rtmoore:
I regret what appears to be your qualified dissatisfaction with your R9 and am replying here based on the comment in your first post to the Forum last December that, "I'm looking forward to carrying the Ferrari of pocket 9s." That is an analogy which I have frequently used in these pages to describe the R9, and it is an analogy which I still believe to be appropriate after nearly five years of carrying my own R9 No. 132 on a daily basis.
Your previous posts would indicate that you took delivery of your R9 last December 6, sent it back to the factory on or about December 17 after two range sessions during which you had run what you described as a "mixed bag" of ammunition through it and experienced a failure to fire, some light primer strikes, and some failures to eject. Your first post today states that your pistol was returned to you after you had spent "four weeks of patiently waiting." You also state that the factory had found small pieces of brass in the firing-pin chamber, had done "something" to the extractor, and had returned the pistol to you in what you describe as "dirty" condition. You indicate that, although it appears that your R9 is now functioning as it should, you have found shards of brass in the slide area during disassembly and that you are displeased over having had to initiate each one of your conversations with Maria at Rohrbaugh customer service.
As for the brass shards depicted in your second post today, they obviously could not have come from the pistol (which contains no brass parts) and had to come the casings of whatever ammunition was being used. My own initial and immediate reaction to such a phenomenon would be to attribute it either to faulty brass or inadequate lubrication of the weapon. As for the stated matters regarding your experience with the company's customer service, I would sincerely urge you to bear in mind the following matters: (1) Rohrbaugh Firearms is a very small, privately held operation dedicated to producing the finest possible products; (2) the company has been literally inundated with new orders recently due to the public's having become increasingly aware of the R9 and its status as the smallest and lightest pistol yet produced for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge, (3) development has just been completed and shipments have begun for the Rohrbaugh .380, placing additional demands on the company's small staff; (4) the company is still working to catch up with work demands following the Christmas holidays and SHOT 2009; (5) the highly vaunted customer service which is offered by the company and which so many of us admire is essentially a one-woman operation named Maria; and (6) you sent your R9 back for repairs during the holiday/SHOT 2009 period during much of which the factory was either closed or on partial operations.
I may sound like a stuck record at times, but in my 71 years on this third rock from the sun, much of it in military and "other" service, I have never come across a handgun, except the "immortal" 1911, which I think serves its intended purpose as well as does the Rohrbaugh R9. And this is what a five-year-old R9 which has been carried daily, shot much, and never malfunctioned looks like these days:
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y30/RichardS/RohrbaughR9No132FourYearsofUse.jpg)
Good luck in coming to peace with your own version of what I consider to be the finest pocket pistol yet designed.