I have had most of them the best BY FAR considering size, workmanship, reliability and accuracy is the Rorhbaugh, but be prepared to get off $1000.00+
Start doing drills on a shot clock and accounting for accuracy and account for the results and it will start to plummet. Even more so if you induce stress. The R9 is good at being small. That is about it. Yes its well made, sure it is mechanically more than accurate enough, however IMHO it has crossed the line of diminishing returns its so small. I certainly wouldn't want one as my primary carry gun. I don't think there is an R9 owner that would rather have one in an actual gun fight than a number of the other guns listed hear. That argument is of course one that can be made all the way up the size spectrum Thus, we seek to reach a balance between a useful gun and one that we can/will carry and hide comfortably all day. I think that balance falls up the spectrum from the R9. It just gives up too much in terms of capabilities. I've never seen one in a defensive pistol shooting class. There is a reason for that.
Many (NOT ALL, for those getting ready to tell me off) R9 owners seem to be people with talisman syndrome. That is the idea that the gun is some kind of magic talisman whose presence alone keeps them safe. These people drop an R9 in the pocket and seem to think all is well. For most of them it maybe, in as much as they will never have to use the thing.
The R9 might be a viable choice for a deep cover gun or a bug but it is a pretty poor primary carry gun IMHO. Many like that it is a 9x19 that can actually fit in pockets fairly well. However, I'm of the belief, which based on training and a fair amount testing with quantifiable feedback (i.e. shot timer and accuracy), as well as force on force training, that pocket carry is far from ideal. I wouldn't want my primary gun to be in a pocket in most situations. For me results vary dramatically based on the pockets in question but a reactive draw from the pocket is anywhere from slower to MUCH slower than drawing from my belt. In one such test with a pair of jeans that is typical of what I often wear I was 1.5 seconds from a random start to first shot on target at 3 yards from my belt with a shirt, sweater and coat (what I wear a lot in the winter here). I was 4.5 IIRC drawing from a pocket holster in out of my jeans. Force on force drills also dramatically highlighted some of the limitations of pocket carry.
Pocket carry does have some advantages. It works very well when one can have their hand on the gun before hand, which in some situations one can do much more readily than with a gun on one's belt. It has some nice advantages but suffers badly in reactive drawing, which seems to me to be a relatively likely thing in a defensive situation. I tend to use pocket carry for a BUG or for select other times. Honestly though a gun that is small enough to put in a pocket is a gun that is also pretty easy to hide very well IWB.
Beyond the limitations of pocket carry, the R9 its self offers far to many compromises. It is so small it is for many people a gun that is hard to shoot and run well, much like the LCP. Add to that a rather high bore axis (again not unlike the LCP) and it is made worse. Further it has controls that are not what I'd favor. The heal release is inferior to other styles of mag release, at least in terms of speed. It lacks a slide stop/release. This is not just a matter of reloads (I'd wager that many who port an R9 as a primary don't have a reload anyways), but also for clearing certain malfunctions. Some of the models don't even have sights. At certain distances that might not be much of an issue. However, I'm reminded of Larry Corriea's article "My gun fight." The jist of it is people imagine how they will use their gun defensively and in what type of situation and tend to ignore a lot of other real possibilities and the fact is we simply cannot know or control how it will go down if we are so unfortunate as to wind up needing to use our weapons in defense. I also do not like having a defensive weapon that varies as much in terms of controls from my other main defensive handguns as does the R9. Further, I'm not wild about its trigger compared to other guns mentioned in this thread.
Take a shot timer, get off the square range, induce stress, and then shoot the R9 against some other guns, and I'm not talking about a glock 34, or even a 26, but guns like the Shield, PPS, Cw/P9, heck even the PM/CW9. Of those touting the R9, would you honestly pick it if you were going to have to defend yourself with a smaller single stack 9x19. I know I would so much rather have a PPS or the like.
Lastly, the R9 begs the question of whether it is really much if any better than some of the .380 offerings that the same size or are even smaller, and of course notably cheaper in most cases. When you give terminal ballistics from those guns an honest look I think it is a legit question for people that have decided they will sacrifice a lot of capability for size and weight. Honestly I'd rather have a tuned up mustang or sig than an R9. They are better shooters IMHO/E. I'm not certain I'd be much better off with an R9 versus an LCP, truth be told. I'd suspect the extra $800-1K spent on ammo and training would be more likely to be outcome determinative. Of course just because a gun is more expensive doesn't mean one couldn't still spend the difference on training with the more expensive gun. But for some folks it probably does, and thus I mention it.
The CM9/PM9 is about as small as I can go before I notice far too a great a drop off. Even that size gun is making some compromise. For a primary carry gun, I really think the shield, XDS, CW9, Walther PPS, etc, sized guns are about as small and as much compromise as I would care for. These guns can still be shot and run pretty well.
In sum, we all make compromises with the guns we carry. Where we decide to draw the line between what is easy to carry and conceal and what is good for fighting with is a personal decision and one upon which reasonable people can disagree, even more so when they have differing situations. However, I feel the R9 give up way to much, and I c wouldn't recommend it to others. Even if it were the gun I had settled on I wouldn't recommend it without at least addressing some of the serious limitations. Of course I wonder how many people carrying one as a primary have really evaluated it with quantifiable feedback, under stress, doing force on force, etc.
I thought he said he was a delicate balancing act to match the size/weight of the slide to the room available for the spring. Bigger, longer lasting spring takes up more space, so you need to design a larger slide, etc.
