Category: Century Arms

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1911A2 45ACP base plate Century Arms magazines R1 Remington

Looking for mags that fit your RIA 1911A2?

When I bought my RIA 10mm 1911A2, I tried to order A2 mags from AdvancedTactical.com (Armscor parts/support site).  The showed as having plenty in stock but apparently, they were out, because my order sat for a month before I told them to cancel it.  In fact, they’re still showing as out of stock at the time of this posting.

I tried looking at other places but most stores are out of stock.  The only stores I saw that had them were in places like Alaska and Canada and they required $100 in purchases before they’d even consider sending to you (shipping was free, though).

I then saw in a 1911 FB group where a guy stated he’d bought Remington R1 .45ACP double-stack mags and that the mags latched into the gun.  The mags fed ammo reliably into the handgun.

I decided to seek out that magazine type.  Again, I had a difficult time finding a place that had them in stock, but I finally found that Century Arms carries them.  I ordered two of the mags on 3/9.  It is now 3/18 and they’ve arrived at my door.

The first mag latched without issue, but the second one initially would not latch.  Ground the top of the mag’s catch hole just a tad.  It now latches.

Both fit without issue, although latching is pretty tight…this can be fixed by ordering thinner base plates (or slightly grinding the top of the catch hole on the mag).  The mags are designed for 45ACP and will hold 16 rounds of 45ACP.  I loaded one mag with 10mm and was able to load 18.

I will be visiting the range tonight or tomorrow to test feeding/functionality with both mags. I’ll test with 16 rounds as well as 18.

These mags are $9-$10 cheaper than the mags Armscor sells and they appear to be more readily available.  I’ve been trying to get mags since 1/31 and Armscor went out of stock around that time.  I could find Para mags but didn’t want to hack/cut/file a mag.  Granted, I had to grind one of the mags I bought, but it was a 10 sec grind where you wouldn’t even notice an alteration.

The base plate on the R1 mags are rather thick.  They protrude from the magwell a bit, but they can be changed to something less thick (or they can be ignored for shooting purposes).

OEM magazine
OEM magazine
R1 magazine
R1 magazine

As of 3/9, Century Arms had them in stock.  I’m not sure if they’re still showing as in stock but if you need 1911A2 mags for your RIA, Century Arms is currently the place to visit.

UPDATE (3/19/2021):  I took off the base plate on the OEM mag to see if it’ll fit on the R1 mags.  It does.  So, if you buy the R1 mags, you can buy OEM base plates from Armscor and fit them on the R1 mags.

UPDATE (12/21/2021): Century Arms has stopped carrying the Remington R1 double-stack mags.  🙁

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Canik Century Arms CZ Glock nationalists patriotism Turkey

Canik Firearms

For those of you that don’t mind Turkish guns (the non-Nationalists out there, maybe), Caniks are very nice guns.  They’ve a good polymer gun presence in the US gun market.  A few of their polymer guns are the TP9 SF, The TP9 SF Elite, and the TP9 SFX.  They no longer sell the TP9 SA, but have reworked their TP9 v2:  it is now called the TP9 DA.

Canik also sells all-metal guns.  Canik Sharks and their variants are available on the market, but I do believe they’re no longer imported by Century Arms.  Tristar is an importer of Caniks.  Any handguns they have are actually Caniks.  Tristar handguns are just rebranded Caniks.  A few of those guns are:  the C120, C100, T120, T100, and P100.  Most people refer to these guns as CZ clones, mainly due to the slide rails being inverted compared to traditional gun slides.  They are not actual clones…they may share similar parts but you actually won’t be able to swap most parts internal to a CZ75, for example, into a Tristar C120.  I don’t call them clones.  I call them CZ-inspired.

Now, about my Nationalist comment.  Many people tend to get their panties in a bind when they discover that Caniks are gaining popularity.  These people usually can’t hold back the “I don’t support terrorism” comment.  The general population of Turkey should not be held accountable for the few radicals they have.  The US has radicals as well.  If people held the US accountable like the US citizens always want accountability with other countries (such as Turkey), there probably wouldn’t be an uproar.  The things we do to our own citizens here is actually appalling, yet we’ll make generalist comments about a damned Turkish gun maker.  Caniks are imported by US businesses.  The money spent on these guns are staying in the US…it’s going to those that work in those US businesses, to people like you and I.  I wish I could buy a Canik every time I heard these comments, just so I could tell those folks, “every time one of you open your mouth, I buy a Canik.”  I’m a military veteran and I’m about as red-blooded as one can be and I own three of these guns.  It doesn’t bother me one bit.  You can love your country and buy imported goods without issue, IMO.  Every person is different.  I feel I can do whatever the hell I want with my money, for one.  Secondly, for every Nationalist that tells me that I’m unpatriotic because I bought a Turkish gun, I ask them, “have you served your country?  Have you fought on foreign soil?”  It usually shuts them up because most of those folk have never seen the world beyond the town they live in.

As well, those of you that feel that “it isn’t a Glock”…no shit.  You can own both.  Some people say, “well, aftermarket support isn’t on the level of Glock”.  Well, there aren’t many gun makes that have the level of aftermarket support of Glocks.  Still, all you have to do is Google Search on “Canik TP9 holsters” or “Canik TP9 sights” and you’ll see a ton of hits…it won’t be like there’s a scarcity of such info…trust me, I did several such searches the other day when someone commented that Caniks weren’t wanted.  I also posted the results.  I also said, “there’s a whole world beyond just Glocks.  I own several Glocks and several Caniks and I like both.  There’s room for both.”  The guy never responded back.  It was probably because such details are difficult to refute.

If you’re new to Caniks or want to know more about them, check out the Canik Fanatik web forum..

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.308 7.62 x 51 CAI Century Arms CETME G3 HK NATO rifle

CETME (G3) Long Gun?

Someone posted on a Facebook group a new acquisition of his:  a CETME .308 made by Century Arms International.  Apparently, it’s essentially an HK G3 (the HK G3 is actually a clone of the original Spanish-made CETME .308 rifle).

This is news to me, as I thought these guns were expensive, yet CAI-made versions can be had for around $600-800.  Original Spanish-made CETME .308s apparently can’t accept full-power NATO .308 rounds, but CAI versions can.

I just might add this rifle to my wish list.  I’d want one with wooden furniture and several mags (although I might be able to get decently priced mags from CAI).  A rail and/or scope might be nice, as well, but I’d be just as happy without either of those.  I’d have to research ammo prices for 7.62 x 51 NATO and research YouTube videos for any potential issues/gotchas.

This is the first long gun I’ve been thoroughly attracted to (minus an M4).

Beautiful wood on this CETME!
Check out the collapsible stock!


UPDATE:

A quick check shows that I can get 240 rounds of 146-grain 7.62 x 51 for $139 from J&G.

20-round mags can also be had for less than $7 (!!)

This example of CETME looks like a good purchase candidate!

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Canik Century Arms Mrgunsngear review TP9 V2 TP9v2

Yet Another TP9v2 Review

You can probably tell I love Caniks. I’m trying not to spam the viewers but I think each one of these reviews are important. Mrgunsngear hit upon some key points: 1. You’re not going to see inadvertent actuation of the decocker on ANY handgun, but if you do happen to see it with the v2 gun, it’ll put you in DA mode. 2. He had issues with riding the slide release, which caused the gun to not lock the slide back on the last round. That’s not a gun issue…that’s a handling issue. 3. He’s shot thousands of rounds out of all his (5) Caniks with NO failures, feed, or extraction issues. These are great guns. I think most people focus on the price and think cheaply priced guns will develop problems. Not in the case of Caniks.

UPDATE (12/8/2023): The video link no longer exists by no fault of my own. The owner either moved/deleted it or it was taken down by the social media platform (Facebook). I was going to delete this post but I’ll just delete the reference to the old content instead.

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Canik Century Arms Sootch00 TP9 V2 TP9v2 VSO Gun Channel

Canik TP9v2 – Another Extensive Review!

More Canik TP9v2 goodness, from the VSO Gun Channel!



UPDATE: 

sootch00 just published a review of the TP9v2 as well!

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CAI Canik Century Arms TP9v2

CAI Facebook Post on the TP9v2

Look at this!

Now shipping TP9v2’s!
Posted by Century Arms on Monday, July 13, 2015

Well, they aren’t telling me anything I haven’t already published in recent postings of this particular gun, but the fact that they’re advertising it is pretty cool (I didn’t see them doing that with the other TP-9s).

Oh, and here’s another video of the gun, this one by Hank Strange (and quite a bit longer than James Yeager’s).

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Century Arms dremel slide TP9SA warranty wear

Slide Scratches/Gouges – TP9SA

I’d noticed that the underside of my TP9SA’s slide has some unusual metal wear.  I couldn’t find what was causing it.  Well, someone else did:

At 1:18 and 1:22, he shows his slide’s wear…it looks very similar to mine.  He discovered that the magazine was scratching the slide!  My slide scrapes weren’t as bad as his (I’ve only shot 100 rounds through my gun).

I checked my magazines and some of the paint was missing from the very top of both…to double-check, I used a black Sharpie to coat the bare metal both of my magazines’ wear marks.  I also covered the slide’s wear in black Sharpie.  Then I placed the magazines into the gun and racked the slide maybe 10 times each.  I checked the slide and mags again.  The marker ink had rubbed off.

I used a Dremel to grind a bit of metal from where the ink had rubbed off…I removed just a tiny bit of metal with a grindstone.  I covered the ground areas with Sharpie again, then racked the slide with both mags again.  There was no more wear.  Fixed!

The guy in the video actually sent his gun back to Century Arms as a warranty claim.  He also had a trigger spring that was mangled a bit that Century Arms is going to take a look at, too.

I’m glad he posted his issue…I’d have never figured out what was causing it.

UPDATE:  I wanted to keep the readers informed on this issue.  I bought a tan TP9SA not long ago and performed the same grind of the mags that I did with my black TP9SA.  I took the tan TP9SA to the range on 4/3 and it performed flawlessly.  There are no more slide gouges.  It has minor scrapes due to dry racking while the mags were inserted…I covered them in black magic marker to determine if the scrapes would still occur and it hasn’t occurred.