CW380 Slide Stop Modification

[holygeez03]

For those wondering... all of my premature lock-back issues went away after grinding the "follower tab" portion of the slide-stop almost all the way down. As stated, this prevents an empty magazine from locking the slide, but I don't care.

Unfortunately, the slide-stop tab that holds the stop in the gun broke off again. Since this now happened to two different slide-stops, I contacted Kahr. To my surprise, they provided a shipping label to return the firearm... it took almost 8 weeks, but the firearm was returned to me with a P380 style "premium" slide-stop... as discussed above, the P380 slide stop is still MIM, so I'm not sure if it will be any stronger/better... but maybe the MIM process and/or quality control is better for the P380 parts.

Kahr service also decided to "polish the slide-stop notch" on my slide... and in doing so, the material between the top of the notch and the slide rail was so thin that is was almost gone and creating a hole in my slide rail with razor sharp edges. So back to Kahr it went... and this time they expedited the service.

My firearm was returned to me again... this time with a replacement slide. My CW380 is an early model and the replacement slide is of MUCH lower quality. Mainly the machined edges and especially the slide serrations. The cuts are just not clean and there is excess material left behind. This gun is definitely "function over form" so I don't need it to be a work of art, but the lower quality is still disappointing and makes me wonder what other corners have been cut.

Anyhow... the gun suffered from significant premature lock-back with several types of target and defensive ammo... almost definitely from the new slide-stop... so the Dremel tool came out again and I ground down the "follower tab" on the slide-stop to a point where it just barely allowed an empty magazine to actuate the slide-stop.

The premature lock-backs were definitely reduced, but still occurred. So I ground the follower-tab all the way down as soon as I got home. I haven't had a chance to live-fire test again. I suspect the premature lock-backs will be gone... and hopefully the new slide/stop combo doesn't break the stop anymore.

In my opinion, the VERY tight clearance between the slide-stop and cartridges (bullets) in the magazine is a major design flaw of the CW380... especially since the magazines allow the cartridges to slide forward, increasing the chance of contact with the stop. Considering this is a 100% self-defense oriented firearm, having a design with such a high likelihood of stopping the gun is unacceptable.

I am going to re-start my search for a different "pocket gun". I wish someone would make a pocket gun with CW380-size, Glock/Ruger reliability, Glock/Kahr trigger... 9mm would be wonderful, but probably not 100% feasible. I have looked at the LCP, G42, Spectrum, RM380...

In the meantime... having the ability to manually lock the slide is still important for loading the chamber directly... and the lack of slide-lock when empty does not bother me with this particular firearm and it is far more important to me that it NEVER locks back before empty. I believe this is how the original LCP operated (manual slide-lock only)?

[yqtszhj]

My cw380 has been good so far. On the other pocket pistols you mentioned, my wife’s RM380 (that she NEVER carries has been flawless. The trigger pull is LOOOOONG.