A few thoughts on carbon fiber grips for the R-9… Carbon Fiber material is not only being used to build jet fighters these days, but also fuel efficient passenger airliners - hence the international shortage of the thicker CF blocks. It is still possible to find thin sheets of CF in rolls, but this product is not adequate for making gun grips. Costs early on for the R-9 CF grips were around the $50 mark...then upped to around $75 and the last batch cost Rohrbaugh well over $100. Good things cost more…period. And in some cases like this – the longer you wait the more you pay. If you were fortunate like me to buy an extra set of Carbon Fiber grips early on for less than $100 – count your blessings…! If you are lucky enough to find a pair of R-9 CF grips for less than twice that amount today – that is a lucky find in today’s market.
The next subject was of personal interest to me because when I first heard about it I looked all over the R-Forum to no avail for an announcement addressing the change from using Super Lube to regular gun oil for lubricating the R-9. Karl and Eric have always been fans of using Super Lube on their guns, especially the R-9 so this was surprising news to my ears. So why do away with Super Lube…?
It turns out that there have been two things the guys at the factory have found to be the most common problems associated with R-9s returned for repair. The first are guns which have been under lubricated… All guns need some form of lubrication to function, especially these high strung Pocket Guns with tight tolerances. The second problem is equally bad, if not worse and has to do with over lubricating with grease, like Super Lube. The excessive grease alone can cause malfunctions. But too much grease is also a dirt magnet, which adds to the problem especially if the guns are not cleaned after each use…causing “stuff” to accumulate and gum things up, which can result in reliability problems. So by promoting the use of quality gun oil rather than grease they have reduced the rate of problems associated with Super Lube.
That said…the R-Bros still use Super Lube VERY SPARINGLY on new guns being prepped to go out. A tinsy bit of Super Lube is mixed with oil and used inside of the slide just forward of the ejection port where the top of the barrel glides along the inside of the slide. According to Eric this combo treatment is very good for helping new parts to mate together. However…Eric suggests that if you have the slightest doubt what VERY SPARINGLY means – please just stick with using nothing but oil. You can still over lubricate your R-9 Pocket Gun with oil but the results will differ from over lubing with grease. Too much grease can cause the gun to fail. But if you use too much oil your gun will likely work, but the excess oil will seep out of your gun and stain your clothes…!
The last topic for today from Eric has to do with ammunition. It seems the R-Bros have been encountering reliability problems with some of the new batches of both their test ammo and that which they keep in their own guns for personal protection. And apparently it’s not so easy as just taking measurements on ammo because of inconsistencies with the amount of powder going into each cartridge. Eric went into a lot of detail on this issue with me and it sounds scary what the ammo industry has been getting away with in recent times. A couple weeks ago Karl called Larry Seecamp about this subject, knowing well that Larry has been building guns around specific ammo for years, only to recently discover problems such as described above. For more details on this check out the Seecamp web site (
http://www.seecamp.com/ammunition.htm ). So what are gunmakers to do about this problem…? They could lessen the tolerances of certain parts to allow for a wider variety of ammo to function in their guns…? Or perhaps we the final consumers should take note and complain to the ammo makers directly…? I for one would like to learn more on this subject and am interested in what other Forum members have experienced or suggest…??
And that’s all I have to say about that. If you have further thoughts/questions on any of these topics – speak up…! I sure don’t have the answers but a good dialog may be in order to find some.
Regards…TW<<
