Hi All
I took an excellent class at Sig Arms Academy this weekend. It was a class about IPSC shooting and was taught by Bruce Gray, who is a top-notch gun smith and former IPSC champion shooter. Bruce is one of the nicest guys in the world and he really, really knows his stuff.
A few people were bringing along unusual guns for the rest of us to shoot. People brought the new Sig Mosquito with an AAC suppressor, a Sauer P210 and a Sig X5. Sig Arms let us shoot their 550 series rifles (in full auto). So, I decided to bring the R9s along.
Most people who looked at it were pretty impressed with it and only one had ever heard of it. On Sunday we were shooting indoors on a frangible only range. So, I loaded up a magazine of Federal frangible ammo and handed it to Bruce. At 45 yards, it took him a few rounds to figure out where to aim (low and right) but after that he knocked over a steel plate every shot. In total, about 6 guys (including me) each put a magazine or two through it. There were no failures of any type. Bruce said about the R9 “That’s cool! I like that!”
Frangible ammo can have a tendency to induce failures in the best of pistols, so the complete lack of a failure was, I admit, a bit of a surprise. I was sure pleased! Even the X5 was having some (but not much) trouble with the ammo.
I explained to Bruce the problems many of us have had. I described the tipped up round and the observation that it seems to clear up after the recoil spring gets a bit old. Bruce suggested this might be a “magazine timing issue.” He said that a new recoil spring might be causing the slide to cycle too quickly, such that it tries to scoop up the round from the mag before the round has come to the top of the magazine completely. He said that is a common cause of that type of tipped up round failure.
I then asked if a stronger magazine spring might help and he said yes, but too strong a spring could cause other problems. I said it seemed that there is a delicate balance between the strength of the springs and Bruce agreed and said that it becomes more delicate as the slide has less mass.
WARNING WILL ROBINSON! I want to caution that these were more like off hand comments than anything else. Bruce didn’t actually witness any failure at all and this opinion was offered completely on my description of the problem and not on his testing. He did not examine the R9 in great detail. I’m not trying to put words in Bruce’s mouth or claim that he knows what any problem, if one exists, might be, nor did Bruce say that there ws any problem.
Overall, the R9 was very well received. Everyone who was interested liked it and some of us were even able to knock down that little white plate down at 15 yards!
