Beer goggles wore off?

Some people expressed a bit of disenchantment with the demo Remington R-51s they had out for coonfingering at SHOT.

There were mentions that the slide looked like it had maybe been machined from an investment casting. Considering that Painted Ordnance is a member of the Freedom Group stable and the pre-production samples used at the Gunsite dog-and-pony show were rollmarked "Charlotte NC", I'd say it's a lead-pipe cinch the major parts are castings. I hope nobody thought they were getting CNC-ed from billet at that price.

They may work and they may not, but I tend to err on the side of cynicism in new gun introductions. Show of hands: How many people expected a <$400 pistol using a novel operating mechanism and most likely assembled from outsourced castings and MIM bits to be reliable right out of the gate?

I'm definitely buying one, but it's for novelty*. See, I've got two original 51s in .380, one of which doesn't run very reliably and the other of which I have no idea since I've never even loaded it but it sure is pretty. I'm buying an R-51 because it would be a neat accompaniment to them and, 30 or 40 years from now when I'm selling my gun collection to buy cat food at the old folk's home, maybe it'll have appreciated some. I imagine I'll take it to the range a few times but, you know, "in the world of new self-loading pistol introductions, it's safest to bet on failure."

EDITED TO ADD: The interesting thing is that there's no real reason to use Pedersen's action any more, other than novelty. The reason it was developed in the first place was that Colt held Browning's patent on the one-piece slide and breechblock and vigorously defended it. Remember: Pedersen was the guy who designed around Browning's patents. He was like Ginger to JMB's Fred: He did everything le Maitre did, but backwards and in high heels.

*Maybe they'll shoot like gangbusters, but single-stack guns too big to go in a pocket just don't have any practical use for me. Since I'm rarely in anything you'd call a "non-permissive environment" and I dress like a hobo, if I'm carrying a gun on my belt, it's going to be a service-sized pistol. The next size step down for me is "small enough to slip in a jeans pocket", which leaves out a lot of otherwise fine guns, like the P-239, Shield, or the 3913.