More On Kahr Reliability

[zeller]

I have been reading and enjoying your site for a while, thought I would post my recent experiences with a PM40. Pistol wouldn't cycle at all and was sent back to Kahr. Dottie took good care of me, but even after hundreds of rounds and several recoil springs, they just couldn't get it to feed properly. Since I was the second owner, I figured that I had nothing to lose by doing a little "smithing" work. Turned out the chamber was WAY too tight. Any tiny spec of dirt would jam the cases and prevent them from seating properly. I opened the chamber up about .0005 and polished it with oiled 600 grit silicon carbide sandpaper on a .401 mandrel. This didn't seem to affect accuracy and the pistol immediately began cycling propery. I wrote to Kahr with this feedback. Never did hear back from them. PM40 is a great little carry unit and VERY accurate. I can easily shoot 4" groups at 15 yards, both left and right handed.

[JimmyD]

Originally posted by zeller
Pistol wouldn't cycle at all and was sent back to Kahr. Dottie took good care of me, but even after hundreds of rounds and several recoil springs, they just couldn't get it to feed properly.

They didn't fix your gun, how does that qualify as "taking good care" of you?

Originally posted by zeller
I opened the chamber up about .0005 and polished it with oiled 600 grit silicon carbide sandpaper on a .401 mandrel. This didn't seem to affect accuracy and the pistol immediately began cycling propery.

Sounds like Kahr could use someone like you in their service department. ;f

[zeller]

Good point! Why is it that some companies design a great product, then stop when they are only about 95% ready to release it to the market? I suspect that:

1. Kahr management have an ego problem and will not admit that they have a quality/manufacturing problem.

2. There may be some liability issues. The aircraft industry has had this problem for years. If you come up with an honest product improvement, the trial lawyers line up to claim that you knowingly marketed a defective product.

I figure that Dottie is single handedly holding Kahr together. If she leaves, the company is probably toast. Pity, because I REALLY like the way the gun packs and shoots...

[compman]

I have said that many of times, if Dottie and/or Stefan go the company is gone. THe problem there is it sounds like nobody is cross-trained to replace except DOttie.