PM4543N Packed

[dao]

Anyone know what the word Packed means in Kahr-ese? It's something I've been seeing of late, though it may very have been around for quite awhile, not sure.

Anyway, I was able to pick up my new PM45 today from the LGS. Gun came with TruGlo Tritium/Fiber Optic sights, and three mags. Background check took 3 days this time around. Got it home and took the slide completely apart as there looked to be a bunch of crud on the striker plunger and spring. Turned out that it was only on those parts, the channel itself and the striker assembly were fine. I pulled the extractor out and blew some air through that channel also. All in all it was pretty clean though the frame looks pretty rough along the edges of the rails, quite a bit of flash to remove.

I put it back together after polishing the barrel. Installed an Arachnigrip to help me rack it. Cycled it 300 times and it's now sitting with the slide locked back. I'll likely get it to the range next week.

Only have one anomaly. With a brass-based snap cap in it the slide is very hard to pull back in order to eject the cap. It seems to be getting slightly easier, but the first few times I had to put the front of the slide against a plastic cutting board to get it to pull the snap cap out of the chamber. I've used this cap on other guns with no issues. Any ideas on this? I believe I have the plunger, spring, retaining pin, and ejector in correctly, with the long side of the retaining pin on the outboard side of the ejector. The ejector sits nearly flush with the slide when the gun is empty and sticks out a bit with the snap cap in the chamber.

Trigger is buttery smooth as it should be and a five pull average was 5lbs, 13oz. No creaking so they must have polished the trigger bar nicely. The gun is just a perfect size. Hopefully I'll like how it handles, and can be accurate with it.

[Bawanna]

Wonder if the snap cap is just a tad long and is hanging on the rifling?

I've always figured "Packed" meant the 3rd magazine, no other extra's that I can think of off hand.

[dao]

Well, this is the only 3" barrel that I've had the snapcap in so it's possible, though I don't see any abrasions on that end of it. At first I wasn't able to move the slide more than a quarter inch rearward by hand. After using the cutting board a few times I was able to muscle it back by hand only, so hopefully it's just needing to be cycled under power. I did notice a burr that is more of an overlap in the slide where the ejector rides when I had it all apart. It is at the spot where the ejector body makes the inward 90º turn. It's not big, probably no more than 1/64th or so. I didn't want to try and remove it then. But its position is such that it would keep the extractor from getting as close to the casing as it would if it wasn't there, so I'm not sure that it's affecting anything. Time will tell. If it hangs up at the range, I may take it apart again when I return home and see if I can dislodge it. I wish I had some spent brass to work with. I've been donating mine to the range of late.

Makes sense about the term packed maybe meaning 3 mags. I'm pretty tickled with the purchase. New PM45 with factory night sights and 3 mags for $535 before tax and FFL fee. That's less than I paid for my PM9 back in 2003, and it came without night sights. Some Kahrs are going for a lot less these days.

[Bobshouse]

Try the plink test by dropping the round directly into the chamber. If it binds try a real round, if it binds, you might have a problem.

[Bawanna]

True, barrel length matter not. It's the chamber or free bore that might be messing with you. I'd lock the slide open, put the dummy round in the chamber as Bobshouse suggested. I give it a little push to make sure it's home, then tip the gun breech end down, the round should pretty much just fall out. A live round should definitely fall right out.

My PM45 trigger improved a bit with a few rounds through it. I measured it later on when I ordered a 5# striker spring and it was already pretty close to 5# so didn't make much difference.

[dao]

Good call, thank you! A live round drops nearly all the way in, needing just a light touch to seat, and comes out easily. That particular cap had to be pushed in forcefully with my finger, and comes out hard. I tried a new cap from the same package it goes in and comes out nearly as easily as a live round.

Something kind of strange is that the ejector seems to stick out farther with a round, live or a cap, in the chamber than I'm used to seeing. I'm not a gunsmith by any stretch, but there doesn't seem like there's a way for those four parts to be in wrong or misaligned, other than making sure the beveled portion of the retaining pin slides over the extractor itself. Am I missing something there?

I'll take it outside tomorrow with a full mag and cycle them through the gun to see what happens.

[DJK11]

First off Merry Christmas. Second the extractor protrusion with a chambered round is Kahr’s version of the “loaded chamber indicator”. Not sure if they still mention that in the literature. The PM45 is the finest subcompact 45 made, period. Also every Kahr I’ve purchased says “packed” even back when they shipped with two mags.

We need to get to the bottom of this.

[dao]

Merry Christmas to you!

Well, of all the Kahrs I've owned this is my first Kahr .45 and also the first where I have noticed the extractor sticking out as far as it is. This is my tenth so I've got a fairly large sample set to compare it to. Now it could be that I haven't noticed it before, but I don't think so. I'll check a couple of things later today, those being what it looks like with live rounds in it, and also what this brand of caps does to other Kahrs I have, in different calibers. I've yet to put the gun into battery with a live round because at this point I don't want to do that in the house. If I can't find a logical reason why this extractor is protruding as far as it is I'll probably post some pictures because you're right I need to get to the bottom of it. Thanks!

As far as the Packed goes I'll have to check the boxes of those that I still have. I'm getting old, so like meeting the same "new" people every day it could just be my mind playing tricks on me

[gb6491]

If you don't want to chamber a live round inside, maybe pull the slide off and slide a live round and snap cap up under the extractor to see how much each causes the extractor to protrude.

[DJK11]

Okay here it is page 23. I’ve only seen it mentioned for the 45 pistols outside of the manual. It’s Christmas so enough of this gun stuff, back to the cookies and cheesecake.