Lowell
09-09-2009, 05:11 PM
I wanted to post this on KahrTalk to help anyone else that might put themselves in the same situation as I did to myself once. Let me say up front that this is a self-induced problem, and not Kahrs. Other people might inadvertently do this to themselves as well.
I picked up a used Kahr K40 at a great price. When I got it, I took it home, field stripped it, looked at it, and then re-assembled it.
I tested the action lots of times, racking it by hand and testing the trigger, with no apparent problems.
When I finally took it to the range, and the recoil guide spring started sticking out of the front, instead of staying flush on the fifth round.
http://www.stormrage.com/images/kahr2.jpg
With some minor effort mostly by twisting the guide rod, I could pull the recoil spring towards the front of the gun and make it protrude a lot farther out. I could rack the slide, but when it comes to the forward position it was slightly out of battery as seen in the images.
http://www.stormrage.com/images/kahr3.jpg
In that position the guide rod seemed to barely be inside the spring it is supposed to be guiding.
I could not get the slide off of the top of the gun. it seemed to me that the spring is out of position and was binding the slide and preventing it from sliding off cleanly.
I usually don't do this, but I went to the trouble to read the manual, and found this interesting snippet.
http://www.stormrage.com/images/kahr1.jpg
Originally, I doubted I put the spring on backwards, but upon reflection, that is exactly what happened.
The flange'ed end of the guide rod was in the middle of the spring, instead of at the end.
I'm assuming that the picture below represents what happened:
http://www.stormrage.com/images/kahr5.jpg
I threw it in the safe and reflected upon it for a while. I realized that i needed to get the spring off the flange before it would ever come apart again. put it would be very difficult to grab hold of the string and pull it in the right direction to get it to "hop" over the flange again.
A brain storm hit me, and i realized i could thread some fishing line in the gap between the slide and the frame, and thread the fishing line through a loop in the spring. With that, i could pull on the spring to compress it enough to get it into the right position.
I threaded it through, and could pull somewhat on the spring, but that is a beefy spring; nothing, not even 50 pound fishing line, could pull hard enough without breaking the fish line, but i did get some progress; of the 4 "loop"s that were past the flange, i got one of them to the correct side. My theory was working, but not the implementation.
I needed something stronger but just as thin; i thought about some thin electrical wire from some electrical cords or something, but everything i found that had insulation on them were too thick to fit in the gap between the slide and the receiver.
The solution was to buy a 5 dollar package of metal guitar strings. the second smallest guitar strings were perfect; strong enough and thin enough.
With that in hand, I threaded it through just as i described above; in maybe 5 minutes of solid but careful tugs, the spring was back over the flange and the gun disassembled easily. i especially made sure to pull directly backwards, so that the guitar spring did not grind or rub against either the slide or the receiver....just pulled on the spring.
The spring was kinked from the effort, so i threw it away, ordered a couple online , and a week or so later, reassembled it the RIGHT way and i was done.
A couple of range trips proved i was back in business.
This pistol is one of my favorites; maybe I became more attached to it because of this problem, I don't know.
I hope this helps someone else in the future.
I picked up a used Kahr K40 at a great price. When I got it, I took it home, field stripped it, looked at it, and then re-assembled it.
I tested the action lots of times, racking it by hand and testing the trigger, with no apparent problems.
When I finally took it to the range, and the recoil guide spring started sticking out of the front, instead of staying flush on the fifth round.
http://www.stormrage.com/images/kahr2.jpg
With some minor effort mostly by twisting the guide rod, I could pull the recoil spring towards the front of the gun and make it protrude a lot farther out. I could rack the slide, but when it comes to the forward position it was slightly out of battery as seen in the images.
http://www.stormrage.com/images/kahr3.jpg
In that position the guide rod seemed to barely be inside the spring it is supposed to be guiding.
I could not get the slide off of the top of the gun. it seemed to me that the spring is out of position and was binding the slide and preventing it from sliding off cleanly.
I usually don't do this, but I went to the trouble to read the manual, and found this interesting snippet.
http://www.stormrage.com/images/kahr1.jpg
Originally, I doubted I put the spring on backwards, but upon reflection, that is exactly what happened.
The flange'ed end of the guide rod was in the middle of the spring, instead of at the end.
I'm assuming that the picture below represents what happened:
http://www.stormrage.com/images/kahr5.jpg
I threw it in the safe and reflected upon it for a while. I realized that i needed to get the spring off the flange before it would ever come apart again. put it would be very difficult to grab hold of the string and pull it in the right direction to get it to "hop" over the flange again.
A brain storm hit me, and i realized i could thread some fishing line in the gap between the slide and the frame, and thread the fishing line through a loop in the spring. With that, i could pull on the spring to compress it enough to get it into the right position.
I threaded it through, and could pull somewhat on the spring, but that is a beefy spring; nothing, not even 50 pound fishing line, could pull hard enough without breaking the fish line, but i did get some progress; of the 4 "loop"s that were past the flange, i got one of them to the correct side. My theory was working, but not the implementation.
I needed something stronger but just as thin; i thought about some thin electrical wire from some electrical cords or something, but everything i found that had insulation on them were too thick to fit in the gap between the slide and the receiver.
The solution was to buy a 5 dollar package of metal guitar strings. the second smallest guitar strings were perfect; strong enough and thin enough.
With that in hand, I threaded it through just as i described above; in maybe 5 minutes of solid but careful tugs, the spring was back over the flange and the gun disassembled easily. i especially made sure to pull directly backwards, so that the guitar spring did not grind or rub against either the slide or the receiver....just pulled on the spring.
The spring was kinked from the effort, so i threw it away, ordered a couple online , and a week or so later, reassembled it the RIGHT way and i was done.
A couple of range trips proved i was back in business.
This pistol is one of my favorites; maybe I became more attached to it because of this problem, I don't know.
I hope this helps someone else in the future.