Kahr owners - your attention

[RTFM]

Hello all, I'm more of a reader than a talker here, but I recently found something with my Kahr CW45 that I would like to pass on to anyone that may have a Kahr or may be interested in a Kahr.

It also appears this issue can happen not only to older models but ones produced present day;

My story in a nut shell:

I don't do video - so keep my horrible cell phone video in mind - I was dry firing the CW45 today (Feb 20 2017) and kept noticing that at the point of the "hammer" going forward, my front sight would drop about 1/4 dot circumference.
...hmmm maybe just me - repeat dry fire 20 or more times... each time at the point of breaking to ignite a round, the front sight drops.

Horrible videos follows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rABlYE5KEW0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGElxUufSMI&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5eFp9UGVSU



I have tried as best as I can to keep the lower as steady as possible - all of the movement appears to be the slide / barrel assembly -

_________________

Now some wiser people than I over at Kahrtalk knew what to look for and how to test - which I am a victim of:

The slide sticks out farther than the front metal guide rails. In other words the front of the slide is completley unsupported untll it travels back far enough to begin traveling on the rails."

It's not about the width of the grooves in the slide as compared to the rails in the dust cover. What I'm seeing is that when the slide is completely forward/in battery, the grooves are ahead of the end of the frame rails.

I think a properly made poly Kahr (or least it's how my CW9 is made) would have a slide and front rails interface something similar to that in this photo:

I've found it's much easier to check for the issue by pinching the slide and dust cover together. Then while holding them together, see if you can move the slide rearward. If the front rail is interfaced correctly you WILL be able to retract the slide - if the front rails are TOO SHORT when you pinch the slide to the frame you WILL NOT be able to retract the slide.

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I just wanted to pass this along, some may know about this issue, and others - Like me may not know about an issue that could be dangerous - and I've been shooting and carrying my CW45 for quite sometime... and up until today never noticed this issue which was LITERATELY right in front of my face.

 

[5whiskey]

Hmm... thank you for posting this. I learned something.

 

[NYPD13]

My CM40 has very little play but is barely noticeable. I don't believe that much movement is correct as Kahrs tend to be tight to begin with. The dust cover rail does make contact with the forward cuts in the slide and my slide does not drop upon firing as it does in your video. I'd check in with Kahr.

 

[IMTHDUKE]

There is something wrong with that gun. My PM9 slide is tighter than a skin on a weenie.

 

[JohnKSa]

The gun in the videos has a problem. There shouldn't be that much play at the front of the slide.

With the gun in battery, take a sharpened pencil and draw a mark on the side of the slide so that the line is immediately against the front of the dustcover. You don't want any gap between the dustcover and the mark.

Now field strip the gun. With the frame lying on its side, put the slide above the frame so that it's above the rails and significantly forward of where it would be when fully in battery.

Don't put the slide onto the rails as you would when assembling the gun, the bottom of the slide should be resting on the top of the frame rails.

Now, while keeping the slide resting on top of the frame rails, move the slide slowly backwards. It will come to a stop when the steel rails inside the dustcover interfere with the front of the slide. Since the slide is above its normal position, the steel rails inside the dustcover can't slide into their grooves in the slide. So the slide will catch on the rails and stop sliding backwards.

There will probably be about a tenth of an inch between the mark you made in the first step and the front of the dustcover. That's another way of saying that there should be about a tenth of an inch of engagement between the slide and steel rails in the dustcover with the gun in battery. If the slide keeps moving backwards so that the dustcover lines up with the mark or covers the mark, then something is wrong with the gun.

Normally the slide comes to a stop well before the dustcover lines up with the mark you made on the slide.

There may still be some movement of the slide visible in dryfire, but that would be the result of the back of the slide moving upwards due to a small amount of play between the rear rails in the frame and the slide, not due to a dip in the front of the slide. If you hold the gun and look at it from the side while you dryfire you may be able to see the slide jump up slightly at the rear. By "slightly" I mean a LOT less than what is visible in the gun in the video.

I don't like seeing the slide move at all during dryfire but I've seen it on more than one striker fired gun. It's not a problem unless there's so much play that it compromises the engagement between the striker lug and the "sear" in the frame.