Gunsmith Recommendations

[ECR]

Just to step in here:  J and I have held conversation. I remember "something" in his S.N. range was happening with the locked slide thing, but slipped my mind. Spoke with my brother and we both hit it......... I found a barrel to send to J and he will try that. Hopefully it works just fine and he will be back in business. I may as well let you all in on the details:

The early slides were 17-4 ph stainless steel. The barrels are 416 stainless steel. Working with Smith & Wesson who were doing our heat treatment at the time and frame coatings, we found out something interesting. Smith used the same materials for both their slides and barrels. Our R9 slide and barrels were made of different stainless steel grades. This was causing a ridge to form on the top of the barrel where the lockup was due to the dissimilar materials. Simply buff off that ridge and that solves that issue. Being the peening of the slide and the barrel hardened the area, once you smooth out that ridge, you were usually good to go after that. That seems to be what J is experiencing.

Now, with that said, and me speaking on the phone with J., we were originally going to exchange monies for the barrel, however, after speaking with him and understanding he was the original owner, I refused taking any monies due to the fact that that R9 would have been warrantied if we were still in business. That said, I sent J one of my last 9mm barrels no charge to hopefully repair his gun. Even though we are no longer in business almost 4 years now, I felt the obligation to rectify this issue if I could. I am waiting, like you good folks, to hear the outcome here once he installs the barrel in his R9.

Let's cross our fingers for a successful run!  Ha haa . . . . .

Hope it works out for us J. !

Keep us posted please. (Call me when you get the barrel too) ;-)

Regards,

Eric R.

[Buffalo]

And that is why I love my R9.

As I told my local FFL... I don't know of any other firearm maker that would do something like this for a customer AFTER they're no longer making them

[offrdmania]

Just to step in here:  J and I have held conversation. I remember "something" in his S.N. range was happening with the locked slide thing, but slipped my mind. Spoke with my brother and we both hit it......... I found a barrel to send to J and he will try that. Hopefully it works just fine and he will be back in business. I may as well let you all in on the details:

The early slides were 17-4 ph stainless steel. The barrels are 416 stainless steel. Working with Smith & Wesson who were doing our heat treatment at the time and frame coatings, we found out something interesting. Smith used the same materials for both their slides and barrels. Our R9 slide and barrels were made of different stainless steel grades. This was causing a ridge to form on the top of the barrel where the lockup was due to the dissimilar materials. Simply buff off that ridge and that solves that issue. Being the peening of the slide and the barrel hardened the area, once you smooth out that ridge, you were usually good to go after that. That seems to be what J is experiencing.

Now, with that said, and me speaking on the phone with J., we were originally going to exchange monies for the barrel, however, after speaking with him and understanding he was the original owner, I refused taking any monies due to the fact that that R9 would have been warrantied if we were still in business. That said, I sent J one of my last 9mm barrels no charge to hopefully repair his gun. Even though we are no longer in business almost 4 years now, I felt the obligation to rectify this issue if I could. I am waiting, like you good folks, to hear the outcome here once he installs the barrel in his R9.

Let's cross our fingers for a successful run!  Ha haa . . . . .

Hope it works out for us J. !

Keep us posted please. (Call me when you get the barrel too) ;-)

Regards,

Eric R.

I need to be a gunsmith, I told him to look at the same spot on page 1  Im just messing around with you Eric. Way to go out of the way for your customers. 

[JMH]

Update. Thanks to the generosity of ECR (both time and effort) I got an education and learned more about what I am dealing with. I count myself very fortunate to have a Rohrbaugh founding father take an interest in my R9. I am in your debt Sir. If you won't accept payment then a donation to your favorite charity maybe? I feel it is appropriate. Please let me know. You have my information. Anyway, a small carton was in my PO Box on Tuesday and you can imagine my anticipation. Unwrapped it and swapped out the barrels and after about 5-10 racks of the slide I again could not rack the slide. Rats! But this time I knew where to look and at 15X with magnifier glasses there it was. A ridge had formed on the top leading edge of the new barrel. But now I have an extra barrel for a back up so I took a very fine file and a strip of 400 grit to the leading edge of the original barrel. Voila! Smooth slide! I tried to be careful and keep it square but the proof will be a trip to the range. If I can run a few magazines without knocking a new ridge on to the barrel the problem may be solved. Between the barrel and slide and roll pin are very precise timing and I wonder if I can compensate for what might be a slight variance of the slide's ejection port location? Any thoughts? Once again, can't say enough for ECR. No way would have gotten this far without you. 

[ECR]

Update. Thanks to the generosity of ECR (both time and effort) I got an education and learned more about what I am dealing with. I count myself very fortunate to have a Rohrbaugh founding father take an interest in my R9. I am in your debt Sir. If you won't accept payment then a donation to your favorite charity maybe? I feel it is appropriate. Please let me know. You have my information. Anyway, a small carton was in my PO Box on Tuesday and you can imagine my anticipation. Unwrapped it and swapped out the barrels and after about 5-10 racks of the slide I again could not rack the slide. Rats! But this time I knew where to look and at 15X with magnifier glasses there it was. A ridge had formed on the top leading edge of the new barrel. But now I have an extra barrel for a back up so I took a very fine file and a strip of 400 grit to the leading edge of the original barrel. Voila! Smooth slide! I tried to be careful and keep it square but the proof will be a trip to the range. If I can run a few magazines without knocking a new ridge on to the barrel the problem may be solved. Between the barrel and slide and roll pin are very precise timing and I wonder if I can compensate for what might be a slight variance of the slide's ejection port location? Any thoughts? Once again, can't say enough for ECR. No way would have gotten this far without you.

Sorry J, I've not been here as my computer went ka-put a few weeks back and I just got it back from my guy. I thank you for your offer towards a charity, however, I leave that in your hands, I'm ok as we are. Anyway, interesting that the ridge came back. That did happen with a few guns after I cut the ridge off during warranty work, but sometimes they would get the ridge again. All we can do is keep an eye on the situation with your R9 and see what we can do down the line if that persists. Glad to have been able to help somewhat with the problem.

Stay safe.

Eric R.

[JMH]

Hello ECR! Good to hear from you. I too have been tied up and unable to test my R9 but have hopes for a range visit this week. I will update on the results and would appreciate any comment. Thanks again!

[ECR]

Sounds good J.

Eric R.

[pjames32]

Great thread. I'm glad ECR is HERE and willing to help us with any problems that crop up!

[ECR]

And that is why I love my R9.

As I told my local FFL... I don't know of any other firearm maker that would do something like this for a customer AFTER they're no longer making them

Thank You Buffalo. It's simply the proper thing to do.

[ECR]

Great thread. I'm glad ECR is HERE and willing to help us with any problems that crop up!

I will do whatever I can James.   ;-)

Eric R.

[JMH]

I am so impressed with everyone here helping out with ideas and being willing to share their experiences. Don't know what I would have done without ECR's assistance. With the spare barrel in hand I carefully stroked the original barrel with a file only to make the slide rack smoothly. And by last week was able to visit the range. Lots of anticipation in the weeks between receiving the barrel from ECR and being able to make the time to get to the range. But, by the second magazine the barrel was again deformed and I could not rack the slide so I stopped shooting it. But this time I got it home and cleaned it and again took a file to the barrel. Mind you, in the smallest of increments. It is smooth again and the slide racks beautifully. Next time I will have what I need at the range to break down the R9 and continue the filing process to see if there is an end to it at some point. File-shoot-file-shoot, and so on. I anticipate that eventually I will have a smooth action and a sloppy fit between the barrel and slide or the gun will be 'broken in' and function normally from that point forward. I promise to update and again, thank you all for weighing in.

[ECR]

J . . . . . Please PM me with a contact phone number. I'd like to give you a buzz about your R9.

Thanks

Eric R.