38 spl revolver reasonably priced and did a google and found they are made it the Philippines, but are they any good? I like a deal and like inexpensive, but not junk that could be dangerous (I was going to try a Charter Arms but it had bad reviews on another forum. ) Thanks!
Dave
My Armscor M200 gun has a parkerized finish and a Jerry Miculek-style polymer grip, the frame is investment cast alloy similar to ruger p series semi autos.
The sights are frontal ramp and a fixed rear sight.
The chrome moly barrel and cylinder are +P rated.
The gun is a knock off of a colt detective special "D" frame and works with some colt grips, holsters and speed loaders.
The 4 inch barrel is accurate at 30 feet giving 2 inch groups and good accuracy at 25 yards.
Ive also fired the Comanche 2 & 3 series revolvers and like them.
Buy the Armscor 2 inch but order the black polymer grip to replace the wood grips.
I own Armscor / Rock Island Armory / Twin Pines guns.. .45 semi-autos and .38 special wheel guns. They are excellent, excellent weapons and they are cheap. They are cheap in price, but NOT in quality. I wouldn't trade them off for anything. If you can get your hands on them thru auction websites or www.sarcoinc.com, you're doing good. You can't beat them.
I have two Armscor .38 Special revolvers; one is a Model 206 with the 2"bbl, it originally was not acceptable and was sent back it was replced and the replacement is excellent. It had several quality issues that must have happened on a Monday morning! My second revolver is a Model 200 with the 4"bbl it is not a COLT but a decent copy. There are some issues but they are not too serious. There are sharp edges, and a few small nicks and scratches. It shoots very well and the trigger pull and sight picture are great. Accuracy is very good @ 50' I put some 150gr handloads into 2" ; the Model 206 is a good shooter, the grips suck or you'll need to replace them with COLT grips. My replacement is totally shootable and a good arm....
__________________
"Political correctness is a belief that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."
Armscor is a Philippine Company that has been manufacturing weapons since the 1970s. They originally turned out 38 spl revolvers and shotguns. I believe by this time they have turned out at least a million revolvers and shotguns. These shotguns and revolvers are bought by civilians, security agencies and even our own Philippine National Police have issued Armscor made weapons. Armscor in the past decade has turned out 45, 9mm and even .40 1911A1s, even hi capacity models. Their hicap 45 mags are compatible to para ord mags, so a lot of Philippine shooters using Para ord hi caps use their mags. I have an Armscor shotgun given to me by a cousin which was made in the early 80s and I like it.
Twin Pines/Rock Island also manufactures 45, 40 and 9mm in 1911A1 GM models. ALso hi cap models.
There is another Philippine manufacturer which manufactures different types. 40, 9mm and 45 in standard model and hi capacity 1911A1s, 38 spl revolvers that look like 357 magnums full lug, snubnose models, magazine fed shotguns that look like M16 carbines with the forward grip as the pump, standard pump shotguns, semi auto machine pistol almost copies of the mac11 and the intrated 9, and others. I have as Shooters Commander model 45 in standard frame and haven't had a jam or malfunction after firing 3000 rounds.
Will try to find their websites.
These manufacturers have serviced my country very well for the past decades. Quality might not be a Kimber, Para Ord, Smith and Wesson, but it's almost there. And it's something we can afford here as compared to the imports. For example, an XD can cost the equivalent of $1000 here, and the home license will cost $100 but good for 3 years. permit to carry outside of residence will cost another $100 good for 1 year only. ANd you can't carry within the body, it has to be in a bag or something. And you can't bring it to commercial establishments such as food centers, entertainment centers, malls, moviehouses.
That armscor revolver you're thinking of buying, go ahead. It's brothers has served more than 100,000 security guards for the past 2 years alone. Not counting the Philippine cops, and homeowners who have them. It's been good enough for us, maybe it'll be good enough for you guys.
ARMSCOR was previously known as Squires-Bingham, a old British firearms company.
They aren't horrible, but they're not the best-looking weapons ever made. Quality is about the same as mid-80's Brazilian weapons...decent, usually need a little tweaking to be smooth. Decent accuracy.
I have a soft spot in my heart for their .22's
__________________ Marlin & Calico Specialist
I'm not just Trigger Happy, I'm Trigger Ecstatic!!
I recently bought an Armscor M200, didn't "need" it, as I have various .38's and .357's from every major US revolver maker, many Smith .38's, a Ruger GP100 and a Colt King Cobra. The closest thing I have to the Armscor is a Colt Police Positive, but I don't shoot the old Colt much, more of a collectible to me.
My Armscor is a decent gun, but has a few glitches. In fast DA it "overthrows" the cylinder, also if you yank back hard on the hammer in SA it does the same. I suspect this is from a weak bolt stop spring. I opened the sideplate and played around with the spring, moving it dead center in the groover that retains it so as to give it the most "leverage" and in fast DA it overthrew LESS than it did before but still did it a couple times in dry fire. In hard SA cocking the problem almost went away, but was still there. So, I'm going to try a Colt Agent or Cobra bolt stop spring to replace it and see if that works.
Also, the extractor rod is threaded so that when the star is tightened all the way it is off center and will not seat behind the chambers, thus rendering it inop untl it can be aligned by hand. When aligned, it is loose on the rod and with spirited ejection of cases it will turn on the rod and then mis-align. These 2 problems preclude my use of this for anything other than paper punching.
Very interesting info, that Phillipine Police use the Armscor revolvers, or at least did use them and also security guards. I used to be an armed guard (in the US Army now) and I enjoyed that job,so I kind of have a soft spot for guns used by security guards and also police of any nation.
If I can work these two glitches out, hopefully with a new bolt spring and might have to blue Loc-Tite the star in place, I will like this revolver better. No need to take the cylinder off the pin for cleaning very often, so Loc Tite might be a decent solution.
Overall, the revolver is accurate and feels great in the hand, I like it enough that I would buy another one, and am looking for the 4" model made with a steel frame, with the non-lugged barrel and no rib. A low priced, good shooting steel frame .38 would be great, more fun at the range without beating up my nice vintage Smiths with 1,000's of rounds. I bought the M200 just to see how it holds up to a couple thousand rounds of standard .38 Special, before I seek out any more of them.
The snubbies do not appeal to me, I like 4"+ revolvers, and am a voracious collector of .38 Special DA service revolvers, and I consider 4" the "standard" for a police or security holster revolver, with 5" and 6" being favorites of mine too. I had a chance to buy the M206 alloy frame snubby and went for the 4" instead, the muzzle of the snub just looked ugly.......if it looked more like the 4" I might pick one up.
My Armscor M200 gun has a parkerized finish and a Jerry Miculek-style polymer grip, the frame is investment cast alloy similar to ruger p series semi autos.
The sights are frontal ramp and a fixed rear sight.
The chrome moly barrel and cylinder are +P rated.
The gun is a knock off of a colt detective special "D" frame and works with some colt grips, holsters and speed loaders.
The 4 inch barrel is accurate at 30 feet giving 2 inch groups and good accuracy at 25 yards.
Ive also fired the Comanche 2 & 3 series revolvers and like them.
Buy the Armscor 2 inch but order the black polymer grip to replace the wood grips.
Anyone know where I can get the replacement grips for the Armscor 206. The plastic wood looking ones are terrible?
New member 
