Light strikes with my CW9

[mcb]

Alright so last weekend I got 3 light strikes out of about 100rds of Remington UMC (green box) with my CW9. This is quickly lowering my confidence in my CW9. Earlier this year the trigger bar broke.

http://www.glocktalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=693464

Since getting it back I have had a small handful of light primer strikes. So I tore the slide down completely this weekend to see if I could find the problem. Well when I got the striker and striker space out of the slide I notice that what ever finish is on those MIM parts, it is coming off and little flakes of the finish were all over the inside of the striker channel. I suspect/hope this is was the cause of the light strikes but will have to wait until I can test it again. I cleaned every thing well lubricated it lightly and reassembled.

Have any of you hear of similar problem with Kahr and light primer strikes?

I am tempted to call Kahr up and see what they think but give the glacial speed of customer service last time I am hesitant to do this. I might just order a new striker and striker space and do the work myself.

Any suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
mcb

[miltony]

Perhaps a few rounds of several different brands and loads of ammo might be in order before throwing all suspicion on the hardware?

[JCW355]

Shoot it and let us know if cleaning the firing pin channel out helped. Being you found "flakes" in the channel would lead me to think that was the problem. Light strikes, possible hard primers but since it was only a couple of rounds would make me doubt that, but its possible. Good luck and hopefully you'll figure it out. Try a different brand of ammo maybe.

[NewsShooter]

Check your ammo for low primers. Striker spring weak? On a striker fired gun, crud in the striker channel and or a weak spring are almost the source of light strikes.
Clean but do not lube the striker. Lube in the striker channel allows crud to build up and cause problems.

[Nuclear]

A shooting friend of mine bought a P9 partially on my good experiences with mine. Unfortunately, he has experienced light primer strikes almost from the first box of ammo. After cleaning by him, cleaning by the gunshop he bought it at, two subsequent trips back and forth to Kahr, the light primer strike problem seems to be fixed (he's past 200 rounds now). So yeah, I've seen it, and it isn't necessarily crud in the firing pin channel. Try cleaning it first, but be prepared to send it to Kahr.

[Famous1]

i could be wrong about the coating , but on my Kahrs it was almost a powder like residue that was left behind when the coating began to wear off i just polished it.. take the coating off with a brass brush and keep it well oiled and fire about 100 rounds ,that should fix the problem. if you wanted to spend a little time on it you could polish the striker and guide with 1000 or 1500 grit sand paper .make long light strokes length wise and it should polish up nicely .also smooths the trigger pull even more than it already is without making it any lighter .as far as i can tell on mine it didnt make any difference in fit or geometry of the striker by doing this ..

[mcb]

Thanks guys, I will let you know how cleaning worked and then I will do more if necessary.

Later
mcb

[3putter]

I have had several light strikes with UMC ammo with my CW9 also. I have put over 2000 rounds through it with just a few problems. It's cheap ammo so I don't think you can expect the quality control to be all that great. I have NEVER had a light strike with my carry ammo which is Speer Gold Dot 124gr. SB

[mcb]

I put another 50rds (Rem UMC) through it last weekend and even with the thorough cleaning I got two light strikes. I thought I had it solved the first 30rds or so went bang just fine I didn't get the light strikes until the last fifteen or so rounds in the box. The strikes on the two rounds looked pretty good both cartridges went bang when struck a second time. At present I have gone back to carrying my XD-40. The previous poster makes me wonder though if it is just bad ammo. It is the cheap green box Rem UMC.

That said it does seem funny that the Kahr firing pin barely comes through the breech face compared to my XD-40 that really extends past the breech face. A case that was just slightly short could cause problems with a Kahr's short firing pin.

Frustrated
mcb

[3putter]

Originally posted by mcb
I put another 50rds (Rem UMC) through it last weekend and even with the thorough cleaning I got two light strikes. I thought I had it solved the first 30rds or so went bang just fine I didn't get the light strikes until the last fifteen or so rounds in the box. The strikes on the two rounds looked pretty good both cartridges went bang when struck a second time. At present I have gone back to carrying my XD-40. The previous poster makes me wonder though if it is just bad ammo. It is the cheap green box Rem UMC.

That said it does seem funny that the Kahr firing pin barely comes through the breech face compared to my XD-40 that really extends past the breech face. A case that was just slightly short could cause problems with a Kahr's short firing pin.

Frustrated
mcb

Understand your frustration but cheap ammo is cheap ammo. I use it myself but accept the fact that quality control is probably not as good as higher priced ammo. As long as I never have a failure with my carry ammo I'm okay with cheap practice ammo. Have you tried higher priced hollow point ammo? I carry Gold Dot 124gr. SB and have never had a misfire or FTF so I feel pretty safe carrying it for self defense.