Current Quality Control at Kahr

[spin1]

Hello- new to the forum and thanks in advance for the help. I used to have a CM9. Carried Some, but not shot much. I really liked the trigger and shot well with it. Sold it when I needed to raise some funds, and thenwent for a while without a semi auto carry piece. I recently bought a Glock 43, but don't care for the trigger.

Now im trying to decide if I should spend more time with the Glock, alter it to my liking, or go back to Kahr. Is current QC good on Kahrs? I would probably get another cm9 or I am also intrigued by MK9. I don't pocket carry so not concerned about weight. I read a little about barrel and frame peening but has that all been resolved? Most of the Internet stuff I saw about it were old. I know this is a Kahr forum so I anticipate favorable responses to my question, but appreciate your honest take, good or bad. I will only be buying new if I do, not used.

[Alfonse]

Its been kind of boring around here there are so few problems. It seems things are pretty good at Kahr. My $.02

[b4uqzme]

FYI. Steel Kahrs appear to be a bargain on the used market right now. And their quality has always been the best of the best.

[CJB]

Its so goldarn borin' round these here parts, I've resorted to takin' cheep shots (or was it sheep shots) at folks, just to keep my blood pressure goin'. Jus'sayin'!!!

Kahr is a very elegant design, with few faults. The biggest bug-bear in its execution seems to be the slide stop spring (an easy fix/adjust/replace), or some anomaly in molding or fitment occasionally causing a trigger reset issue. We still see occasional 40's that crack their magazine followers (another easy-peasy fix).

Should you get a new CM9, just shoot the prunes out of it with the hottest ammo you can stuff into it (or afford, or find). That'll make break-in an easy process. Break-in mostly has to do with recoil spring set, and a general shakedown cruise, to build confidence before carrying for self defense.

When my PM9J got stolen, I did not hesitate to replace it with a PM9, ordering it before the ink was dry on the police report. Good pistols, perhaps the best deep concealment pistols ever made.

[JohnR]

For steel Kahrs, try Bud's for blemished models. They had a K9 this morning for something like $579 or thereabouts.

[spin1]

Thank you all for the great feedback so far. So the whole barrel/frame peening thing is a non issue?

[JohnR]

What barrel/frame peening issue?

[spin1]

What barrel/frame peening issue?

^^^This is a good sign that maybe it's not an issue! In reading through the forums (mainly this one) I had read some cases where the hood (?) of the barrel and maybe the slide had some metal peening, and people were sending their barrels and guns back to Kahr. I'm not saying this IS an issue, but apparently some people did. Just do a search on the word "peening" in this forum and Google "Kahr peening" and you'll see what I mean. I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers, or be a troll. I just legitimately want to know what issues they've had and if I can expect a reliable firearm or not. I've also read about mag issues.

The CM9 I had before was a great little gun, but I never really worked it over. I did the 200 round break in with only one failure (the 2nd round right at the beginning). But other than that, I doubt I put more than 100 rounds through it the rest of the time I owned it. I plan to shoot my next one more and really focus on proficiency. If there's any issues, I just want to know before I buy, or know what to look for.

[CPTKILLER]

I love my MK9 but it is not a pocket pistol.

[CJB]

Here's some insight on barrel/slide peening.

Anyone who has manufactured an autoloading pistol that uses a Browning type locking mechanism for the breech has experienced peening issues in their production. Make that: Colt, Kahr, Ruger, FN/Browning, Kimber, Sig, S&W and on and on....

The cause is excessive fore/aft freeplay in the barrel fit to the slide, and you can check it, quite easily.... by a simple field strip. With the slide off the frame, recoil spring(s) out of the slide, press down lightly on the barrels lower engagement surfaces, and try to move the barrel forward and rearward in the slide. Also, with the barrel pressed forward, hold the assembly up to some light, and see if there is an excessive gap between the rear part of the barrel hood and the breech face (ie, light shining through). The gap should be less than what you'd see on a barrel/cylinder gap on a revolver.

If there is a large gap, or if the barrel moves forward and aft by an appreciable amount, the following will occur:

When you fire a cartridge, instead of moving rearward together, as a cohesive assembly, the slide will be forced backward by the cartridge case. If there were no locking mechanism, this is what happens in a blow-back system. But, the pistol in question is a locked breech, so when the locking surfaces finally contact each other, there is considerable velocity of the slide in relationship to the barrel, and the rear part of the slides locking surfaces hammer the front part of the barrels locking surfaces and you get peening.

That is the simple part of it. The exact amount of "slop" that will cause the peening cannot be foretold, reason being that the type and hardness or toughness of the metal parts is unknown.

All manufacturers have suffered this issue. Manufacturing, in large quantity, dictates that barrels and slides be made separately, and joined at assembly time. It is normal for a very slight amount of hood fitting to be done in order to fit a barrel to the slide. The tolerance is quite small, and... the manufacturer must also consider the allowable chamber depth (headspace). The way it goes, is that they cut the chambers to about maximum depth, and try to keep the rest such that if the hood is trimmed a bit, they do not exceed the minimum chamber depth. Its a bit of a juggle, and they pull it off quite well..... usually..... but we do see issues crop up when one dimension gets off by just a tiny amount.

In a perfect world, they'd fit each barrel, then chamber the barrel after its fit to a slide, but that can't happen in a production environment (or inexpensively, at least). Custom pistols, the 1911's and Browning HP's and maybe some others, CAN be fit that way. A custom barrel will be short in the chamber, oversize in its hood and bottom locking surfaces, and each must be fit. First slide to barrel, then both to the frame, and finally the chamber cut. Makers in the old days like Jim Clark and Bob Day, would weld up barrels and recut them to fit tight, but... chambers would tend to be longish. Custom makers today order barrels with short chambers to allow them to final fit the chamber, after barrel fitting.

More than y'all wanted to know.... I'm sure.

And for the OP, Kahr, to the best of my knowledge, has never left someone holding a bad gun, when it was a manufacturing problem, even out of warranty, for a second or third hand owner. If the problem has been Kahr's screw up, not wear and tear, not home gunsmith hackery, they're apt to correct it at no cost.