One more follow-up on my Sous-VGun; customer service responded, and after disussing the leak (coming from the barrel) had me try opening and then closing the valve HARD a few times to get the brass to form a bit. It seems to have done the trick.
I still don’t think these are issues I should have been facing, but the vertical bottle attachment/avoiding tripping the check valve *is* discussed in detail in the manual and CS did come through for me, so I’ll change my recommendation from a hard no-buy to “if you buy, RTFM and don’t be surprised if it isn’t perfect even so.”
It’s good to have a searing device between the little Searzall and the huge flame-throwing weed burner again.