Got my copy (Sept/.Oct. 2004) on Saturday night at Barnes & Noble.
The R9s, with grey frame, is on the cover. The article is by Roy Huntington and runs 8 pages with 13 pictures!
A few highlights. Roy did an interview with Karl Rohrbaugh and has some quotes I haven't seen before. There is even a pic of Karl and Eric's mom shooting the R-9 -- something they were really happy to have appear as a surprise to her.
Roy describes the R-9 as the "professional's choice" and quotes Karl as saying that the gun is clearly not for beginners--this is a gun experienced shooters "move up to" or aspire to.
Karl's background is in building custom hot rods and motorcyles. He competed in unspecifiied pistol competitions. When he decided to build this gun, it took 8 years of design work, much of which was based on the Browning Hi-Power design. The original idea was for a .380 ACP, but after Seecamp released a .380, he set his sights on a 9mm platform.
The article says everything is made in-house except the (Woff) springs and the magazines. I think Eric told me that they are trying to move the mag production in house. The grips were also made elsewhere, but are moving in house.
Unlike Gun Test Magaine, they had no feeding problems except with truncated nose stuff. They preferred Federal's 147 grain "tactical" police load and Speer's 124 grain Gold Dot.
Interestingly, there is a picture of an R-9s in one of Ron Graham's ostrich skin holsters. Unfortunatley, they do not identify the model or the maker -- except by providing Ron's address and website at the end of the article.
The article is worth it just for the Ichiro Nagata photography--including a 2-page "centerfold" type spread.
Nice review.
