Central California

[5.56x24]

I've owned a Kahr P380 for a number of years and after resolving all its functional problems, transformed it into a reliable carry gun. I recently added a few more Kahr handguns to the collection, and have been impressed with their out of the box reliability!
I think Kahr pistols are of excellent design - simpler and with fewer parts than Glocks, and with the better trigger. I decided it's time to come hang-out somewhere the guns are appreciated!

[I_Like_Turtles]

Welcome to the forum (I'm new here too). What problems did your Kahr have?

A friend had to send his CW 45 to the factory several times but they finally fixed whatever was wrong and put in an Elite trigger. I have the pistol now and it is part of my "carry battery." I have been carrying it now for a few weeks.

[DavidR]

Welcome!

Some 380s have been problematic but the rest of the lineup seems as reliable as any other manufacturer.

[5.56x24]

Here in California we have a rather limited selection of Roster-approved handguns from which to choose, which drives prices up and alternatives down. So the rather expensive P380 was my "choice" by default one might say - kind of like living in the future of "Bernieland" should this country go crazy in November!

Anyway, the P380 would not reliably chamber nor eject. It never made it through a single mag without several stoppages. I tossed it aside for the first few years while I focused on other guns, until I got "a round tu-it" and decided to resolve the issue. To keep it short, the extractor was not moving laterally so as to allow the feeding cartridge to slide in under and this of course caused feed stoppages. When a rim did manage to squeeze in and the gun fired, the immobile extractor refused to let the empty case out! This is like your neighbor who would never invite you over, but when you finally forced your way in, he wouldn't let you go!

Turns out the problem was the extractor coil spring was about a mile too long. When fully compressed into it's tunnel it formed a solid column thus freezing the extractor in place. After I clipped a few coils, and the extractor was able to pivot outward enough to allow rims underneath the little gun immediately became a great carry gun! It went from jam, bang, jam, jam, bang-jam, to bang, bang, bang-ba-bang-bang! Sweet! Then the magazines started to drop on firing. Thought it was me at first then realized it was a WEAK mag release spring so I fixed that by grabbing a slightly thicker length of straight spring stock, snipping it to length, and thinning the end meant for insertion into the tiny spring tunnel inside the grip. The magazine catch now "catches" with authority as it should. Before I would have given the P380 to someone I intensely disliked for THEM to carry, but now it has proven to be reliable enough to carry.

It seems Kahr tends to over-spring their guns which is why they advise people to shoot 200 rounds before complaining. The problem, in the modern world, is that OTHER manufacturers do produce a readily-reliable product straight out of the box - considering that most semiautomatic pistol lack of "reliability" is shooter-induced, meaning lack of a firm hold which promotes reliable cycling.

I recently added a P40 and PM40 because they were too cheap to pass up, what with all the 9mm fans running headlong back to that caliber - this IS the time to buy 40 caliber guns! The first thing I did was pull out the mag springs which are about 2.5x longer than the mag bodies and MUCH longer than needed. I ended up removing about 3 coils from the flush-fit mags, and two from the +1 mags. This lessens the pressure being applied to the rounds stack and instantly helps reduce the propensity of the top feeding round to hammer into the lower 1/3rd of the feed ramp. Springs are cheap, and Kahr sells every part you'll ever need so one should never be shy about clipping coils on the path to enlightenment. Granted, shooting a few boxes of ammo will do a marvelous job of smoothing things out and taking some of the starch out of stiff springs, but as with the P380 extractor coil, there is such a thing has having too many. When it comes to the major parts, I don't see any flaws in how Kahr's are built. The parts are all designed to work well, and the only problems I've ever had were all SPRING related. Since the P series all come with polished feed ramps that's not an issue. Over-springing is just as bad as under for reliable performance.

On my first outing with the two 40s, both functioned reliably. Both demonstrated one instance of not wanting to chamber the first round, but this was gone around five magazines later. The P40 had one feed stoppage and no failures to eject. The PM40 went through every magazine clean. By the end of shooting 100 rounds per gun, both were greatly smoothed out. I did have a problem with one of the flush-fit mags for the PM40 not wanting to lock the slide back. Here on this forum I saw some discussion on that, and I ended up running the slide stop along the bottom of the slide to smooth out any micro-aggression on the way to a polished surface. I also loosened the slide release spring using a #6 Torx, inserted the slide release partially into the hole to put full pressure on the tiny spring, then tightened the retaining screw back down...snug, but not tight since it's into a polymer anchor. After this the reluctant mag will now lock back, though it's still a bit reluctant. The real impediment isn't the tiny spring leg pushing it down, it's the amount of pressure applied to it by the loop portion of the slide release spring. I also worked the slide release up and down a few hundred times.

[dustnchips]

I've owned a Kahr P380 for a number of years and after resolving all its functional problems, transformed it into a reliable carry gun. I recently added a few more Kahr handguns to the collection, and have been impressed with their out of the box reliability!
I think Kahr pistols are of excellent design - simpler and with fewer parts than Glocks, and with the better trigger. I decided it's time to come hang-out somewhere the guns are appreciated!

I think on this forum you will find that all guns are appreciated, but people are still outspoken about their preference.