ronc,
Welcome to the forum.
My R9S, a July 2005 build, has 700+ rounds thru it.
This gun definitely prefers Winchester Silvertip 115 gr ammo.
Thru about 300 rounds, Speer Gold Dots fed well. Then they became a bit "iffy" feed-wise. I switched to the Silvertips and now have 100% reliability.
For more comfortable shooting, I & a lot of forum members have found skateboard tape on the front & backstraps helps - A LOT. I used the tape for a while, then noticed some people were recommending using a slip-on grip sleeve. I had a Pacmayr #4 in my box of stuff. It fits perfectly, works as well as the tape and looks better. (Personal preference here, but I don't care for finger swells on my grips, so I ground the single finger swell off the Pacmayr sleeve.)
Hope this helps,
Steve