Should I buy a Kahr .380?

Should I buy a Kahr .380?

  • Yay

    Votes: 21 37.5%

  • Nay

    Votes: 23 41.1%

  • Something else

    Votes: 12 21.4%
  • Total voters
    56
  • Poll closed .
I own a Kahr, and have tried so hard to like the gun. There is a lot to like. Nice build quality, stainless steel, steel inserts on the Polymer frame at the stress points, a very mild shooter. Mine is very finicky on ammo. It does not like hollow point ammo, and does not like a longer OAL. For instance it will shoot Fiocchi Extremea with a short OAL, but will not shoot their standard range ammo which is longer.
When it shoots, it shoots fine, but too many times It will not go into full battery.
Mine is down now as it would not cycle and I have it apart for a good cleaning esp the striker channel, but believe it will have to go back to the factory.There are other issues which I will not get into, however if I had it over to do again, I do not think I would purchase again. I will wait and see how things go in the near future.
I am obviously a Pico fan, and that is a gun you might consider. With gun Prices down in the current market, I see where Bud's has the gun on sale for $195 and Beretta has a $75.00 rebate. I will most likely pickup a third one at that price. I believe the gun to be worth every Penny of $300 plus. JMO.

Here is a pic of the reinforced steel inserts on the Polymer frame. I wish Ruger would do this on their LCP especially considering it is a aluminum based gun.

moVl4xW.jpg
 
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I voted - other - -since it's a fun gun..

Everybody wants a Bond, James Bond PPK.
Yeah, 007 packed a PPK in .32 acp, but, what the heck, a PPK or PPK/s in .380 acp is just as good when you want to play spy.


Get a used one - they can be had for around $500 used in like new condition if you search long an hard enough.

Give it a try & if you find that, like me with mine, it rips the back of your hand open with the slide......you can always turn around and sell it for what you paid.
 
I vote yes - but would get the CT380 as it is easier to handle than the tiny CW380. Mine eats everything I load it with, except WWB. It doesn't like it at all.
Fine little gun.
IMG_1610.jpg
 
If you want a .380 to add to the .380 collection, a Kahr is not a good choice, the P/CW 380's are carry guns.

If you want something that's unique, take a look at the Bersa Thunder Plus, it's a .380 with 15 rd capacity. Pretty sure it is the only doublestack .380 currently made that is imported into the USA.

Then there's also those Grendel .380's made by the guy that founded Kel Tec. Pretty much useless in a gunfight, but for a collection... yeah, I almost made a bid on one.
 
Surplus CZ83's are available in the $250+ range. I paid $300 for mine in Very Good condition. They are great shooters. I actually prefer mine to my Beretta 84, a similarly-sized pistol.
 
Don't own a Kahr but do agree the 380acp is cheap to reload and fun to shoot.

My 1st purchase of a 380acp is an EAA Witness Pavona and I'm enjoying the heck out of it. It's just very slightly smaller than the XD Mod2 4.0 Found this one brand new $320.00 out the door including background and taxes.

My thought is that if you want to try the Kahr then go ahead and do it, if you don't like it you can always sell it off.

I still want a Beretta M84F
 
I carry a Glock 42. Fits the hand really well unless you have really large hands. Way more accurate than small guns like the LCP. No trouble keeping shots in the A zone box even at 10 yards with the G42.

With a +1 grip extension, it’s darn near perfect.
 
Carl the Floor Walker said:
I own a Kahr, and have tried so hard to like the gun. There is a lot to like. Nice build quality, stainless steel, steel inserts on the Polymer frame at the stress points, a very mild shooter. Mine is very finicky on ammo. It does not like hollow point ammo, and does not like a longer OAL. For instance it will shoot Fiocchi Extremea with a short OAL, but will not shoot their standard range ammo which is longer.
When it shoots, it shoots fine, but too many times It will not go into full battery.
Mine is down now as it would not cycle and I have it apart for a good cleaning esp the striker channel, but believe it will have to go back to the factory.There are other issues which I will not get into, however if I had it over to do again, I do not think I would purchase again. I will wait and see how things go in the near future.
I am obviously a Pico fan, and that is a gun you might consider. With gun Prices down in the current market, I see where Bud's has the gun on sale for $195 and Beretta has a $75.00 rebate. I will most likely pickup a third one at that price. I believe the gun to be worth every Penny of $300 plus. JMO.

Here is a pic of the reinforced steel inserts on the Polymer frame. I wish Ruger would do this on their LCP especially considering it is a aluminum based gun."


Update, I cleaned out the striker channel and it was a mess. Disassembly was easy but trying to insert the striker spring and guide rod with back plate was difficult more me. I admit I am not the best when working on small guns with springs.
Regardless, I took the gun to the range today along with the Pico and shot 100 rounds each with Freedom munitions 380 and both shot like champs. I then shot each with"Precisionone" PLUS P defense ammo and can say this is the most accurate 380 ammo I have ever shot. Came home and ordered a 250 rd. Mega box and then have a promotion for free shipping during October.

I see the original question that the OP posted seems to have a lot of recommendations from some that actually have never owned one. And many guns that cannot be compared to the pocket gun size of the CW380. These are not apples to apples comparisons and I would disregard these.
I have about 700 rounds through mine now, a few Hiccups along the way but for the most part this gun seems to be turning out nicely. I like the gun for sure, not nearly as much as the Pico. And a lot more than any of the LCP's I have owned. And they are very nice accurate shooters, and very mild.
You might get on a Kahr forum and get a better idea from actual owners.
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It appears that metal (steel)-framed Kahrs generally work very well after broken-in, but polymer-framed ones seem to have trouble at much higher rates.

I have two Kahr K-9's, and they are very reliable at burning ammunition. I wish there were a Kahr K-380 or even a T-380.
 
After wasting hundreds of dollars on thousands of rounds of different defense loads, TRYING to find one I could count on, and even after a trip back to Kahr, I gave up on my P380. So I voted NAY.

I wanted it to work, it's nice otherwise, in terms of accuracy, trigger, recoil, appearance. Kahr just builds their guns with too little margin for error, so they have reliability problems. Not a great design philosophy for a defensive hand gun.

I see those saying "you didn't prep right, follow the instructions by Kahr, follow the tips on the Kahr forum" etc. But I tried to, and I note that any handgun that has all these extra instructions with it to make it run, to me that's a handgun that has a poor design.
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This. I bought a P380 about 4-5 years ago, and have spend countless hundreds of dollars on ammo, replacement springs, magazine kits and aftermarket strikers just trying to get it to go more than every other range visit without having a failure. Any pistol that requires the degree of prep, care and maintenance this one does to be reliable has no business being sold as a defensive carry gun. It's a cute little range toy, albeit an expensive one. Yes I know some folks have been fortunate and theirs runs fine, but if you go on the Kahr forum you'll see one "my .380 fails to feed/fire/eject" thread after another after another.

The only reason why I put up with mine as long as I have is because when it actually DOES run you cant beat it. Very accurate and easy to shoot for such a tiny pistol, far better than an LCP. If only it would stay running. I don't mean for this post to be a Kahr-bashing one, but rather I wish that they would get their act together and re-engineer this pistol so that it's not so failure-prone.
 
otasan. does that also mean no 22, 25,32 or Mak's either?

Seems he's looking at the Kahr for something fun and not SD. I also bought a 380 that is not a pocket gun by any stretch of the imagination. It was bought as a range gun and is about the same size as My XD Mod2 and my PT92C 9mm's.

It shoots just like those 9's but is just a tad cheaper to reload as I use less powder and the bullets are also less expensive. So I'm saving about 2 cents a shot over the 9mm. And when you figure I shoot between 100/200 each trip it ads up quickly.

Then again I wouldn't be shooting these if I wasn't hand loading them.
 
I have the Sig P238 and the Kahr P380. The Kahr is my 3rd after the PM9 and a K40. The PM9 was just about the perfect pistol, but I could never make it reliable. The K40 runs like a sewing machine. The P380 after many hundreds of rounds is better, but a long way from reliable. The Sig is reliable, fun and accurate. I ccw it a lot.
 
With gun Prices down in the current market, I see where Bud's has the gun on sale for $195 and Beretta has a $75.00 rebate.
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Wow! A new Beretta Pico for $120.00 (plus tax)? I guess I do have room for one more pistol. :eek:
 
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