Great Moments in Bad Gun Ideas

This photo just popped up in my Microsoft OneDrive memories for the day...

I mean, the trigger was nice, and it shot okay, but the more and more I thought about it, the lessless  I dug the whole basic concept behind it...

"Hey, guys, let's make a pistol that adds a bunch of extra mechanical complexity while negating one of the principle advantages of 9x19mm, namely dirt cheap training ammo, all for the dubious benefit of adding a possible 25-to-50 feet per second of muzzle velocity!"

I mean, if you want one as a range toy-slash-safe queen simply for the mechanical curiosity because you're an absolute gun nerd, that's understandable, but I'm pretty much of the opinion that it's a fundamentally unserious choice as an actual life-saving tool.

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The importance of RTFM...

Back when I was still slinging guns across the glass for a living, one of our wholesalers had a deal on some overrun Smith & Wesson 325 AirLites. For those of you not familiar with the arcane language of Smith revolver designators, that's the great big N-frame in .45ACP with, in this case, a titanium cylinder and a scandium frame*.

So we had several of these snub-nosed beasties in stock (I bought one, of course) and a problem immediately cropped up: Customers who bought them would come off the range complaining that their gun had locked up.

Seems like most plain ol' range 230gr FMJ isn't crimped very enthusiastically and only two or three shots in these flyweight big bores would cause the heavy .45 bullets in the cylinder to remain at rest while their cartridge cases recoiled along with the rest of the gun. When the bullet came all the way out of the unfired case, it would bind up against the forcing cone, tying up the gun. (At the time, our range .45 ammo was Speer Lawman.)

Anyhow, fast forward a half-dozen years and I've got a T&E Boberg XR9-S pistol on the range. Now, the Boberg is an unusual gun that gets maximum barrel length in a minimum package so as to get maximum velocity from modern 9mm JHP loads, theoretically making proper expansion more likely. It does so by extracting the round rearward out of the magazine and then loading it forward into the chamber. The chamber is actually over the magazine, making a sort of "bullpup pocket pistol", if you will.

Relax: You don't suck and Boberg doesn't hate you.

The picture above is the loaded Boberg magazine and not, as one might suppose, an outtake from an H&K catalog photo shoot.

Anyhow, I took the Boberg down to Coal Creek Armory (now Tactical Advantage Corporation) Tennessee for its baptism of fire. I trooped out onto the range with Shannon and Gunsmith Bob and my ammo can of 9mm FMJ ammo and started thumbing rounds into magazines. We each fired one magazine, and one round on each of the three magazines exhibited the rather exotic malfunction you see below:

It's a pistol! It's a bullet puller! It's two tools in one!

It was pretty obvious what was happening: The slide was yanking the round rearward from the magazine briskly enough to disassemble the cartridge.

Each of the three rounds was... you guessed it: Speer Lawman.

I went on to fire hundreds more rounds of ammunition, mostly PMC and Federal FMJ but also a few magazines of a half-dozen different premium JHP rounds, and never experienced this malfunction again. Of course, looking at the owner's maual, it clearly states on page 4:

Due to the Boberg XR9’s unique feed mechanism, aluminum-cased ammunition is not recommended (See back cover for color example). This type of ammunition has no crimp, and usually no adhesive, and could allow the bullet and case to become separated while being drawn from the magazine. While this is not considered a safety hazard, it can result in a mis-feed or jam. Please note that there may be styles of brass-cased ammunition that have no crimp that may cause feeding problems. Information on crimp-less styles of ammunition can be found at www.BobergArms.com.

Going to the list at the website, I see that Speer Lawman is right there.

That's what I get for not RTFM.

Customer Disservice.

UPS Live Chat log:

TK: Where is my pickup?

Raquel M.: Hi, this is Raquel M.. I'll be happy to assist you.

TK: It has been five hours since I requested a pickup. How do I find out when the driver will get here?

Raquel M.: I currently do not show a pick up has been scheduled.

TK: ???

Raquel M.: Are you referring to Boberg Arms Corporation?

TK: Yes. From Indy to Minneapolis.

Raquel M.: Did you receive a pickup request number?

TK: I'm trying to paste it in here...

TK: #tracking_number

Raquel M.: It states that request number is incorrect.

Raquel M.: To schedule a pickup on-line, please visit: Http://wesuck@cust.serv

TK: I did that. That's where I got that number. It told me my card has been billed for $9.19 and gave me the code #tracking_number

Raquel M.: Okay that number worked fine. It states your pick up will occur today by 5:00 pm

TK: It is currently 6:01.

Raquel M.: I need to forward your information to the local package center for resolution. Please provide me with the following information:

* Your last name

* The best telephone number to reach you

TK: K.

TK: ten.digit.number

TK: Add that I am absolutely underwhelmed.

Raquel M.: No problem, Thanks. It will take me just a few minutes to put this through. I will be right with you.

Raquel M.: Thanks for your patience. I have forwarded your information to the appropriate package center for further assistance. You can expect a call today within an hour. Do you have any other questions?

Raquel M.: I haven't heard from you in a while. Unless you have more questions I'll go ahead and end the chat.

TK: Hello?

Raquel M.: Yes i'm here.

TK: When is my pickup?

TK: I requested between 1220 and 1700 EST.

Raquel M.: Once the center gives you a call they will let you know.

TK: And when will they call me?

Raquel M.: You can expect a call today within an hour

TK: *sigh* Thank you.

Raquel M.: You're welcome. Have a great day.

Raquel M.: has disconnected.

POSTSCRIPT: It is 1850. First, they called me and said that their guy had already been by. I pointed out that I'd been sitting on the front porch since noon thirty and no dude had been anywhere near me. They tried to reschedule for tomorrow. I sulked. Dude JUST showed up.

Stuff...

Went to the range today. Wrapped up the Boberg test by letting roomie fire it before boxing it up to send home on Monday. I'll probably be putting my name on the waiting list for one; what weaknesses it has are shared with the J-frame already in my pocket, and it has more and bigger bullets.

Fired the Remington 51 and the Bayard for the first time. The Remington could have been more reliable. The Bayard didn't have nearly the unpleasant recoil all the old duffers warned it would. It's a neat little pistol; the P3AT of its day...

Tomorrow, Gun Show in the AM and then the Indy Blogmeet. Hooray! Fried brie!
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Boberg update.

I took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to head out to MCF&G and bust a few caps in the early afternoon. Boy am I rusty. I put a hundred rounds through my 22/45 and three mags through the M&P, mostly to make sure I still remembered which end the bullets came out.

I also put a magazine of 147gr Federal Hydrashoks and six magazines of Remington UMC 115gr FMJ through the Boberg. No malfunctions. So that's no malfunctions of any type with any ammunition except those three Speer Lawman rounds that disassembled themselves: Don't use Speer Lawman in the Boberg.

I still can't get over how mild this gun is to shoot. Tiny, lightweight nines tend to be vicious; the Kahr PM-9, for instance, is not the kind of gun with which you'd want to spend an afternoon plinking soda cans, but you could shoot the Boberg all day.

The trigger takes some getting used to for me. All the shooting I do is with single-action or striker-fired type triggers or conventional double-action revolvers. While the Boberg is a true double-action, the trigger feels a lot more like one of those "LDA/LEM"-quasi double action triggers in that there's a long, light takeup that stacks quickly towards the end and then breaks without any real warning.

This little thing is growing on me. It's smaller than the Airweight J-frame in my coat pocket, just as light, and no matter how you slice it, seven rounds of 9x19 beats six of .32 Magnum.

Blrgl...

Sorry, overslept.

Here's some stuff:

• I see that Robb Allen's event will be going down as planned today.


• Took the Boberg out on the range at CCA yesterday and ran through two mags each of RWS & PMC ball ammo & Winchester 147gr Ranger-T, as well as one mag apiece of Hornady 115gr +P Critical Defense and Federal Personal Defense 135gr Hydrashoks without seeing any bullet pulling, or any other problems, for that matter. Still very impressed with how mildly this tiny little pistol recoils, even when shooting full house defensive loads.


• Weer'd suggests that we light a candle to stop violence today. Okay.


• I had intended on neatly documenting the "2,000 Round Challenge" with my M&P 9, but since the magic number passed while shooting on the windswept prairie back in October, I just went ahead and cleaned the thing yesterday. That's several range trips, a 1,000-rd. trip to gun school, and a bunch of shooting at Blogorado that turned it into something closer to the "2,750 At Least (Because I Lost Count At Blogorado) Round Challenge". Still no malfs.
  

Initial impressions.

So I have here with me a Boberg XR-9S that I am reviewing for a forthcoming article in Concealed Carry Magazine.

The other day I took a bunch of pictures and did all the stuff with scales and trigger weights and jotting numbers on a piece of paper, and then Gunsmith Bob, Jonathan, and I trooped out onto CCA's indoor range to run a few magazines through it.

We loaded up magazines from my 9mm ammo can, which contains a mix of Remington UMC, Winchester White Box, PMC, and Speer Lawman, and ran the target out to seven yards. The pistol was easy to shoot, and recoil was surprisingly pleasant, considering that the Boberg is only a hair larger than the Rohrbaugh, which is a flinch-inducing monster. (Shannon wandered out onto the range and produced his Rohrbaugh from his pocket, so I was able to compare the two side-by-side.) Subjectively, the Boberg felt no worse than, say, a G26.

Each of the three magazines experienced a malfunction that had me puzzled at first.

The back cover of the owner's manual cautions against using CCI Blazer, as the lack of crimp on the budget aluminum-cased ammo will combine with the abruptness with which the Boberg snatches rounds rearward from the magazine to turn the little pistol into a kinetic bullet puller, which was exactly what happened here, leaving a disassembled cartridge tying up the feedway. Needless to say, this is a tricky malfunction to clear quickly on a bitty little pistol lacking a conventional slide stop.

On gathering up the culprit brass and returning to the gunsmithing shack, it was found that all three rounds that disassembled were Speer Lawman. Note To Self: Speer Lawman has no discernible crimp. Do not use in Boberg. For that matter, consider not using it in S&W 547 as well.

More to come.