Kahr K40 Covert for $599, good price, good gun or not?

D

DaHaMac

New member
Today I came across a Kahr KS4043 K40 Covert stainless steel gun with nights sights for $599+tax.

I am not very familiar with Kahr, is a Kahr gun a good gun; i.e. reliable, reasonable accurate, and quality?

And is $599 plus tax a good price for this gun? The dealer usually has the lowest prices in town, I just want to know if he is high or low on this one.

I saw the gun, love the size, love the caliber for this size gun, love the way it looks and feels, but I hate mnaking hasty decisions. I appreciate any help you all can give me.

DaHaMAc
 
I have the K40 and don't know about the smaller version you mentioned but, I LOVE the k40. It fits my hand really well and is quite accurate, The only thing I am doing to my K40 is putting in a heavier recoil spring. When shooting Speer gold dot rounds the case base is torn.
Would I buy again? I would grab it first over any similar gun.
 
The K40 Covert is a cross between the full-size (compact) K40 and their micro size MK40. $600 is a good price considering that it has night sights and Kahr guns have a pretty good and well earned reputation -- I would not hesitate in buying or recommending one of their products.

All of that said, I would have reservations about getting the K40 Covert. I would either go for the smaller MK40 for greater concealment or for the regular K40 for the extra round that it holds.

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Share what you know, learn what you don't -- FUD.
 
I have the K40 Covert and it is a neat pistol. I paid $379 for mine NIB, but no nightsights. The guy I got them from still has them advertised in Gun List, Dr. David Avery in McKinney, Tx.
 
I bought it, I'm not sure I'm happy. When I pay that for a gun, I expect reliability to an above standard degree. Well that is not what I have got.

The gun will not barely chamber Sellier and Bellot .40 caliber ammo (edited that from 40mm, yeah that would be too big :) ), every other round failed to chamber. It feed from the magazine allright, but it wouldn't seat all the way in the chamber. I would have to hit the rear of the slide to get the round seated to be able to fire. I fired about 75 rounds of this ammo.

I also fired 26 rounds of Federal Hydra-shock 135grn, I had only one problem, and that is after I got home, I fired the gun in my yard, and the second round didn't even come off the top of the magazine. The slide just stayed back, like the magazine was empty.

As far as a CCW, this is the ideal gun for except the reliability. I demand that the gun always fire when loaded with my personal defense ammo. This scares me, the poor performance of the Kahr. After all the good things I heard about Kahr I did not expect this, and I am very dissapointed.

Has anybody else had this sort of trouble? I will fire gun some more, I will try different ammo, but right now I'm not happy with Kahr.

BTW, its the MK40 with night sights.

DaHaMac

[This message has been edited by DaHaMac (edited February 20, 2000).]
 
the Kahrs have very tight chambers but i have have not found a round yet that will not fire or go to battery. of course i do not use the brand you mentioned. i understand it is a very cheap brand of ammo...so. second i have had several guns that the slide stop would bounce up on as you described. almost always it was my own hand posistion that caused the malfunction. if your thumb or fore finger (depending on if you are right or left handed) hits the slide stop during firing it will cause the same problem. i had a S&W that did the same thing to the point it almost drove me crazy. Cylinder and Slide fixed the problem with a stronger spring. the Kahr's springs are quite strong to start with and i doubt if that is the problem. if it is consider replacing the slide stop spring. consider that limp wristing a pistol can cause all kinds of malfunctions i.e. jams, misfeeds, and slide stoppages.
 
also if the ammo is 40mm you may find it is far to large for that little gun. ammo size should be .40 caliber. 40 mm would be 160 caliber. man those are BIG bullets!!
 
I belive you need a new dealer!! I'm not gonna tell you that you got ripped, but your dealer made $75.00 profit on your purchase!
What is dealer cost? You do the math! sorry...
CJB
(KS40 COVERT KAHR .40 1/2" shorter grip, 1-5rd. mag & 1-6rd. mag.....$___.__)
 
I don't know about the actual dealer cost, maybe my dealer was high; but usually he is the least expensive in most of North GA. And I'm not sure about the K40 Covert being shorter in the grip frame, the MK40 is the micro Kahr, and Kahr lists this gun as the smallest on their site. Besides, with a 1/2" shorter grip frame, it would be real hard to hold on to the gun. And I did get 2 magazines, one 5rd and one 6rd with grip extension.

I sounded real down on Kahr, but I'm not necessarily too mad, I am just dissapointed that it doesn't have the out of the box reliability I expected. But I love this little gun, recoil is not to bad, with the Federal Hydra-shocks accuracey wasn't bad, I Love the size, I love the finish of the stainless steel, I love the night sights. I am willing to do what it takes to make this gun reliable, after reading other people's problems with more expensive guns, I don't feel as bad. If the gun does prove to be bad, I will send it back to Kahr, and find out about their customer service. If its still not reliable enough I will find a good gunsmith to do a reliablity improving job.

At worst I will have learned valuable lesson about gun buying.

DaHaMac
 
The K40 Covert is the length of a K40 but the height of the MK40 -- it is a mutated version of the two, and, it is therefore NOT the smallest despite what anyone says (it was the smallest before the MK40 came around).

With regards to the jams that you are having, there are two (maybe three) possible reasons that I can think of for this.

First off, a lot of early Kahrs were produced with the wrong type of spring assembly which caused the type of problems that you are describing. I had a similar problem with my MK9 and contacted Frank Harris over at Kahr and he sent me a new spring assembly without charge. When I installed that, the gun was completely reliable EVERY time.

Secondly, Kahrs were designed to work best with really hot loads. If the bullets that you are using are not "hot" enough, this could also be causing the problem. I went to the range with reloads in my MK40 and experiences problems similar to what you are describing. When I switched to the hotter stuff (at least factory reloads from Black Hills), the problems disappeared.

Third, and this may be a stupid question, but did you oil the gun prior to shooting it? The Covert is an older model which is no longer made. Therefore, there's a good chance that it might have been sitting around for a while in need of lubrication.

I hope this helps you out some. You bought yourself a pretty good gun which should serve you well. Additionally, the price of a gun also has a lot to do with what part of the country that you live in and $600 for what you described would be a good deal where I live. If this dealer has traditionally had the best prices around, go with the laws of average and be confident that you got a good deal. Regards.

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Share what you know, learn what you don't -- FUD.

[This message has been edited by FUD (edited February 21, 2000).]
 
Thanks FUD, you just confirmed alot of what happened. The serial number on my Kahr is extremely low, like in the first 10 MK40's produced I believe. Nope, didn't oil it first, dang, I wish I had thought of that. I would imagine that the ammo tht gave me trouble was not hot loads, only target loads. And with the gun having such a very low number the recoil spring thing could very well be the culprit.

I will call Kahr and talk with them the next chance I get, hopefully they will help me get things cleared up. The one thing that worries me, is that part of the barrel is marred, kinda dinged. I wasn't able to notice the ding until I took the gun apart to clean it, I am afraid the dealer wouldn't have liked me to have taken the gun apart in his store. I will ask Kahr whether I need to send the gun to them to examine what happened to ding the barrel, or if its ok and will not void my warranty to polish the ding out.

Thanks FUD, that about the early Kahr's having a bit of trouble confirmed what I had concluded. I mean the serial number is SO LOW, it had to be one of the first MK40's to come off the line.

DaHaMac
 
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