I recently picked up a little Pedersoli Liegi Derriger kit. One of the other BBTI guys has one of these things, and I’ve always considered it a cool little piece of firearms history. Cap & ball firearms technology came along in the early part of the 1800s, supplanting flintlocks and earlier ignition systems. The Liegi design was very popular as a basic pocket/boot/muff small handgun, because it was relatively easy to load and carry, and lethal at close range.
The interesting thing about the Liegi is the loading system: you unscrew the barrel, load the powder charge in the chamber, place a round bullet on top of the powder, then screw the barrel back into place. It’s simple and fairly foolproof, and doesn’t even require a powder measure — you just fill the chamber with black powder and it’s the correct amount. Once the gun is loaded and the barrel is in place, you draw the hammer to half-cock, place a cap on the nipple, and the gun is ready. Here’s a short video showing all the steps:
In addition to doing the minor prep work on the walnut stock of the gun, I wanted to add some laser engraving on the side panels. Because it amused me, I decided to use the same basic pattern as I had used for the grips of a very modern handgun, my Customized Timberwolf G21. Here’s a pic of the finished product, and on the next page are pics of the process and comparisons to other small handguns I have:
Earlier this month I took my EMP4 out to the range, and ran into problems documented in this post. My conclusion:
Since I haven’t had any problems with my standard-pressure reloads, I’m assuming that it’s the over-pressure which is causing this problem. Both the Underwood and the BB ammo are *really* hot. But I wanted to check everything out again before shooting the gun any more. If everything looks good, then I’ll start with standard pressure loads and then slowly step up to hotter loads. I expect that will resolve the issue, and I don’t mind carrying SD ammo which is a little less powerful — shot placement is more important than power.
With one thing and another, it’s been a busy month, and I didn’t have a chance to get back out until this morning to test my conclusion. But first I did a thorough cleaning of the gun, pulled the firing pin and examined it closely. One possible problem could have been the firing pin having sharp shoulders, which could have led to it punching too hard into the primer metal. But upon close examination the firing pin looked perfectly normal and very much like every other firing pin I’ve ever seen.
In preparation for going out to the range today, I picked up some additional good self-defense ammo and grabbed a box of standard factory target ammo:
Starting on the top left (all 9mm Luger ammo, of course):
I started with the Remington, and ran a couple of mags through the gun, examining it closely between reloads. No problems.
Then I switched over and shot each type of ammo, a full mag (9 rounds), again checking the gun between reloads. It ran absolutely flawlessly with each and every kind. I checked some of the spent cases of each type, and all of them showed a perfectly normal primer strike.
Then I loaded up a mag of the Underwood 124gr +P+ I had shot previously. The first couple of rounds were OK, though I checked the spent cases and saw that the primers were completely flattened — the firing pin strike was still visible, but it was no longer an indentation. That’s a sign of too much pressure in reloads, and something you always check when you’re working up a powerful load. The next shot was similar, but there was a missing disk of metal on the primer, which was stuck on the firing pin of my gun. I popped it off, shot the next round. Same thing happened.
I unloaded the gun and the magazine, put the rest of the Underwood ammo aside. Then I loaded it with the Buffalo Bore 124gr +P+ SD ammo. Basically, the exact same thing happened, though I think I made it through three rounds before the first punched-through primer. Again, I unloaded the gun and the magazine, and set the rest of the Buffalo Bore ammo aside. Again, I checked the gun thoroughly to make sure everything looked right. It did.
Then I went back and tried each of the lower-pressure ammos again. Each again ran flawlessly.
I could do more testing, but I’m convinced: the problem is that the +P+ ammo is just too damned hot for the EMP4. Now, my other 9mm guns do shoot it fine (even the little Boberg, which is really picky about ammo), so I guess I could say that the EMP4 is somehow flawed in design or construction. And if you want to hold that against the EMP4, then go right ahead.
But I’m happy enough with the gun otherwise, and there are plenty of types of good self-defense ammo available which are just a little less powerful. Works for me.
Sometimes it’s a good thing to look back at failed experiments, to better understand how we got to where we are today. It can be instructive, as well as cautionary — what we think of as innovative and brilliant now might well look a hell of a lot different in 30 or 40 years.
Such is the case with the Sterling PPL, a small self-defense handgun built and sold for just a couple of years in the early 1970s. Here it is:
A fairly complete story of the Sterling can be found here. There’s not a lot to tell, though it does give a nice description of the gun:
It is a blow back operated, semi-automatic pistol that is chambered for the .380 ACP(Automatic Colt Pistol) cartridge. This pistol incorporates a blade type front sight and a V notch rear sight, both of which are not adjustable. It is fed by an 8 round detachable box magazine. On the pistol’s butt there is a European style heel magazine release. The push button manual safety is located toward the front and directly above the trigger guard. In the photograph on the right, this push button safety is shown in the fire position. The plastic grip panels are secured to the frame by two hex or Allen key screws with a hexagonal socket in the head. The left grip panel will need to be removed in order to disassemble the pistol. This pistol has a one inch barrel and a total length of 5.38 inches and an unloaded weight of 22.5 ounces.
This past weekend I had the chance to shoot this gun. It was an original, but was “New, Old Stock” — while it was indeed made back in ’72 or ’73, it had never been fired and was still in pristine condition.
It’s a solidly made little thing, and while it was clearly not intended to be a fancy, high-finish gun it wasn’t bad in terms of fit & finish. All the parts were tight, well machined, and worked together well. The plastic grips were fitted well to the frame, and the checkering and emblem were clean, sharp lines — not the cheap sort of injection-mold grips which were common on many small guns of that era. The sights were milled into the top of the slide & barrel, and were reasonably clean and low-profile while still functional. The one magazine we tried fit flush into the gun, with no slop. The trigger was better than I expected, though like most of the gun would probably improve with some use. All in all, it really didn’t feel bad in the hand, and the ergonomics were better than I expected, particularly given the small size of the gun and my large hands.
Shooting it felt more natural than I expected, with the fairly high weight taming recoil — remember, this thing weighs more than twice as much as most micro-.380s do today. In fact, it felt a lot like shooting my Boberg XR-9 9mm, which isn’t surprising: compare how the guns look side by side:
And when I laid one gun on top of the other, they were nearly identical.
But the Sterling PPL isn’t the 70’s version of the Boberg. Note that the barrel in front of the cartridge is just 1″ whereas the barrel on the Boberg is almost 3″ in front of the cartridge. That means that the BEST you could hope for out of .380 ACP ammo would be under 200 ft-lbs of energy, while the Boberg (or the current Bond Arms version) would give you more than twice that.
And that extremely short barrel on the Sterling led to another problem: keyholing. That is where the bullet doesn’t have enough time to stabilize (which is the function of rifling in a barrel), and so tumbles. You can clearly see that in four of the first five shots we fired, in this target:
All five of the next shots also keyholed. And that means that the bullets would hit the target in such a way as to minimize penetration, rendering them much less effective in terms of ability to incapacitate. Which is very much not what you want in a defensive handgun.
So it’s not too surprising that this design didn’t succeed, even though it was a very compact little gun. But I do wonder whether if they had extended the barrel another inch or so, would it have survived?
Speculating a little more … what do you think the chances are that the design of the Sterling might have somehow inspired the Boberg? The size, shape, and appearance of the guns are surprisingly similar. Hmmm …
Prompted by my friends over at the Liberal Gun Club, this is another in an occasional series of revisiting some of my old articles which had been published elsewhere over the years, perhaps lightly edited or updated with my current thoughts on the topic discussed. This is an article I wrote for Guns.com, and it originally ran 3/26/2012. Images used are from that original article. Some additional observations at the end.
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Last fall I reviewed the Boberg XR9-S pistol shortly after it was introduced into the market. Just recently I had a chance to really help “break in” a pair of Bobergs—to put them through their paces with about 300 rounds of ammo in the course of a very short period of time. Last October I concluded that:
This gun is a winner. It is well designed, and well made. The innovative design makes your brain hurt when you first see it. But the recoil is nothing like what you get from any other “pocket gun”, even when shooting full +P defensive ammunition. Usually with a pocket gun, you trade off the pain of shooting it a lot for the convenience of being able to carry it easily. With the Boberg, you don’t have to make that trade-off. I honestly wouldn’t be bothered at all by running a couple hundred rounds through this gun at the range.
And I did exactly that. Here is a follow up review.
Two guns, or not two guns, that is the question…
You may be asking: Why a pair of Bobergs? Because my buddy is of the opinion that having two is better than one when it comes to concealed carry guns.
If you can do it, it makes a certain amount of sense. Two identical guns means that you only have to be aware of one operating system. You can carry both guns so that it is easy to draw one or the other depending on the situation (which hand is free, et cetera). Lastly, drawing a second gun is faster than reloading or having to go through remedial action.
There’s also the practical idea of having a second gun for parts, so if perchance something happens to the company then the guns and parts may be hard to come by. I don’t think that is likely in the case of Boberg Arms, but it does happen, particularly to small companies. So, as a hedge, my buddy ordered two of the guns figuring that at worst he’d wind up selling one or both later to recoup some of his investment.
Differences this time out
The first time we shot the Boberg, it was literally a case of taking the gun out of the box, reading the manual as we loaded it and shot it. There was little or no preparation or inspection—we just wanted to see what it felt like. Not something I would usually do, but the gun had just arrived at the FFL the day before and my friend picked it up on his way to visit.
This time was a different matter. The first gun had been cleaned, but not shot again after the last outing. This time we field-stripped both guns, inspected them and lubricated them as recommended in the manual. We opened up the magazines, gave them a quick wipe down and reassembled them. Finally, we opened up a 250 round box of 115-grain target ammo (ball) and commenced to loading magazines.
How did they do?
Excellent. Again, the fit and finish is very, very good, in keeping with what you would expect from a high-end pistol. The three-dot sights are good and easy to use in low light (where we were shooting this time). Accuracy is very good for such a small gun. The best shooter of our small group (who wasn’t with us last time) was able to keep rounds in about a three-inch group at 11 yards.
I mentioned in my first review that we had some minor glitches with the gun not going completely into battery. That didn’t happen with the gun we shot previously, but it did happen with the one right out-out-of-the-box. Meaning before it functions at 100 percent, you need to run a few magazines through it.
We ran about 50 rounds through each gun, then took them down and did a quick cleaning and inspection. After the normal light lubrication and putting the guns back together, we didn’t have any problems again with either gun.
Or, I should say, we didn’t have any problems with them functioning again. Like the last time, the front sight on the new gun fell off about 25 rounds into the session. But this time we had brought an allen wrench of the proper size to remount and secure it.
Otherwise, both guns shot like champs. We took turns loading and shooting each gun, one right after the other, until we had went through all 250 rounds of the target ammo and 50 rounds of JHP self-defense +P ammo. When we were done, we again field stripped them and did a quick cleaning and inspection. There was no obvious wear and the guns weren’t very dirty.
Conclusion: Part II
Pretty much what I said before: “This gun is a winner. It is well designed, and well made.” And I was quite right about what it would be like to run a bunch of rounds through it: no problem at all. Each of us shot one or the other of these guns about 100 times. None of us had any problems at all with hands hurting or feeling abused by recoil. That alone is astonishing—I know of no other pocket pistol that I would be willing to do that with as a regular thing. With the Boberg, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment doing it.
I know, like last time, someone is going to complain about a $1000 gun having the front sight fall off. Please—this is a completely trivial problem and one easily rectified by just checking to make sure the set screw is tight before you shoot. It’s one of those little things that should be caught by the manufacturer, but given how well the gun is put together and performs otherwise, I’ll cut ‘em some slack.
I’m more impressed than ever with this gun. In my initial review, I gave it a 4.5 star rating. Now I’d move that up to 5 stars, and wish I had further to go.
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I’ve now owned one of those two Bobergs for several years. And in that time my experience and opinion has evolved somewhat from the article above.
First and foremost, Boberg Arms was sold to Bond Arms early last year. They tweaked the design slightly, and made some changes to gun, and came out with what they now call the BullPup9. I haven’t shot one of those yet, but I did discuss the changes with Bond Arms and agree with the decisions they made. And in my experience the Bond products are all very well made, so I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the new pistol to anyone.
One thing I have come to learn about the XR9-S is that when chambering a round, it is critical that the slide is racked all the way back with significant force, and then released. If you do not draw the slide back with a snap, a round will only be lifted from the mag about halfway, and then will be caught behind the extractor. And if you try to ‘ride’ the slide forward, there’s a fair chance that the nose will drop down under the chamber and lodge tightly.
Either problem can be corrected in a few minutes with simple tools, but it definitely takes the gun “out of the fight” for the duration. I always caution people new to the gun about this problem, but still about a third of them will make this mistake at least once. Usually, once someone gets the hang of it, they don’t have a problem. And it is important to note that in normal operation, the gun cycles without any problems, chambering a new round from the magazine reliably. But this is still an important consideration in choosing a self-defense gun, and I would not recommend that anyone with poor hand strength (needed to rack the slide with sufficient force) choose the XR9-S.
To the best of my knowledge, there are still no after-market sights available for the XR9-S/BullPup9. I sent my front sight to a gunsmith friend, who turned it into a nice fiber-optic sight, but that’s about the best you can do in terms of improving the sights.
I do still love the little XR9-S, and I carry it a fair amount of the time. In terms of power and shoot-ability, it’s one of the best very compact packages out there. But it is a niche gun, and not suitable for every person or situation. So if you’re tempted, or intrigued, be sure to try one before you buy.
With a little luck in about two months we’ll be doing the formal chop tests of .45 Super, .450 SMC, and some additional .45 ACP loads. We’ve now got all the ammo on hand, and it’ll be a fun (but tiring) weekend. I thought I would share what actual ammo we will be testing, with the manufacturer’s velocity data:
Buffalo Bore
45acp Low Recoil Std P 185gr FMJ-FN 850fps
45acp Std P 230gr FMJ-RN 850fps
45acp +P 185gr JHP 1150fps
45acp +P 230gr JHP 950fps
45 Super 185gr JHP 1300fps
45 Super 200gr JHP 1200fps
45 Super 230gr FMJ 1100fps
45 Super 230gr JHP 1100fps
45 Super 255gr Hard Cast 1075fps
Double Tap
45acp +P 160gr Barnes TAC-XP 1200fps from 5” 1075fps from 3.5”
450 SMC 185gr JHP 1310fps from 5” 1911
450 SMC 185gr Bonded Defense JHP 1310fps from 5” 1911
450 SMC 230gr Bonded Defense JHP 1135fps from 5” 1911
Underwood
45 Super 170gr CF 1250fps
45 Super 185gr XTP JHP 1300fps
45 Super 230gr GD JHP 1100fps
In addition to the first data for both the .45 Super and .450 SMC cartridges, this will also almost double the number of .45 ACP loads we’ve tested. We’re looking forward to it!
Well, we’re having another delightful warm spell here in mid-Missouri, so yesterday afternoon I took advantage of it and went out to the range to give the little guy a try.
As I noted before, I have actually shot this particular gun a couple of times previously, and just loved it. But it had been a while, and I couldn’t remember specifically what ammo types we had used. So I packed up what variety of 9mm loads I had on hand, along with my chrono, and went to see whether anything had changed.
Because of the way they operate, the Boberg pistols have a tendency to be very particular about what ammo they like. Ammo which doesn’t have a sufficient crimp is prone to separate (the case being jerked away from the bullet). It’s an issue which is well known, and there’s a list of compatible ammo for both the XR9 and the XR45. But while those crowd-sourced lists are useful, the final word is always what specific ammo your particular gun will handle. For me, that’s particularly something I want to determine for any self-defense pistol before I will carry it.
Full details to follow, but for those who just want the short version: oh baby! The XR9 ate everything I fed it without a problem. Including my standard 9mm reloads. No mis-feeds. No bullet separation. No problems. And it was a real joy to shoot, which isn’t something I normally say about a pocket pistol handling full-power SD loads.
OK, for those want the details …
Below are informal* chrono numbers for seven different ammo types I had. These are all for the Boberg. But I also ran a few through my Steyr S9 for comparison, which usually just had an advantage of about 10 fps over the Boberg (the barrel on the Steyr is about a quarter of an inch longer). If that much.
As you can see, all pretty respectable numbers. And in keeping with both the claims of the manufacturer as well as what we had tested previously (where there’s overlap). I wouldn’t have any qualms carrying any of the Speer ammo, but my preferred SD ammo is currently the Buffalo Bore. Happily, the Boberg shot all of them without a glitch. And after getting my chrono numbers, I ran several magazines worth through the gun doing some quick shooting at cans, was getting excellent accuracy from it at about 15 yards.
I brought it home, stripped and cleaned it, and now consider it reliable enough to carry. Of course, I will continue to practice with it regularly, and keep a close on on how it performs with my reloads, and occasionally run a mag of carry ammo through it, but I don’t expect any problems. It’s a nice little gun.
Jim Downey
*By ‘informal’, I mean just using one chrono and without the lighting rig we now use for formal testing. And I would just run a magazine of ammo through, mentally noting the numbers in a running tally, then writing them down for that particular ammo, so they are necessarily just ‘ballpark’ figures. But since they jibe well with our previous numbers and what the mfg claims (which I only discovered when I sat down to write this), I think they’re pretty good.
…whether back over 2014, or forward into 2015, things are pretty good vis-a-vis BBTI.
Yeah, 2014 was pretty good. We didn’t do any formal testing, though I did some informal testing and a fair number of reviews of new guns or guns which were just new to me. Having the chance to do those now and again is enjoyable, without having the same deadline pressures I had when I was doing regular columns and reviews for Guns.com.
The numbers also look pretty good for 2014. This blog went from about 12,000 visits in 2013 to 22,000 last year – nearly double. And the BBTI site itself jumped from 243,230 visitors in 2013 to 318,304 visitors in 2014 — an increase of about a third. Visits have also continued to climb pretty steadily from day-to-day, with typically about 1,250 or so daily by the end of the year. Given that we didn’t do any new testing, that’s pretty impressive.
And of course, we’d like to thank all who linked to us over the past year. Here’s the top ten referring sites for 2014, excluding search engines and Wikipedia:
Well, we’re planning on doing one largish series of tests, to cover .45 Super, .450 SMC, and a number of additional .45 ACP loadings. We haven’t yet set a date for this sequence, but I will post a note about it here and on our Facebook page once plans solidify.
And behind the scenes, improvements continue at the BBTI website. We recently upgraded our hosting set-up, to shift over to more modern software technology. We’ve started discussing how we can do better presentations of our graphs and spreadsheets. I would still very much like to work with someone to develop a mobile app — if you have the necessary skill set to do that, please drop me a note. And whenever someone finds a glitch in our data or how the site renders for them, we try and make the corrections. None of this is very obvious, but it is all a lot of work, and I’d like to once again thank our web guru (and my lovely wife) at Coeurbois Graphic Design for her efforts.
Lastly, thanks to all who use the site regularly, who cite us in online discussions, who help to spread the word. And especially, I would like to thank all who have donated to BBTI in the last year — your tangible contributions make a difference, and help to offset our ongoing costs.
I knew when you got the 45 you wanted the 9mm too. It was only a matter of time.
Guilty as charged. Look what followed me home today:
Yup, a Boberg XR9-S: a new little brother for my XR45-S. As I did in that post, I thought I’d put up some comparison pix to give a sense of just how small this gun is, even though it really doesn’t feel like it when you hold it or shoot it.
Here it is again with the XR45:
And here’s the view that shows the thickness of both:
Yeah, there’s a difference. Here’s the XR9 with a Springfield EMP (also 9mm, 3″ barrel – the XR9 has a 3.35″ barrel):
OK, but how about in comparison to the classic premium pocket 9mm, the Rohrbaugh R9? Here ya go:
The R9 *is* a fantastic little gun, and I love it. I don’t love shooting it, though. The XR9 wins in that category. It will also handle +P ammo and holds one more round (7+1) than the Rohrbaugh. But it is a bit bigger:
Lastly, here it is with a Bond Arms derringer — a great little gun, with a variety of different barrels available. But there’s still just two shots in the derringer, and it actually weighs about 3 ounces more.
While I have shot this gun (it belonged to a good friend), and know it to be dependable, I do still want to make sure that it will be able to reliably digest my preferred SD loads. So more on that to come!
Over the weekend I posted about picking up my new Boberg XR45-S. This afternoon I took it out for a first “getting to know you” session. More about that in a moment.
First, I want to share a couple of things I discovered in getting the Boberg out of the box, taken apart, and cleaned. This wasn’t strictly necessary, of course, because it came from the factory properly cleaned and lubed. But I’m very much a hands-on learner, and wanted to see what I was dealing with.
The gun is very user-friendly. To take it down for field stripping, you just rack the slide back, turn a lever, then move the slide forward. You don’t need any special tools, or an extra hand, or the strength of the pure. In that sense, it is very much in the modern design, as easy as a Glock. BUTwithout the need to dry-fire the gun first (which always makes me twitch, and may be the only thing I really dislike about the Glock design.)
Once the slide comes away from the frame, there are only 4 parts which come apart (other than the slide itself). There are no little fiddly bits to get lost or to spring out of sight when you’re not looking. You don’t have to disassemble the gun in a paper bag so that you don’t lose anything. It’s easy, obvious, and once you’ve done it following the owner’s manual, I doubt you’ll ever need to refer to the manual again. You can’t ask for more than that.
So, dis-assembly, cleaning, and re-assembly is all a breeze. Nice!
Having done so, I went through my box of misc. holsters to see what the Boberg might fit into. Because the XR45 is so new there are damned few holster-makers out there who have a holster listed to fit it. And I discovered something VERY interesting: the slide has almost the exact same dimensions as the Glock 21 (and similar Glock models). I first found this out in trying it in this little plastic holster: Glock Sport Combat Holster. I got out my calipers and did some measuring, and found that there was less than a millimeter difference in the width of the slide on the Glock 21 and the Boberg. They also have very similar profiles. And if you measure from the deepest pocket on the backstrap of either gun (where the web of your hand settles in) to the front of the trigger guard, there is less than 2 millimeters difference. Meaning that the Boberg fits almost perfectly into an open-muzzle holster for a Glock 21. Good to know!
OK, so what about going out shooting with the Boberg today?
Overall, I was very happy with how it performed on a first outing. I had a couple of minor glitches with improper feeding and ejection, but I am going to hold off on making any decisions about that until I give it at least another range session to break in. It does seem to fling spent cases somewhere into the next county, and I’m going to have to get used to that since I like to recover those cases and reload them. My very mild reloads wouldn’t cycle properly (the ones I took out are *really* mild), so I learned to take somewhat hotter loads. And the trigger is really l o n g … longer than either J-frame I own, and about like the little DAO Rohrbaugh I have. The gun seems to shoot a little to the left for me, but I won’t adjust the sights until I’m more familiar with it. Even so, I was able to consistently ding a 6″ spinner at 10 yards, which is all I expect from a pocket pistol.
How did it handle the different ammos I tried? Quite well, all in all.
I took my Glock 21 (5″ barrel) along for comparison, and shot over a single chronograph. Here are the average numbers:
The CorBon ammo is in line with what we tested formally. So that was good to see.
All together, I put about 100 rounds through the Boberg this afternoon, and wasn’t experiencing any real soreness or tiredness from all that shooting, which is unusual for such a small gun and full power loads. And just for comparison, I shot my .38Sp J-frame with 158gr LSWCHP +P from Buffalo Bore, which is my preferred SD loading for that gun, and the recoil was worse than with the Boberg. That’s for a ME comparison of 386 ft/lbs for the J-frame to 436 ft/labs for the Boberg with the 185gr CorBon loading.
So, that’s that. Already, the Boberg is equal to the J-frame, in my eyes. I shoot it as well. It has the same, or greater, amount of power. Reloading is faster. And it holds 6+1 to start. I still want to put it through its paces before I trust it as a carry gun, and there will be times when I still prefer to have the revolver, but already I can see that the Boberg is going to be a very nice addition to my collection.
This blog serves as a discussion forum for the website Ballistics by the Inch. It is a narrow-focus blog, only concerned with topics pertinent to the ballistics testing we did, not a general-interest gun blog (of which there are already many). We ask that you confine your questions and responses to these topics.
You may be asking: Why a pair of Bobergs? Because my buddy is of the opinion that having two is better than one when it comes to concealed carry guns.
I mentioned in my first review that we had some minor glitches with the gun not going completely into battery. That didn’t happen with the gun we shot previously, but it did happen with the one right out-out-of-the-box. Meaning before it functions at 100 percent, you need to run a few magazines through it.
James Downey
James Kasper
Ballistics by the inch 