The other night I was looking over my 990L sub-compact, and I noticed that where the barrel hits the slide (at the back "wall" of the chamber), there is wear on both sides of the slide. The barrel will hit a little to the left and right of center apparently. The wear looks a little worse on the right side. The guy I bought it from said it had 16 rounds through it, but I doubt that was correct. I've put about 150 rounds through it.

My 99QA compact has *almost* no visible wear in these same two spots. It's got about 250 rounds through it. If I had not seen the wear in the 990L then looked at the 99QA to compare, I'd never noticed it in the 99QA.

When I took the 990L to the range, my friend shot the 990L, and it is dead-on accurate. For now at least, accuracy is not a concern.

Other than that specific wear, the gun looks as clean and wear-free as my 99QA. I wonder/hope the extra wear is due to the s-c model having a shorter barrel that is more likely to get a little sideways compared to the longer 99QA barrel.

I kinda imagine it will wear-in to a certain extent and then "stabilize." The barrel should only "stray" off center so much. Is this anything to be concerned about?

Another observation: with the chamber empty, I can shift the barrel a little to the left and right of center in the 990L. I don't know if a chambered round takes up any slack or not. When I try to move the barrel side to side, some of the "play" is actually rotation about its centerline. Not all of the motion is sideways.