Kahr trouble anyone?

[m4brian]

Some of you know, Kahr 380s have some issues.

Recently, this happened to me: Eyed up an LGS CT 380 - VERY nice trigger and felt right. Went by the funshow and bought Rem UMC because I read reviews for this gun, and UMC seemed the best bet. I fired about 200 rounds on this first trip. Did not get through a single mag without having a failure to feed. The rounds didn't go the whole way in. I had to feed MOST rounds by tapping or banging them into the chamber. All fired and ejected, but didn't feed. Toward the end of my first range session I managed to get 4 launched out of the tube in a row without a FTF. I fully expected this to get batter and stop crapping the bed after 5 mags full. It Ejected nicely - just wouldn't feed. Believe me it was a HUGE fail for the gun to need banging on to feed 3-4 rounds out of a mag. It NEVER took the first round even using the slide stop. Ugh.

So, I went back home tuned the extractor, polished it, the chamber face, the inside of the barrel hood and the ramp behind the bolt face. I polished the feed ramp earlier. In my adventure I noted that UNDER the extractor and on the face of the bolt/slide, there were some wicked machine marks. I took special care to sand the whole face down, especially this area, with 600-1500-2000 paper on a file. I also took a little metal off of the extractor plunger to make it easier and polished this interface.

Then, I finally got it to the range. 100%. Ball, HP, even golden sabers with no problem. Beginning to think all Kahr problems or most can be solved with some polishing. Gun shoots great. This gun is to me - kick ass (for the caliber). The trigger is amazing, and it is accurate and now completely reliable. And... is controllable and VERY light. You can stick in anywhere and forget you have it.

My lesson: I do think Kahrs CAN and do have problems, but with some level of care, can turn out to be 100% and GREAT for carry. I also think that many report going back to Kahr and still never being quite 100%. If you can strip a slide, I think they can be made right, by yourself, and not a huge drill. For ME, this was worth it, because the trigger on this gun is that good - and its accuracy, and ease of shooting were worth the 2 hours of messing with it.

Just an experience.

[Arik]

Would you accept this from a new car? Work you had to do yourself? I bough a new gun so I don't have to work on it. That thing would be going straight back to the dealer.
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[m4brian]

No, and I get it that most people don’t want to mess around like this. But i do the same for CZs with MISERABLE triggers. Just saying that I think most of Tge reliability and break in problems with Kahr is simply taken care of - if you want to do it.

[ndmiller]

All the Kahr's I've had before their value C series (T, K, P) came out required about 200 rounds for everything to mate including the P series. Only had a few malfunctions across the 3 or 4 I owned in the first 200 rounds, nothing like you're seeing. All were reliable and carried well being plenty accurate, albeit heavy as all steel guns tend to be.

Every C series whether 9mm or 380 has required some work to get them to run properly. My preferred method is hot ammo 200 rounds blasting away keeping the guns well lubed which does the trick the majority of the time.

The value C series is just that a value with corners cut on details and finishing. IMHO they are not the value they were designed to be as the trouble to get them to run always puts a bad taste in my mouth. Preowned K or T series are tanks and a better value in my mind.

My TP9 I bought over a decade ago is one of the smoothest most accurate all steel pistols I've shot, which I've kept for that reason alone. The standard MMC (long gone company) sights are easy to pick up and well suited to this pistol. Novaks were used on later models when MMC went belly up.

[Arik]

Only owned one, a CW9, back 12 years ago or so. Never needed anything.

What's the difference between breaking in and shooting?

[m4brian]

Only owned one, a CW9, back 12 years ago or so. Never needed anything.

What's the difference between breaking in and shooting?

Maybe a lot. I can’t find the video right now but tweaking the extractor on the ct 380 allows it to feed all types of ammo reliably. I have done similar to my CZ’s as a reliability assist but I think it can provide the Kahr a real solid reliability that only shooting doesn’t provide. I might not be afraid to buy a used PM 45 now... 🤔