Diamondback DB9 One Year Follow-up Review

 
In June of 2011, I took delivery of my first Diamondback DB9. It's the black one on the left in the picture above.  I immediately took it out to the range and ran over 200 rounds through it on the first day. I did a blog post about that range trip in this blog post. I've shot it frequently over the last year and ran the round count up to over 1000 by October 2011. I picked up a second DB9 at that time and have not shot the original DB9 very often since last year. I probably put another 200 rounds through it since October. To celebrate the first year of ownership, I took the DB9 out to the range this weekend with a 100 count box of Remington/UMC 115 grain JHP ammo with a plan to exercise the pistol by shooting it in just about every safe and practical manner I could.

This video below documents the 100 rounds I put through the pistol as well as some general comments about my ownership experience over the last year. The video is long, but you will get to see every round fired as well as any problems or issues that came up during shooting. I'll say up front that I had one failure to feed out of 100 rounds fired and that happened while shooting one handed.  The slide cycled, but did not strip the top round of the magazine so I was required to manually cycle the slide to continue shooting.

Initially the plan was to run through all 100 rounds in a continuous video.  That plan changed when I had two stop by visitors during the 100 round session.  Since these guys own the range, and have been great about providing me with access, I always have time to stop what I'm doing and shoot the bull with them.  I promise there was no other reason for stopping tape.

No excuses, but I started out pretty dismally.  I really struggled on the first two plates to keep my shots where I wanted them to go and maintain a good grip on the DB9.  You can see my support hand re-gripping between shots.  I think part of this was due to spending so much time recently shooting another pocket 9mm with a more hand filling grip.  Later on in the video when I switch from the standard DB9 to the EXO version with the Hogue Hand-all Jr. installed, the accuracy really picked up.  I will be adding a Hand-all Jr. to the original DB9 even though it really pains me to add any additional width to such a trim and slim pistol, but it's results on target that count and any change to improve those results should be implemented   

I also switched over to the DB9 EXO with compensated barrel for a few magazines just so I could comment again about the difference in felt recoil with the compensated barrel in place. I captured all shots on camera so you can compare how much my arm moves with the compensated and standard barrels.  In this blog post, I originally compared the compensated and non-compensated barrels.  In that blog post I also commented on the accuracy improvement between the two DB9's and the different barrels.  There is either something wrong with the barrel fit on the original DB9 or something special with the barrel fit of the EXO.  Even if I shoot slowly, and carefully aimed every shot, the EXO DB9 with the comp barrel is still much more inherently accurate than the original DB9.

The upshot from Saturday was another confirmation that the original DB9 continues to be a solid performer as long as I keep it stoked with the Remington/UMC 115 grain JHPs.  In an ideal world, 100% reliability should be the norm for any defensive arm.  I'm willing to accept 99% reliability from my particular DB9 because I know it's track record over it's lifetime of 1200+ rounds, and I've tried shooting with several different holds.  The EXO DB9 still has some rounds to go before it earns that same level of trust from me, but I'm willing to stick with it due to the accuracy improvement over the stock DB9.

In the video I made an error I would like to cover.  I stated that I didn't modify the DB9 in any way other than to swap out the magazine springs.  That was incorrect because I forgot to mention that all early DB9s received an updated set of knurled assembly pins last Fall.  I did install those replacement pins.  I did a blog post about the pin change HERE.

If you've got a DB9 of your own and find yourself struggling with reliable feeding, I really encourage you to check into replacing the factory magazine springs with KelTec PF9 springs.  I did a post about the change HERE and made a video walk though on trimming the springs to work.  Others have reported success using the springs without trimming.  You may want so test different trim lengths to see what works best for your specific DB9.

After a year, I would say I'm satisfied with the DB9.  Being an early adopter is always a risky proposition, and when you are adopting the thinnest and lightest new pocket 9mm of the day, you can only hope for the best.  Being familiar with Diamondback's lifetime repair/replacement policy took away some of the concern during the first year and also for as long as I continue to own the pistols in the future.