DMR
07-26-10, 21:41
Some of you may have quessed that i am interested in the Kahr pistol line. I had a PM-9 and currently still have a P-9, a T-9 and a TP-45. I bought my first Kahr in 1999 while stationed at West point and it has served well as a CCW pistol. To be clear I am not a high volume pistol shooter and have only done a few pistol courses, mostly with an old Kimber .45.
A few years ago on a whim I picked up a Kahr T-9 to use as a training 9mm. I know, but I live in NY and opted for a single stack vs. a nutered double stack. It's a compromise, but I fully understood the choices. Other things have alway taken higher priorities so I just never seemed to get back around to the T-9 so it sat in the safe for most of two years. I did do a few basic mods to address issues I had with it out of the box.
I purchased it old stock off of Gunbroker for $525 as I recall. This took months of watching since the T-9 is fairly uncommon and by best estimates fewer then 1000 have been made. The pistol arrived and I found a few points on the frame that bothered me so I put it in live for a trip to Cylinder & slide to be dehorned and to have the mag well opened slightly. I also had them releive around the mag release as I found the grip just slightly interfered with depressing the mag release w/o changing my grip.
http://pro-patria.us/Pistol/Kahrrelease.gif
I had planned on installing a set of Hienie Straight 8 sights like my P-9, but at the time Hienie was not producing them so I ended up with Novak three dot sights.
Holster selection I also found to be thin, but availible. I ordered a Blade-Tech holster for the training rig and a Mitch Rosen ARG for carry.
http://pro-patria.us/Pistol/kahrT9.gif
I have used it a few times since then(about 500 rounds), but stayed with my P-9 for the most part. I had found early on that I had trouble with the slide locking in battery while shooting. Grip is a common source of this problem with the small grip on the Kahr line, so I did a dozen things and could not solve the issue.
That is until I started looking closer at the slide stop. What I found was the slide stop was loose and basicly floating in the pistol. Under recoil this would cause the slide stop to jump up and catch the slide locking it to the rear. I found that the screw which retains the slide stop spring was loose, so the spring was appling no pressure on the slide stop. I talked to Kahr which agreed with my trouble shooting and they promptly sent out a new spring and screw.
Not to be beat I locktited the orginal screw and left the orginal spring in place, then buried it in the back of the safe again. That is until I saw the 2,000 round challange. I ordered up the ammo, cleaned the pistol well and applied a heavy load of CLP to the insides. I was not sure of this since I had not been back out to the range since working out an issue with the pistol.
http://pro-patria.us/Pistol/KahrT-9test1.gif
For day one of the testing I brought 850 rounds of ammo. It was a mixed batch of Swiss surplus, Blazer and Speer Lawman ball ammo. I used the BladeTech holster, 3 mag pouches and 4 factory 8 round mags for testing. All shooting was done from 25 yards to 3 yards and done from the holster with various low speed drills. For test purposes most mag changes were speed drills allowing the mags to fall to the ground, but I also did a fair number of changes with retention. Each set of drills would run though all four mags before a pause to reload them.
I kept up the pace high enough that the T-9 slide was hot to the touch and completed firing the first 850 rounds in about 2 1/2 hours. This was largly because only one other person was on the range, and started helping me load mags.
Over the course of that time I confirmed why I had picked the T-9 to be a training gun over the P-9. The increased weight and larger grip made for a better day shooting then if I had used the P-9. More important I found that the pistol I had doubts about actualy worked and that the modifications I had made were worth it. That said it does have some quirks worth discussion.
1. Trigger return. If you are used to a short reseting trigger on you pistols you might need to adjust. The Kahrs are designed to have a long revolver like reset. As a dedicated Kahr shooter it is not an issue for me, but others may need to take that into consideration.
2. Grips. Releaving the grip near the mag catch realy increased the ablity for me to get a positive mag release. I did however, find that I need to figure out a good way to recontor the grips. By around 700 rounds I had a nice blister on the base of my dominate hands thumb from a high spot on the grip. I would like the rubber grips such as are availible for the K-9, but they are not an option for the T line. I'll take the mod on myself.
3. Sights. Novaks are nice, but I will return to Heinies now that they are availible again.
Reliablity. For most of the users on this board this is the bottom line. So far I have good news. I have one mag related malfunction, likely shooter induced. During a speed reload at around 650 rounds mag 3 released the top round before the slide released and stopped the pistol. I had to rip out the mag to clear the malfuntion, but had the pistol running again in no time. I believe this was due to the top round not being properly seated in the mag. It was also a mag loaded by my new freind on the range.
A few years ago on a whim I picked up a Kahr T-9 to use as a training 9mm. I know, but I live in NY and opted for a single stack vs. a nutered double stack. It's a compromise, but I fully understood the choices. Other things have alway taken higher priorities so I just never seemed to get back around to the T-9 so it sat in the safe for most of two years. I did do a few basic mods to address issues I had with it out of the box.
I purchased it old stock off of Gunbroker for $525 as I recall. This took months of watching since the T-9 is fairly uncommon and by best estimates fewer then 1000 have been made. The pistol arrived and I found a few points on the frame that bothered me so I put it in live for a trip to Cylinder & slide to be dehorned and to have the mag well opened slightly. I also had them releive around the mag release as I found the grip just slightly interfered with depressing the mag release w/o changing my grip.
http://pro-patria.us/Pistol/Kahrrelease.gif
I had planned on installing a set of Hienie Straight 8 sights like my P-9, but at the time Hienie was not producing them so I ended up with Novak three dot sights.
Holster selection I also found to be thin, but availible. I ordered a Blade-Tech holster for the training rig and a Mitch Rosen ARG for carry.
http://pro-patria.us/Pistol/kahrT9.gif
I have used it a few times since then(about 500 rounds), but stayed with my P-9 for the most part. I had found early on that I had trouble with the slide locking in battery while shooting. Grip is a common source of this problem with the small grip on the Kahr line, so I did a dozen things and could not solve the issue.
That is until I started looking closer at the slide stop. What I found was the slide stop was loose and basicly floating in the pistol. Under recoil this would cause the slide stop to jump up and catch the slide locking it to the rear. I found that the screw which retains the slide stop spring was loose, so the spring was appling no pressure on the slide stop. I talked to Kahr which agreed with my trouble shooting and they promptly sent out a new spring and screw.
Not to be beat I locktited the orginal screw and left the orginal spring in place, then buried it in the back of the safe again. That is until I saw the 2,000 round challange. I ordered up the ammo, cleaned the pistol well and applied a heavy load of CLP to the insides. I was not sure of this since I had not been back out to the range since working out an issue with the pistol.
http://pro-patria.us/Pistol/KahrT-9test1.gif
For day one of the testing I brought 850 rounds of ammo. It was a mixed batch of Swiss surplus, Blazer and Speer Lawman ball ammo. I used the BladeTech holster, 3 mag pouches and 4 factory 8 round mags for testing. All shooting was done from 25 yards to 3 yards and done from the holster with various low speed drills. For test purposes most mag changes were speed drills allowing the mags to fall to the ground, but I also did a fair number of changes with retention. Each set of drills would run though all four mags before a pause to reload them.
I kept up the pace high enough that the T-9 slide was hot to the touch and completed firing the first 850 rounds in about 2 1/2 hours. This was largly because only one other person was on the range, and started helping me load mags.
Over the course of that time I confirmed why I had picked the T-9 to be a training gun over the P-9. The increased weight and larger grip made for a better day shooting then if I had used the P-9. More important I found that the pistol I had doubts about actualy worked and that the modifications I had made were worth it. That said it does have some quirks worth discussion.
1. Trigger return. If you are used to a short reseting trigger on you pistols you might need to adjust. The Kahrs are designed to have a long revolver like reset. As a dedicated Kahr shooter it is not an issue for me, but others may need to take that into consideration.
2. Grips. Releaving the grip near the mag catch realy increased the ablity for me to get a positive mag release. I did however, find that I need to figure out a good way to recontor the grips. By around 700 rounds I had a nice blister on the base of my dominate hands thumb from a high spot on the grip. I would like the rubber grips such as are availible for the K-9, but they are not an option for the T line. I'll take the mod on myself.
3. Sights. Novaks are nice, but I will return to Heinies now that they are availible again.
Reliablity. For most of the users on this board this is the bottom line. So far I have good news. I have one mag related malfunction, likely shooter induced. During a speed reload at around 650 rounds mag 3 released the top round before the slide released and stopped the pistol. I had to rip out the mag to clear the malfuntion, but had the pistol running again in no time. I believe this was due to the top round not being properly seated in the mag. It was also a mag loaded by my new freind on the range.