Boberg XR9-S

Around a year or so ago I got on the waiting list for a gun that hadn't even been produced in any quantity. Arne Boberg had an idea almost nine years ago about making a small carry handgun with a longer than typical barrel.He started to produce them in "quantity" back in September of last year. (you'll see why in a second)A month or so ago I got the email: my name is at the top of the list.I paid for two guns at the time -- one for me, and one for En. My thought: if I like them we're all happy. If I don't, I'll re-sell them for a massive profit. (They are presently going for $1600-1800 on GunBroker.com)...time passes while the team in Minnesota builds the guns...On Wednesday UPS emailed me a tracking number originating in from MN. Next day air.Thursday night, after he was closed for business, UPS delivered the package to my FFL in Lyndhurst.Yesterday I picked them up.Random: the reason for the longer cutout in front of the barrel is because Boberg has plans to make a gun with a longer barrel. It'll have a full-size barrel in a compact frame.I have sequential guns off the line: 274 and 275. In front of me is almost 1% of the units of this gun in the world!  :-D  (0.73% if you're being pedantic)So far I've not shot them at all. I've dry-fired the trigger and I do have to say that it feels very good. There is no grittiness at all and it's very consistent in the amount of force you're applying as you're pulling back. The break at the end of the pull is very clean as well. It feels like a very refined S&W double-action pull.This is intended to be a carry gun. Primary in importance is size and weight. This is a very small gun.(sorry, my right hand is working the camera, but my hands are roughly the same size)Here's some comparisons:The interesting thing is how the Boberg differs from a more conventional Browning-derived design. Here's the way the magazine fits into every other auto-pistol I have:The magazine sits behind the barrel and the slide strips a round off and shoves it into the chamber. You can see that the end of the magazine is just behind the chamber at the breech-end of the barrel.Contrast that to the Boberg:The magazine sits under the chamber. The rounds are pulled back from the magazine before being shoved into the chamber. This leads to an odd-looking loaded magazine.Weight. 510g. 18 oz unloaded.Capacity: It holds seven rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.I'm looking forward to getting some trigger time with this tomorrow and seeing how it shoots.There are more comparisons in the pictures below. There's a Beretta 92FS (9mm), a 1911 (.45 ACP) and a Glock 23 (.40 S&W compact)[smugmug url="http://photos.vec.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=21874247_D7Z52M&format=rss200" imagecount="100" start="1" num="100" thumbsize="Th" link="lightbox" captions="false" sort="false" window="true" smugmug="true" size="L"]