Problem with Kahr PM9

[Sleepy60]

Hello, new member but have owned a Kahr P45 And a Kahr P380 which I really like and trust. I purchased a PM9 two days ago, cleaned it, relubed it and worked the slide probably close to a hundred times. Went to the range this afternoon and ran 3 magazines of ammo through it without a problem. On my 4th magazine, third shot using winchester ammo, the round fired but it sort of exploded in the process. The right side plate blew down range and it left me with some powder burns to my hand and a pretty good bruise (I suspect where the side plate blew off and hit my hand). The cartridge had ruptured at the base and had remained partially in the barrel. The range where I was shooting took the gun to return it to Kahr for evaluation but I really have lost my trust in the PM9 for range or particularly ccw. Thoughts?

[JustinN]

Sounds like an ammo problem more so than a gun problem.....

[Sleepy60]

Could be but had fired the same ammo without problems. The range officer thought it may have fired before fully closing. Not even sure if that's possible.

[JustinN]

When I say it's the ammo, I'm meaning one round had a problem....a weak point in the case, bullet seated too low, etc - something that allowed it to rupture and vent gas backwards instead forward and out the barrel. I doubt anyone here has had a Kahr blow up in their hands from shooting factory ammo that went boom correctly....they're just not designed to do that.

You said it was Winchester, WWB I assume? a split case or something may go unnoticed if you're not inspecting your ammo closely. I know on the cheaper range stuff, especially Remington UMC, I've had multiple boxes that had rounds I threw in the trash because the primer was seated wrong (had holes around it), the bullet was pushed way way in, bullet was crushed, etc. Again, it may not have been the ammo and something catastrophically failed in your pistol, but I'm still thinking something bad happened with that one round.

I highly doubt the gun fired before it was in battery.

[2edgesword]

Document what happen to the best of your ability, take picture of the firearm from every angle and send the firearm back to Kahr for failure analysis.

[JimC]

It sounds to me like your PM9 fired out of battery.

Looks like a trip back to Kahr on their dime for a physical and repair is in order.

[MW surveyor]

Did you look in the barrel after this occurred?

[K.C.]

I would say ammo issue. I found a short video that may apply to your situation.

-AS-AWpj7UQ

[JustinN]

I'm still not sure how it could have fired out of battery. On my K9, once I move the slide enough to get the barrel to move at all, my trigger gets disconnected. IF the firing pin didn't get pulled back into the gun, I would think it would have had to slam home all the way before it would have been able to hit that round hard enough to set off the primer, and not just kept pushing the round forward.....

I'm still sitting on the side of the round had a massive failure...

[Cubby]

MMM, no more info from the OP. And no Pic's?

I'm on the sidelines with this also to see what develops?

[Popeye]

Until I see something more than just a few words from a new member but owns other Kahr pistols (so he says) but we've never heard a word from him before all this about how his Kahr PM9 blew up, I'm thinking Troll. Sorry for being so up front and blunt about it, but we've been down this road to many times in the past,For me to give this post another thought.

[Sleepy60]

Hello,
I have some photo's but as I said, new to this and have not figured out how to get them off my computer and onto this thread. FAQ talks about a album but I have yet to able to find it. Sorry for the delay.

[JustinN]

The easiest way is to just put them somewhere like imageshack and then use the insert image button with the URL.

[jocko]

kahr out of battery will not fire. no doubt it was a bad round, but hell lets blame the gun as the rest of the rounds were OK--DUH???? Nophotos sure doesnt tell us much either.

Nice of the range to send the gun back for evualtion.The casing should have been with the gun to give kahr a betterdirection to look to,but my guess is 10 to 1, it is an ammo thing.

But its ur gun, if u lost faith in it, then peddle it and keep shootin the winchester ammo

[Ikeo74]

I am wondering why the range is taking responsibility to send the gun back to Kahr. Did they sell you the gun? Or did they sell you the ammo, or both, or neither? I think the ammo was defective for some reason. I have never heard of a Kahr firing out of battery.

Edit: Was the gun a rental and Range owned?

[jocko]

good question Ikeo74

[Sleepy60]

Hello again,
As I said, new to this forum, not new to reading the forum. Tough crowd here. I can see why people might not like to post. The round would have gone back to Kahr with the Gun but since the dealer was handling the transport, I wasn't sure that the round would also make it there with the weapon. The way the metal cleanly folded back would indicate that it was partially in the barrel but from the previous post, may indeed be the ammo. The pics will be sent to the Kahr gunsmith for eval. By the way, I do have two other Kahrs.
Thanks Justin for help with how to get the pics up!
http://imageshack.us/a/img248/6154/img20130222153709469.jpg
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/7417/img20130222144720433.jpghttp://imageshack.us/a/img580/2381/img20130222144823752.jpghttp://imageshack.us/a/img845/6531/img20130222144624873.jpg

[Sleepy60]

I had purchased the gun there two days before. We don't have much if any 9mm ammo in the Atlanta area so it was new ammo-prob two years old.

[Ikeo74]

That case looks complete. What part was left in the gun?

[jocko]

could also had been a very very hot load to

naw not really atuff crowd here either. U just might not have heard what u think u maybe should have heard Sure looks like sumpin powerful blew that casing.

Isold guns for over40 years and when had a local statecopo who was a real shooter back then, Most ofu oltimers certainly rememberSUPER VEL AMMO MADEIN SHELBYVILLE, iND.. Wellol HarrySwank (his name) would stop by there and they would give him gobs of round sthey felt could be iffy stuff, and he would shoot the out of his Model28. al they wanted back was the casing so they could reuse them.

Hecamein one day and showed my his Model 28 and what an iffy round had done to it. IT BLEW THE CYLINDERINTO TWO PEACES.Nuttin else onthegun was hurt. Sith even replaced it wit a newcylinder NC. His comment was I have shot thousands of sper vell"iffy" rounds and never had this happen. ONLY TAKES ONE ROUND.

True story

[Sleepy60]

I didn't take the gun apart, other than the side plate on the right hand side of the grip that blew off, bouncing off my hand and went down range somewhere. I did not attempt to field strip the gun but the slide did seem to work but not very smoothly. Again, because of the perfect crease on the round it would indicate to me that it might not have been fully seated when it fired. It may have been a very hot round from the factory but who knows at this point.

[warbird1]

MMM, no more info from the OP. And no Pic's?

I'm on the sidelines with this also to see what develops?

I'm with you on that one.....

[getsome]

Hello Sleepy60 and welcome to Kahrtalk, sorry your first few posts were about a problem like that but hang with us here, there are many fine folks on the forum that are more than willing to help you out....

I am in Atlanta too and it's good to hear the range is taking care of you with the new pistol....That is a strange one alright but like the others have said and I agree it looks like a bad round or weak case got through and you were the unlucky shooter to end up with it....

I'm not sure if the ammo makers are trying to ramp up production or if their quality control is getting slack but I am seeing more than a few of the Walmart range ammo, both Remington UMC and WWB with rounds that won't chamber even in a 1911....You really have to be careful now when loading a magazine and inspect even new factory stuff...As a side note I have shot many hundreds of Atlanta Ammo reloads and never had any problems with any of their product so maybe pay a little more for their range ammo and avoid more problems with Wally World WWB....

I hope Kahr can find the cause of the problem but they will do you right and correct your pistols damage...Again welcome aboard and even though some of the old salts here roughed you up a little at first we are really a fun bunch of shootin nuts so don't be afraid to post away....Good luck and let us know what Kahr said when you get your pistol back....:yo:

[Sleepy60]

Thank you Getsome, I appreciate the welcome. I hope the pics on the previous pages show adequately what I was trying to describe. I will post what Kahr reports to me and what they did to my PM9. (Marietta)

[wyntrout]

That looks like the case ruptures I had with the "AMER C" headstamped ammo... 9mm. I had one each in three different Kahr 9mm's. The first incidence was in my PM9 and the extractor went missing! I didn't know what caused that. From the next two occurrences... P9 case rupture and side plate blown off, as well as extractor flew out, and then the K9 trying to shoot up the last five rounds of the identified cases, where the extractor from the K9 disappeared as the second round ruptured... didn't have a side plate! I thought the K9 would contain any ruptures being so beefy in the barrel shroud. I broke down the remaining three rounds, fired the primers and burned the powder. The remaining ammo from the 1,000 case of remanufactured ammo fired without incident... 94 rounds... yesterday in our new Glock 19. I never had a noticeable incident until the ruptures were noticed on the second occasion... with the P9 and the blown side plate. The two cases I have look just like that... as defective or thin metal in the areas that failed. Those were fully chambered.

Wynn:)

[Double3]

I actually had the same exact thing happen to me with my PM9. The case looked just like the pic.

Pretty sure the ammo I was using was reloads. Blew my extractor right off the slide.

Kahr took care of it.