Gun Show Find

[MRC]

Look what I found at the gun show this  last weekend.

It is the first Rohrbaugh I have ever seen at a Show.

[ECR]

Reeeally nice find! All original, not played with R9 (no sights) . . . . . . As Karl says: A man's gun.   

So what price mark are they at with this one. I have a number in my mind. . . . let's see where it is.

Ha haa..........

Eric R.

[tattoo]

SWEET

[MRC]

Reeeally nice find! All original, not played with R9 (no sights) . . . . . . As Karl says: A man's gun.   

So what price mark are they at with this one. I have a number in my mind. . . . let's see where it is.

Ha haa..........

Eric R.

I waited until the last day of the show and he said no one showed any interest and he shot me a price of $900 with the 3rd mag and I countered with $850 and he accepted.

It appears to have been shot some.  The metal looks to be pretty good but the grips are worn. 

The wear on the grips looks strange to me.  I really can't quite figure that out.  I have never seen grips look like this before.  I do have a new set of blues some where.

[ECR]

Well that's an early R9 score!  If you can send me a close up photograph of the grips and what you think is not right about them, I may have a fix for you. Again, great find for that type of money!

ecr

[MRC]

Well that's an early R9 score!  If you can send me a close up photograph of the grips and what you think is not right about them, I may have a fix for you. Again, great find for that type of money!

ecr

I will do that.

The part I am talking about is the "blue streaks" you see in the picture.  The right grip has it about where your trigger finger runs and the left grip is where my off hand thumb would be.

I just took the gun apart and looked everything over real good.  There is not a single mark on the frame, not even on the bottom where you insert the magazine.  The barrel hood looks like it has been barely fired and the frame rails show not wear at all.  The bore is dirty but the guy I bought it from told me he took it on trade and fired it once just to try it.

It really looks like someone maybe traded grips from another gun.

[PhilZ]

Nice find. 

[MRC]

I guess I will see what you guys think.  The gun appears to be shot very little but the grips look worn to me.

[MRC]

..

[PhilZ]

It's hard to tell by the picture whether the blue layer is above, below, or flush with the gray layer.  If it was wear, the blue layer would be lower where the abrasion wore away the top gray layer, exposing the blue layer underneath.  If the blue/gray is perfectly flat, it could indicate a manufacturing flaw where the underlying blue layer was somehow too high in that area and was therefore exposed during milling. 

[MRC]

I do not know how that stuff is made so that is why I am asking here.

The blue streaks do not appear to be "worn lower" at all.  It is more like paint wearing off of a metal surface where it is continually handled.

You can see the frame rails show hardly any wear in the coating, there is not one mark anywhere on the frame showing use.  Yet the grips look well used.

Maybe Eric can fill us in.

[ECR]

OK. . . . Ready. . . . . For an explanation of the blue carbon fiber grip differences?

. . . . Well then, here we go. . . . I'll try my best.

When these were manufactured by a local vendor, the blue is "interwoven" within the CF material. The top of the grip panel is thinner than the bottom. That caused the blue to do strange things as it was cut. I tried my best to match grips and grip color patterns personally for each set. Near the end of the run of blue CF grips, the vendor company making them, for some reason, had a tougher and tougher time making them even. I'm not sure if it was the quality of the materials they purchased for the batch or what, but I did what I could to get the guns out and still have the grips "acceptable" in appearance. After a while, with the blue tint coming out in strange patterns and getting more and more difficult to match them evenly for some reason, Karl and I said we can not offer these any more and we switched to the plain black carbon fiber grips, of which there were no issues with those at all. While a nice set of relatively even patterned blue carbon fiber grip panels gave the R9 a rather new and different look, we had to go the easier route with the black CF grip panels instead due to quality, or lack of. Even patterned blue CF grip sets pull good money on eBay, to the tune of around $350 a few years ago! Today, that is an unknown in their pricing. I guess it's like any auction: It's only worth what someone is willing to pay for that item at that time.

Now, the treatment we used to make those grips look nice is something called: Kwikseal by Du-Lite Corp.

This product is used to wipe down all new firearms not only by us, but by these manufacturers as well: 

Kimber, Winchester, Sturm Ruger, Dakota Arms, Colt, Barret, Les Baer and others.

Wipe those CF grip panels down with this stuff and they will have "The Look" once again.

I hope you all enjoyed reading one more of my stories of what went on "behind the scenes" at Rohrbaugh Firearms Corp.

Best to you All!

Eric R.

[MRC]

Thanks Eric.

I have a 40X loupe that I looked at the grips with and they are not worn at all, the blue is just at the top like you say.  I think I have another set somewhere.  I just do not like the looks of this set.

Personally, I have never liked the blue grips.  I have always thought that the black was much better looking and in fact, that is what brought my attention to the R9 in the first place.

For shooting, the flat carbon fiber are not very good in my opinion.

[tattoo]

Mrc if you want to sell them let me know. The discolor doesn't bother me.

[ECR]

Thanks Eric.

I have a 40X loupe that I looked at the grips with and they are not worn at all, the blue is just at the top like you say.  I think I have another set somewhere.  I just do not like the looks of this set.

Personally, I have never liked the blue grips.  I have always thought that the black was much better looking and in fact, that is what brought my attention to the R9 in the first place.

For shooting, the flat carbon fiber are not very good in my opinion.

The even blue cf grips actually looked pretty nice, IMHO. However, once they started getting the look like what you have there, was, frankly, the beginning of the end of the blue grips because of that issue. In ref. to the CF not good for shooting? . . . . they can be something you need to train a bit with to be comfortable in shooting it when you sweat a lot during hot weather. In the cooler weather I never felt them an issue. Near the end of our run, when John from VZ Grips worked with us for his grip design, we switched to his design which "bowed out" a bit filling your hand better. I really like the VZ Grips.