I can't believe it is the striker. It can only go through the hole in the slide. Bad machining on the slide would be my guess.
I can't believe it is the striker. It can only go through the hole in the slide. Bad machining on the slide would be my guess.
Kahr has gotten back to me on the off center firing pin strike concern. Here is their response:
"At this point we can test fire the pistol but seeing that you have not seen any misfire at this time I doubt my gunsmith are going to to go further if the don't have any misfires themselves. If you still wish to have the gun sent in then I will need the two links below to get started."
Not sure how I should feel about Kahr's response. By being willing to have the pistol sent in for test firing, Kahr is kind of acknowledging that it appears there's a problem. However, clearly suggesting that if Kahr can't demonstrate a misfire problem then they probably won't do anything is something less than a fully satisfactory answer.
Kahr's reply tells me that they're not working to a numerical standard in the repair shop. Kahr is building a machine. There's a tolerance in their blueprints for manufacturing their product. Otherwise, how would they know how to set their machines up and when to change tools from wear. Kahr is either ignoring their own standards to meet pandemic production goals or is willing to loosen their standards to meet pandemic production goals.
After thinking about it, I think I'll go back to self testing. Load ammo with small rifle primers and see if there are misfires. If the pistol reliably fires small rifle primers, then I'll consider it "good enough."
Must confess that good enough is not quite what I had in mind when I purchased my first Kahr or when I purchased this my second one. Still, I like the pistol design and don't know of a competing product that I like better for the purpose for which I bought the pistol. C'est La Vie
My $.02 Shoot it. Shoot it with well powered factory ammo. Why diddle around with small rifle primer reloads unless that's what you intend to carry. Kahrs are known for primer smear anyway. Shoot it and get back when you have a misfire. Until then, you don't have a problem.
For today, I have put away my concern about the off center firing pin strike of my TP9. Completed testing this past weekend. Loaded my standard IDPA load with Winchester small rifle primers. Fired about 25 rounds without incident. Fired cartridge rifle primer indentation was noticeably less than fired cartridge pistol primer indentation but the pistol with both cases was shooting to the sights and there were no misfires. Good enough.
Final note to the off center firing pin strike story. Sent a thank you email to Julia and Joshua at Kahr Customer Service. I shared with them the favorable results of the small rifle primer test and thanked them for having gotten back to me and being willing to have the pistol come back in for testing.
Joshua got back to me with the following response: "Generally, a good rule of thumb is less than half the diameter of the dent. So as long as some part of the dent is over the center it should be fine." I'm pleased to know what standard Kahr is using. My TP9 passes that test -- maybe a little closer to the limit than I would like but it does pass the Kahr observation test and it runs on hard primers.
I do very much appreciate Kahr Customer Service communications and follow through.