Dire straits,
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The question has come up about the different style markings on the Rohrbaugh slides from the Deer Park, New York facility. Here is the low-down inside scoop on how and why they are labeled differently.
The slides labeled “Deer Park, N.Y.” were the original style slides cut exactly as they were in Farmingdale, New York. . . . Our first shop. These were made of a 17-4 PH Stainless Steel material and all cut from a solid steel billet on a C.N.C. (computer numeric control) machine and not mold injected or forged.
A few years after we were in our new Deer Park, N.Y. shop, with our ongoing quest to make the R9 better as time went along and we learned and tested it further, we found that we were experiencing galling with the slide to barrel lockup area. Both the barrels and the slides were heat treated to the correct Rockwell certifications needed for integrity of the part, between 42 and 44. We found out two things and instituted them as updated design changes in house, notably this: With the dissimilar metals, i.e., the barrel being 416 stainless steel and the slides were 17-4 PH stainless steel; we were experiencing an issue with the lockup and were experiencing galling issues. Further investigations, and asking our vendors and some of our friendly competition questions behind the scenes, we find that most manufacturers were using 416 stainless steel for both the slides and their barrels, so well followed suit. With the changing of the type style of Deer Park, N.Y. from a script lettering to a capitalized block lettering and adding “MADE IN USA” beneath “DEER PARK, N.Y.” on the left side of the slide, that indicated to us that that particular slide was made from the newly instituted 416 stainless steel. Also, we were experiencing a lighter lockup than we needed with the earlier script labeled slides due to a slightly rounded cut on the top of the barrel for the lockup. So we also redesigned the top of the barrel and the inside of the slide to not be so rounded off, but rather more squared off to help with the lockup, timing and recoil management. Those slides marked: “MADE IN USA” was a major move forward in our design and metal choices. So, a slide marked “MADE IN USA” represents a slide cut from 416 SS billets with a slightly better lockup than earlier model R9 pistols. The other issue addressed was that the slide rails were beefed up by about .020”. That, along with the 416 stainless upgrade, and the few cracked slides we were experiencing stopped. All of the cracked slides were made of the earlier design using 17-4 PH stainless steel. We originally thought that the cracked slides were an issue of poor material, but later found it to be a too hard Rockwell on the 17-4. The heat treating company should have known that, but we found out by further investigations that due to too high of a Rockwell hardness, the metal became slightly brittle so that that, along with the thinner slides rails, some were cracking. I must say that almost all R9s were fine, however, there were a batch of slides that some, not all, had a hardness issue. I may have exchanged about 20 – 25 slides in total for the issue. No rhyme or reason, but most slides functioned just fine. Out of just around 7,000 pistols, a count of just 20 – 25 cracked slides was minimal for any manufacturer, but it did raise an eyebrow.
Next on the list, and also the last, is the “MADE IN U.S.A.” marked slides. The difference between the “MADE IN USA” and the ones marked “MADE IN U.S.A.” is really simple and not that big of a deal other than my brother Karl being a perfectionist. The story to adding the periods in between the letters USA is to let us know at the factory that that slide is the newest and last rendition of our slides. The dots in between the letters simply means that the firing pin location was moved, literally, a couple of thousandths of an inch to the right to be “dead center” on the 9mm bullet’s primer. Those marked without the dots have the firing pin a mere .002” of an inch to the left of center. That was never a problem, but Karl said as long as we are updating things, he wanted to do that too. He said it wasn’t a big deal, and it really isn’t, but when you’re German in heritage, and our family crest was on the side, we decided to do it “to make it right”. So when you see a slide from Deer Park, N.Y. and says “MADE IN U.S.A.” below the Deer Park, N.Y. that was the last and the best slide design we made at Rohrbaugh.
So there you have it. The complete story of why the markings on the Deer Park, N.Y. R9 slides changed throughout the years. Without keeping records or serializing every single part, it made it easy to know what we were dealing with slide wise at the factory when a design change or upgrade was instituted. Our way of marking our turf I suppose. Lol.
Regards,
Eric R.
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I saved ECR some typing
Phil
