Do you mean silicone cloth?CompVest wrote:Just an aside. I don't lube my mags. Just clean them and wipe down the outside with a teflon cloth so they will drop freely. I feel that any oil on them just attacks dirt and causes it to build up inside the mag.
Kahr Dilema
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Re: Kahr Dilema
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03Lightningrocks
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Re: Kahr Dilema
A couple weeks ago the follower in the mag for my PM9 cracked. I sent them an email and they sent me out a new follower at no charge. Now My PM9 is dropping the magazine after firing the first round. I sent them an email but I suspect the mag catch body or leaf spring is worn out. They haven't responded yet but I am wondering if the cracked(chiped) follower could have been a result of the mag catch malfunction. The weird part of the problem is that the 8 round magazine is the only one that falls out and it only happens if I have the mag fully loaded with one in the tube. It only drops the magazine on the first round fired. Once I re-insert and rack another round the gun will feed and fire all remaining rounds with no issues.
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Re: Kahr Dilema
I own and have for some time, two KAHR in 9mm. One is the OLD version in black steel, and one in polymer. The steel one is shot about 150rds a month by my wife in practice. We keep the polymer one for carry only since it has been back to the factory three times for failures. Twice the panel on right rear blew out (repaired once and then they replaced the frame), and once the frame cracked above the trigger guard(they replaced the frame). In all instances the warranty service was very well handled. That said, I do not feel that the polymer frame weapons are intended to be shot much. All of the failures we experienced with this pistol were (I think) directly resultant from routine training and practice. Maybe just too much?
Any case, I have found the steel frame to be very satisfactory. Long trigger pull, but smooth. Reasonable accuracy to 10mtrs after some break-in.
Any case, I have found the steel frame to be very satisfactory. Long trigger pull, but smooth. Reasonable accuracy to 10mtrs after some break-in.
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Re: Kahr Dilema
If you're worried that the pistol might malfunction from too much use at the range, how are you comfortable carrying it to defend your life?rgoldy wrote:I own and have for some time, two KAHR in 9mm. One is the OLD version in black steel, and one in polymer. The steel one is shot about 150rds a month by my wife in practice. We keep the polymer one for carry only since it has been back to the factory three times for failures. Twice the panel on right rear blew out (repaired once and then they replaced the frame), and once the frame cracked above the trigger guard(they replaced the frame). In all instances the warranty service was very well handled. That said, I do not feel that the polymer frame weapons are intended to be shot much. All of the failures we experienced with this pistol were (I think) directly resultant from routine training and practice. Maybe just too much?Any case, I have found the steel frame to be very satisfactory. Long trigger pull, but smooth. Reasonable accuracy to 10mtrs after some break-in.
What if it malfunctions when you need to use it for self defense? I'm not comfortable carrying any firearm for self-defense until it has fired at least a few hundred trouble-free rounds at the range, including a good portion of whatever JHP self-defense loads I intend to carry in it. Reliability is more important than any other facet of a self-defense firearm, IMHO.
Does it ONLY malfunction AFTER a long 150-round range session? Has it ever malfunctioned within the first two mags?
Re: Kahr Dilema
I am gaining way too much experience with Kahr's customer service for warranty issues, but here is my impression:
1. They are tough to get on the phone, but they respond to emails fairly quickly (<24hrs). Once you get an email response, usually it s from an individual at Kahr and not just the "customer service" email address. After that point, interaction is fairly smooth and easy. For ease of contact by email, I give them an "A". However, stories abound of Kahr failing to call people back when they have left a phone message, so for phone contact, they are scoring a solid "F".
2. If you have a problem, in all likelihood they are going to give you a return authorization number and request that you ship the gun back to them in MA, at your own expense. As one relatively new to gun ownership (18 months and counting...), I am shocked and amazed to find that this is a normal practice and accepted by most gun owners.
3. If you haggle, you can likely get them to send you parts that may be user-installable which might fix your gun without the expense or time of sending the whole thing back to Kahr (commonly: magazine release, mag release spring, magazine follower, maybe a whole magazine). If you have a problem that is not user-diagnosable (such as light strikes, for example), then you can raise enough of a ruckus about having to pay for the shipping and eventually they will probably agree to pay for it, but this takes a few days worth of back and forth and escalation to someone other than the person who initially responded to your query.
4. Once the gun goes back to Kahr, they are more than likely going to do a "boilerplate" repair. My non-scientific survey of Kahr owners indicates that the most common problems with the polymer Kahrs are magazine dropping, failure to lock the slide back on empty (related to mag drop), and light strikes. If you report the magazine drop, then they are likely to just replace the magazine release and spring. If you report either of the other problems, they will replace the barrel and the magazine follower. They will test-fire the gun to make sure it's not totally dead before sending it back, but if your failure rate is one in >10 rounds then there is little guarantee that it is fully tested to ensure it is fixed.
5. Usually one trip back to Kahr is not enough to fix the majority of the gun problems, at least according to my non-scientific survey of Kahr owners. In fact, if you were to consider that most of the mag-drop, slide-lock-back, light-strike problems seem to be with polymer frame Kahr pistols and not with the steel-frame pistols, and the fact that the slide, barrel, and magazines are the same for steel and poly guns, then it makes no sense that Kahr would replace the barrel and magazine follower to fix polymer gun problems. A frame is likely the required replacement part but it seems to almost never get replaced unless it is cracked or has some other obvious problem.
6. From my non-scientific survey of Kahr owners who have had problems with polymer Kahr pistols, the magic number seems to be three. Three trips back to Kahr and the guns are good to go. I think that's likely because on the first two tries, Kahr does boilerplate repairs (mag release, barrel, mag follower). On the third trip, they actually dig in and diagnose the problem. I would say that their warranty service is scoring an "F" on average if it takes three tries to get it right most of the time.
7. Finally, it seems that there are two types of Kahr pistols. 99% or more that come from the factory and are "just right", never have a single problem, and run perfectly from day 1 until some known wear item wears out when getting near the 10K round mark (like a worn magazine, recoil spring, etc.). The other maybe 1% are lemons and have problems from day 1 (like mine). Seems a higher probability of getting a lemon if you have something other than a 9mm Kahr. I suspect Kahr makes far more 9mms than any other caliber, and historically has made many more 9mms so they likely just have a longer track record for refinement in manufacture.
There are a couple of "known bugs" with Kahr pistols, just like with any other guns. The PM guns seem to have barrel peening issues, which makes me wonder why the MKs are not having the same problems. There is a question about whether Kahr has actually fixed this issue. My CW9 also had a little bit of barrel peening on the first barrel, but most other non-PM pistols don't seem to be reporting this problem. All of the poly guns are known for mag-drop issues, and it is reported by CW owners more frequently, probably because there are more CW owners than P, TP and PM owners, but there is no indication that the CW actually are any worse off. In fact the frame of the CW pistols is identical to the frame of the P pistols. Light-strikes seem to plague all of the Kahr pistols including the metal-frame guns. I have heard of strikers that have the pin offset from center so they drag on the hole, strikers having the shoulders milled down so they protrude further, and at least two different lengths of striker springs, so obviously this is an area of concern for Kahr. Striker channels are also well-known to get jammed with "gunk" resultant from an excessive amount of oil and then buildup of residue and metal filings during break-in, which increases drag and may contribute to light-strikes. Simply cleaning the striker channel after the first few hundred rounds often fixes the light-strikes problem. Magazine followers seem to break all the time or get worn prematurely, and broken, worn, or out-of-spec mag followers are a frequent cause of the failure of the slide to lock open when empty. It makes sense that Kahr replaces the magazine followers on nearly every gun that comes back to the mother ship, but I don't get their replacement of the barrel... maybe they suspect a headspace issue or something causing light strikes? Maybe some barrel peening causes the barrel to lock up too far forward? I am an engineer, not a gunsmith, so I can't be absolutely sure.
I should note that my S&W Sigma, for example, the 2nd generation Sigma, is well-known for being dead-nuts 100% reliable and mine has been absolutely perfect from day 1. However, S&W had a litany of problems with the first-gen Sigmas, far worse than what Kahr is going through now. I also have a Ruger LCP, which endured a recall. Kel-Tec makes a whole line of super-reliable compact pistols but they have a string of running changes to address various issues. So I figure Kahr is no less apt to have some problems with guns that have to be addressed over time to wind up with a super-reliable gun in the end. The growth of the market space for compact pistols and the fact that Kahr pretty much had a corner on the market for compact single-stack DAO 9mms up until relatively recently probably forced them into ramping production faster than they could get a grip on the quality loop.
1. They are tough to get on the phone, but they respond to emails fairly quickly (<24hrs). Once you get an email response, usually it s from an individual at Kahr and not just the "customer service" email address. After that point, interaction is fairly smooth and easy. For ease of contact by email, I give them an "A". However, stories abound of Kahr failing to call people back when they have left a phone message, so for phone contact, they are scoring a solid "F".
2. If you have a problem, in all likelihood they are going to give you a return authorization number and request that you ship the gun back to them in MA, at your own expense. As one relatively new to gun ownership (18 months and counting...), I am shocked and amazed to find that this is a normal practice and accepted by most gun owners.
3. If you haggle, you can likely get them to send you parts that may be user-installable which might fix your gun without the expense or time of sending the whole thing back to Kahr (commonly: magazine release, mag release spring, magazine follower, maybe a whole magazine). If you have a problem that is not user-diagnosable (such as light strikes, for example), then you can raise enough of a ruckus about having to pay for the shipping and eventually they will probably agree to pay for it, but this takes a few days worth of back and forth and escalation to someone other than the person who initially responded to your query.
4. Once the gun goes back to Kahr, they are more than likely going to do a "boilerplate" repair. My non-scientific survey of Kahr owners indicates that the most common problems with the polymer Kahrs are magazine dropping, failure to lock the slide back on empty (related to mag drop), and light strikes. If you report the magazine drop, then they are likely to just replace the magazine release and spring. If you report either of the other problems, they will replace the barrel and the magazine follower. They will test-fire the gun to make sure it's not totally dead before sending it back, but if your failure rate is one in >10 rounds then there is little guarantee that it is fully tested to ensure it is fixed.
5. Usually one trip back to Kahr is not enough to fix the majority of the gun problems, at least according to my non-scientific survey of Kahr owners. In fact, if you were to consider that most of the mag-drop, slide-lock-back, light-strike problems seem to be with polymer frame Kahr pistols and not with the steel-frame pistols, and the fact that the slide, barrel, and magazines are the same for steel and poly guns, then it makes no sense that Kahr would replace the barrel and magazine follower to fix polymer gun problems. A frame is likely the required replacement part but it seems to almost never get replaced unless it is cracked or has some other obvious problem.
6. From my non-scientific survey of Kahr owners who have had problems with polymer Kahr pistols, the magic number seems to be three. Three trips back to Kahr and the guns are good to go. I think that's likely because on the first two tries, Kahr does boilerplate repairs (mag release, barrel, mag follower). On the third trip, they actually dig in and diagnose the problem. I would say that their warranty service is scoring an "F" on average if it takes three tries to get it right most of the time.
7. Finally, it seems that there are two types of Kahr pistols. 99% or more that come from the factory and are "just right", never have a single problem, and run perfectly from day 1 until some known wear item wears out when getting near the 10K round mark (like a worn magazine, recoil spring, etc.). The other maybe 1% are lemons and have problems from day 1 (like mine). Seems a higher probability of getting a lemon if you have something other than a 9mm Kahr. I suspect Kahr makes far more 9mms than any other caliber, and historically has made many more 9mms so they likely just have a longer track record for refinement in manufacture.
There are a couple of "known bugs" with Kahr pistols, just like with any other guns. The PM guns seem to have barrel peening issues, which makes me wonder why the MKs are not having the same problems. There is a question about whether Kahr has actually fixed this issue. My CW9 also had a little bit of barrel peening on the first barrel, but most other non-PM pistols don't seem to be reporting this problem. All of the poly guns are known for mag-drop issues, and it is reported by CW owners more frequently, probably because there are more CW owners than P, TP and PM owners, but there is no indication that the CW actually are any worse off. In fact the frame of the CW pistols is identical to the frame of the P pistols. Light-strikes seem to plague all of the Kahr pistols including the metal-frame guns. I have heard of strikers that have the pin offset from center so they drag on the hole, strikers having the shoulders milled down so they protrude further, and at least two different lengths of striker springs, so obviously this is an area of concern for Kahr. Striker channels are also well-known to get jammed with "gunk" resultant from an excessive amount of oil and then buildup of residue and metal filings during break-in, which increases drag and may contribute to light-strikes. Simply cleaning the striker channel after the first few hundred rounds often fixes the light-strikes problem. Magazine followers seem to break all the time or get worn prematurely, and broken, worn, or out-of-spec mag followers are a frequent cause of the failure of the slide to lock open when empty. It makes sense that Kahr replaces the magazine followers on nearly every gun that comes back to the mother ship, but I don't get their replacement of the barrel... maybe they suspect a headspace issue or something causing light strikes? Maybe some barrel peening causes the barrel to lock up too far forward? I am an engineer, not a gunsmith, so I can't be absolutely sure.
I should note that my S&W Sigma, for example, the 2nd generation Sigma, is well-known for being dead-nuts 100% reliable and mine has been absolutely perfect from day 1. However, S&W had a litany of problems with the first-gen Sigmas, far worse than what Kahr is going through now. I also have a Ruger LCP, which endured a recall. Kel-Tec makes a whole line of super-reliable compact pistols but they have a string of running changes to address various issues. So I figure Kahr is no less apt to have some problems with guns that have to be addressed over time to wind up with a super-reliable gun in the end. The growth of the market space for compact pistols and the fact that Kahr pretty much had a corner on the market for compact single-stack DAO 9mms up until relatively recently probably forced them into ramping production faster than they could get a grip on the quality loop.
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Re: Kahr Dilema
Mr. 72, that was remarkably thorough and detailed post and very beneficial to anyone who owns or is considering a Kahr. I'm sorry you've had to experience all those problems with your CW. But greatly appreciate you sharing all the details, as well as you thoughts and analysis.
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03Lightningrocks
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Re: Kahr Dilema
+1....austinrealtor wrote:Mr. 72, that was remarkably thorough and detailed post and very beneficial to anyone who owns or is considering a Kahr. I'm sorry you've had to experience all those problems with your CW. But greatly appreciate you sharing all the details, as well as you thoughts and analysis.
I love my PM9 but I have had the follower break issue and the mag drop issue. I admit to not having a clue what you folks mean when you say barrel peening. I may have that too and not know it.
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Re: Kahr Dilema
--------------------------03Lightningrocks wrote:
I love my PM9 but I have had the follower break issue and the mag drop issue. I admit to not having a clue what you folks mean when you say barrel peening. I may have that too and not know it.
Yes thank you for all those details, hopefully I will not be needing them with my new P40
350+ rounds so far with zero issues. I guess I am one of the lucky ones, knock on wood.
**I also would like to understand a definition of "barrel peening" if anyone cares to post.
Thanks
Re: Kahr Dilema
Basically there is an area at the top of the barrel hood, where the barrel changes from round to square, right at the front where it fits against the opening in the slide...03Lightningrocks wrote:I admit to not having a clue what you folks mean when you say barrel peening. I may have that too and not know it.
Imagine that when the barrel locks up as the slide returns to battery, this front edge of the barrel hood snaps into this position up against the edge of the opening in the slide.
Barrel peening results from this impact between the slide and the upper front edge of the barrel hood, which deforms the shape of the front edge of the barrel hood. It causes the front edge of the barrel hood to be kind of slanted back towards the rear of the gun, and results in somewhat of a "lip" being rolled onto the top of the barrel hood.
See this thread on glocktalk for some pictures of severe cases:
http://www.glocktalk.com/forums/showthr ... ?t=1083107" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Obviously it can impede the function of the gun by not allowing it to smoothly return to battery (the lip gets in the way) or to allow the barrel to lock up too far forward or slip up under the slide so that the headspace is too large (too much space between the rear of the chamber and the striker, so the striker can't hit the primer).
I have also seen pictures of Glocks with the same type of barrel peening and I understand that after a huge round count, some consider it to be normal wear and a good time to replace the barrel as a matter of course. However these PM9s are having peening after 1000 rounds or less. Kahr seems to be fixing these by replacing the barrel and recoil spring or some other parts but maybe they have not yet fully addressed whatever design issue is causing it.
The question of whether it is a problem inherent to the poly frames of the PM9s explaining why it is not reported frequently with MK9s is probably moot... I suspect Kaher has made far more PM9s than MK9s, so there may not be a sufficient statistical sample of MKs to determine whether they share the problem. Just speculating.
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03Lightningrocks
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Re: Kahr Dilema
Thank you for that information. Now I know what to look for. As a side note. I just received an email from Kahr about my magazine drop issue. They said they would send me the mag catch body and leaf spring if I would like to give that a try. they also said they could not be sure this would fix the problem. I told them to send me the parts for now. if I can fix it and avoid mailing the gun in I would be happier.
Your dead on about the email response from them. It is great! I have yet to try calling them. Hopefully, if I have to call, I will get a quick response.
Your dead on about the email response from them. It is great! I have yet to try calling them. Hopefully, if I have to call, I will get a quick response.
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Re: Kahr Dilema
Thank you mr.72 !, and for the link to see a visual.
After taking mine apart just now, nothing like that is visible to the eye, *but when I run my fingernail down towards that area, I can feel it catches on the tiniest lip. (Again about 350 rounds so far in one session is all I it has)
*Is that small amount I can feel acceptable?
After taking mine apart just now, nothing like that is visible to the eye, *but when I run my fingernail down towards that area, I can feel it catches on the tiniest lip. (Again about 350 rounds so far in one session is all I it has)
*Is that small amount I can feel acceptable?
Re: Kahr Dilema
I don't know. My CW9 developed a teeny lip during breakin on the original barrel. I buffed it off and didn't worry about it again. Then a couple of hundred rounds later it stopped firing about 75% of the time. I don't think the problems are related.Estand wrote: *Is that small amount I can feel acceptable?
If I were you I'd email Kahr and ask them what they think.
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Re: Kahr Dilema
Thanks again, the pessimist in me says they will tell me everything is fine.mr.72 wrote: If I were you I'd email Kahr and ask them what they think.
I wish I knew if I should try to buff it down also (not sure what to use if I do), and if I do again the pessimist says "you voided warranty", or I should go out and shoot it more to see if it gets worse.
I just want to be able to carry it with confidence for a long time.
but anyway, thanks for the feed back!
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03Lightningrocks
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Re: Kahr Dilema
I just looked at mine as well. You can definitely see it is rubbing. It has kind of a polished look right on top of the front edge. It also has a slight "ramp" appearance but it seems to be almost an insignificant amount. It also doesn't look near as bad as the pics posted on that link. I may try to get a pic of it and post it. I probably never would have thought much of this other than to just think it was wear from shooting. I have fired more rounds through mine than I could really count. I know I went through 500-600 rounds almost immediately after getting it in an effort to reach a good break in period. I bet I am well over 1000 rounds.
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Re: Kahr Dilema
I cant remember if it was posted earlier to forgive me if so. But Kahr actually opened up a forum on their site I think it was last week. All Kahr owners (or potential ones)
http://www.kahrtalk.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.kahrtalk.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;