I've had several RIA's and I consider them a great entry level choice and if it's going to be a personel defence gun the the first tining you do is replace all factory springs or at least the recoil and FP sprinngs. Taurus is another entry level 1911 even though with some of their guns retail at just under $1000, and I consider over $700 above the entry level for 1911's.
I picked up a Taurus new for $399 this summer....this looks like a pimp gun and I even joke about it being one. But it so far is 100% reliable, very accurate and easy on hands. The feed ramp is polished to a perfect mirror finish, but FP had to be replaced because of being about 1/16" to short making for light primer strikes. It however had fired Remington factory 130 gr ball and CCI primmed handloads of mine w/o a failure. At that point I replaced the factory recoil and FP spring silicon wire springs, the recoil spring using at present is 17# for +P loads.

