"Kahr" question about racking slide

D

DPSproles

New member
Picked up a beautiful MIB Kahr K9 Elite this weekend with ALL the accesories. Took it out shooting on Monday and had a few problems when I would attempt to rack the slide. If the slide was blown back and had caught the slide stop (like after the last round) and I dropped the slide...no problems. If the slide was forward and I racked it back (with magazine in pistol) like I would do if you were loading it to fire...it would not feed the initial round correctly. It would start pushing the round up in to the feed ramp and it would get stuck. The feed ramp is beautifully polished...looks great. The dropping the slide (when locked back) creates NO problems and I have had NO FTF or FTE with the initial 100 rounds I put through it.

Am I not pulling the slide back hard enough. I know that the Kahr has a tight spring. Does the trigger position have anything to do with it? (fired or "cocked") For instance...After my last round of a clip, I would then goto place another target. When I would place pistol in hoster, I would frop the slide (with no mag) and then pull the trigger to fully "safe" the gun. [YES - I know that the gun is completely safe with a round in tube...have bo problem with that...just a bad habit from when I had a less reliable gun before this one. I carry my Kahr condition1 - one in tube]

Any suggestions? Do I need to put another couple of hundred of rounds through it to work through this "break-in" issue? Can I "fluff & buff" and help improve it? Am I cycling it incorrectly? Is this a flaw in this pistol I bought?

Please advise...
David
 
I am having the same problem with my new P-9, and called Kahr about it. The guy I talked to told me it needs more rounds through it and it will get better. (Mine has only 100 through it as well)
I'll put some more through it this weekend, so hopefully it will get better soon.
This is the only problem I have had thus far as well.
 
I figured the number of rounds would be the answer but I wanted to check with others. Good luck shooting this weekend...I'll be doing the same I hope.

David
 
After you pull the slide back, are you riding it back home? In other words, are you keeping your hand on the slide while you let it go forward and back into battery?

If so, don't do that.

Pull back on the slide VERY sharply and quickly, and just let it go. That will give a motion more closely simulating actual firing.
 
Mike is right. I have a P9 that does the same thing if I am chambering a hollowpoint and I don't pull the slide back sharply and then let it go to chamber the top round. If I hesitate at all when I have the slide back, it tends to do it.

Load the mag, grab the serations, and pull the slide back, letting go as soon as the slide gets all the way to the rear.

Or you could pull the slide back, lock it, load the mag, and then thumb the slide release.
 
Just an additional thought....my K40 is HARD on recoil springs.
I just got a extra power Wolff spring 23 pound instead of the tired 22 pound oem unit and it changed the gun. The racking of the slide is much harder to do.......heavy spring weight. But
it goes in and stays in battery...it was never really a problems before...but I would notice that when holstering my gun the slide would try and move around a little....not anymore. Also recoil when shooting is much improved also....even my son thinks its better. The two best things I have done for my gun are nights and the spring. The Elite trigger is next....I may just have to stop tweaking it after that.....Shoot well
 
k9

my k9 has a couple thousand rounds thru it and if I use a very stubby bullet like gold dot 115 or corbon 115 it will hang up on the first round about 10% of the time when manually cycling. It never does this when firing. I also have a Sig which can't deal with similar bullet shapes/length. So with both weapons I use something else. It never happens unless it is a stubby bullet. If your gun does it with every type and you are past a couple hundred rounds I would send it to Kahr. If you find it is only a certain ammo, don't use that type.
 
To make them so small, Kahr pistols have very tight tolerances, and the recoil springs are very stiff. If you don't rack the slide back completely, and let it go just right, you can have a feed problem.

And, yes Kahr's require a break in period of several hundred rounds before reliability sets in.

Try this: when loading the initial round, with no magazine in the gun, rack the slide back and lock it with the slide stop. Put the loaded magazine in, then either unlock the slide by operating the slide stop, or pull slightly back on the slide and let go quickly. This works. Sometimes the slide stop is tough to manipulate however.

For the reasons stated above, women often find the Kahr difficult to operate. The first K9's had a recoil spring so stiff that is was difficult for some men to rack the slide. Kahr backed off the stiffness of the spring, and for awhile even offerred a "Lady Kahr" with even a lighter spring.
 
Brad's suggestion is a good one to diagnose whether or not you are manually chambering the round correctly.

As mentioned above, a good hard pull to the rear combined with a quick release will lessen any problems. A good break in period will also help to compress the spring a bit to its "working" length and make it easier to manually operate.

I had a G36 with the same type of problem. You would have problems chambering the first round if you didn't pull back completely and release it quickly.

Good SHooting
RED
 
IDENTIFIED AND SOLVED THE PROBLEM!

The post regarding not racking the slide HARD enough was exactly right. I was kind of riding it back into position and that was preventing the firts round to chamber correctly. I gobbled up another 100 rounds this Saturday and had ZERO failure in the chamber, ejecting, and firing.

I just racked the slide back quickly and "briskly" and it worked like a charm.

WHAT A SWEET GUN! I cannot wait to become alittle more accurate with this little beauty. I now have 200 rounds through her and when my 600 rounds come in from mail order...look out!

Thanks for the input folks.

David
 
I too went to the range this weekend, and after the advice here I had no problems with that first round. I simply used the slide release lever and all first rounds chambered correctly.
Thanks everybody!
 
My K40 Elite shoots like a dream with PMC roundball and Winchester SXTs.

Haven't tried other ammo yet, but I will soon. I wonder if your problem has anything to do with your current powerload.

Does anybody know if certain brands kick hard enough in the Kahr to feed the next round but not far enough to engage the slide catch?

Eric: wouldn't those alterations seem unnecessary if that were the case? I mean, switching to another brand might have solved the problem, don't you think? I'd probably get FTFs with a tighter recoil spring, whereas currently I don't.
 
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