New P45, serious concerns....

[BADGER]

Greetings fellas -

I just picked up a new P45. It's my second Kahr, the first is a P9. The P9 has never had a malfunction of any kind even during its 200 round break in and is a tack driver. One of the best guns I've ever fired.

Today I took the P45 to the range for its break in. I brought 100 WWB and 100 PMC Bronze. The gun was quite tight, and I expected a few hang-ups during the break in. What I got was much, much worse.

An honest 50% of the time the gun failed to go into battery. I had about 20 other types failures to feed (one so badly I had to pry it out), and 30 stovepipes. Even the range master was kind of just looking like "Wow...."

When it was all said and done I had gone through 170 rounds. I could have easily gone through all 200 if I wasn't busy smacking the slide into battery, clearing stovepipes, and removing feed jams. Both types of ammo behaved the same way. Worse still, the reliability did not improve with more rounds.

Has anyone else had this severe a problem with a P45 or CW45? Anything I should have done differently? My P9 is ace, but this gun is not instilling the slightest confidence in me right now.

[Bawanna]

Sure haven't heard of any with your kind of issues.

The failure to feeds were mixed throughout the magazine, not always the first round?

Anything consistent at all? Did anyone else try shooting it?

Did you do anything at all prior to the first range trip, cleaning, oiling etc.

You mention you have a P9 so your familiar with the platform.

What were some of the 20 other types of failures. Need to kind of get more specific. Maybe not a solid enough grip? Slide locking back prematurely, not locking back, not extracting, not ejecting.

Give us some more clues. We got a lot of smart fella's here that will help figure this thing out.

[BADGER]

Failure to feeds were random throughout the magazine, although the failures to go into battery were nearly 100% on the first 3 rounds of the mag. Other types of failures to feed were random - sometimes they just jammed horizontally, a few jammed diagonally, and a few just never made it more than a quarter of the way into the chamber.

There were no apparent problems with the extractor or ejector themselves other than some stovepipes and other typical break-in jams. Interestingly though, when brass did eject properly, it ejected with a serious ferocity which I've never experienced. It ejected so hard that it bounced off the wall, came back and hit me, and still had enough energy to hurt (what can I say, bald head). The range master was watching and laughing and how hard it was ejecting, neither of us have seen that type of hatred for spent brass before.:biggrin1:

Familiar with the platform and love it. Before the range, I stripped it, removed factory lube and cleaned, re-lubed according to the diagram posted on this site, and put it back together.

Range master fired the gun, same issues. There were no failures of the slide to lock back or of locking back early.

Over the last few minutes I disassembled the gun to look it over. Nothing looks out of the ordinary (you guys know the quality of these things). There was the typical 'polymer dust mixed with gun oil' in the slide rail recesses from a new receiver break-in. When operating the slide it now feels much smoother and looser and broken in compared to before its range time. I also checked the chamber with a few rounds, and no problems there. The fit is right, polish is good and no concerns there.

[wyntrout]

Check the posts for the "notch" and maybe a loose slide lock screw or damaged slide lock spring. It doesn't sound like the "stripper" is unbeveled, but check that, too.

Most of these are covered in Greg's thread here:

http://www.kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14749

The "notch":

http://www.kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14749&page=2

Wynn:)

[Bawanna]

I'd look but don't touch the slide lock screw. He said it consistently locked open on empty so that spring is probably good.

[BADGER]

More information, none of it good.

Although the slide itself moves freely on the rails, if with an empty chamber and a magazine I pull back the slide just to the point of full unlock, then let go....it sticks open at that point for a second. The strength of the recoil spring does not pull it back shut. That's bad.

If I get the gun into full battery on a loaded chamber, pulling back the slide to extract the round is literally so difficult that it takes nearly all of my strength. I can't believe it cycled at all at the range.

Something is seriously wrong with this gun. It seems like the end of the ramp and the end of the magazine or follower are in interference during locking and unlocking. Hence the difficulty getting into battery and the ejection issues. It's an ugly problem and I believe it's nothing that collective forum thought can solve, although I certainly appreciate the help you guys have given.

Looks like it's going back to Kahr. QA must have been dead asleep or badly hung over not to have caught this issue.

I'm going to try to get up some pics and/or video of this.

[Bawanna]

If you hadn't specifically stated you were using factory ammo I'd say the ammo was too long or out of spec.

Staying open for a second at full rear is not good either.

I'd certainly email Kahr with as good a description of your issues as possible and pictures if you think they would help.

Send it back and get it well. I always try to make sure I've tried all the simple stuff before I send anything back.

[Bawanna]

Did you check the notch thread as Wynn suggested, that could be playing a part maybe.

[yqtszhj]

Keep us up to speed on what happens.

I have the CW45 that had trigger reset issues in the beginning but never a single fail to feed or anything like that. I love it now and would never part with it. Mine will not take Hornady ammo though (it's too long it seems) but any other HP ammo works fine.

[JFootin]

A good contact at Kahr:

jay.dandrea@kahr.com

Jay D'Andrea, Kahr Customer Service, 508-795-3919

Explain in detail what you've told us, and that you are an experienced P9 owner. Let him arrange a visit to the mothership.

[CJB]

Failure to go into battery:

1. Ammo/chamber problems. Test - drop each round of ammo into the chamber, with the barrel removed from the slide (field strip). Ammo should drop in and out easily, no binding, and actually have just a wee bit of wiggle room in the chamber.

2. Extractor too tight. Rim is pushing against extractor spring force with is excessive, causing the last little bit of forward movement to also have to lift the extractor.

3. Recoil spring not seated, incorrectly oriented, etc - inspect and correct

4. Magazine lip problem and/or magazine seating depth problem (1911's can sometimes have seating depth problems with mis machined magazine latch locations)

After that - weird and strange issues.....

Check all that stuff.... The notch, if insufficient will cause a hangup while fully open that will result in slower than normal slide speed on the way forward.

[BADGER]

Found the problem this morning - the chamber isn't cut deeply enough. Thus the cartridge can't seat deep enough, causing a tight interference fit between the rear of the casing and the breech.

When the gun tries to go into lockup, the vertical motion causes the rear of the cartridge to press tightly against the breech, causing a lot of resistance. This causes the failure to go into battery and why it takes such a hard whack to get it fully into battery.

That whack also causes the case to jam in the chamber/barrel, which is why it takes such strength to manually eject the round (in combination with the tight interference fit of the breech and casing), and also likely why there were a number of failures to eject.

Going to send an email to Jay. Worked with him before, he's a good cat.

[BADGER]

P45 arrived back from the mothership. As I suspected, the barrel was the culprit (chamber not cut deep enough). They replaced the barrel. It now chambers and ejects fine with no resistance or jamming.

Glad its back and running, but still wondering how the hell it got through QA and test firing before it left the factory. That's a pretty poor first impression for an expensive firearm from a company that touts uncompromising quality in their construction.

But all is well now, my P9 has a carry stable mate.

[wyntrout]

Stuff happens... too often, it seems! All kinds of things seem to get past automatic machinery or even "inspected" for quality control checks. That's one reason we advise using good factory FMJ for the break in so that you're just testing the pistol... not the ammo, the pistol, nor the pistol with THAT ammo.

Anyhow, I glad that Kahr took care of you and got your pistol working correctly. One of these days, I might add a P45 to my Kahrs, but I chose maximum concealability and went with the PM45 DLC with NS. I went through a lot of trouble with that pistol, but it's fine now and is an all-aspect shooter that I can depend on.

Congrats on your P9's new stable mate... I love the P9, too!

Wynn:)

[codegeek]

I like it. Instead of just boo hooing and saying "this is crap", you worked through it and now have a fine piece of machinery.

[dorangolv]

Sounds a lot like my P45. Bought it new on Sept 16th.
Sadly, after 950 rounds and a trip to Kahr, It still has problems when feeding from a 7 rd magazine. The bullet catches on the feed ramp and jams at a 45 degree angle right at the mouth of the chamber. The stripper hits the casing about 1/3-1/2 way down and puts a small dent into the side of the case. 6rd mags worked fined last time out. Just the two 7rd mags giving me fits.

At least I'm at the point where I could fire 100 rounds in a row without failure (750-850 with Remington UMC 230gr FMJ) from the 6rd mags.

Kahr fired 280 rounds with no failures. I get it back from Kahr, cleaned out all the brass, lube the crap out of it, and end up with 90% success at the range.
I've spent hours sanding, grinding, polishing, lubing, etc., etc., etc. and I'm surprised when I can get through a full magazine without any issues. I'm so paranoid, when the slide locks back on an empty magazine, I tilt the gun back expecting to find another jam.
Yes, it's that bad.
It's been fired by 3 other people besides myself (not including the folks at Kahr) with 5 different kinds of 230 gr FMJ ammo.
Checked all 4 magazine springs and followers, polished the feed lips for the mags, cleaned AND lubed all 4 mags inside and out.
I'm really trying hard to like this gun. Accuracy, trigger, feel in the hand, stellar. Love it.

Reliability; wildly inconsistent.

WWB cannot run through the 7rd mags. The first three rounds fail to feed. Even when I loaded only 5 rds into the 7rd mags, it still jammed.
I've burned through almost all my 45ACP stash just on this one gun. Went looking for more ammo today, no luck. I'll try again tomorrow at a couple other stores.
Seems a shame the end user has to do so much QC work and hand machining to get the gun to work right.

On the bright side, I've gotten pretty good at clearing jams.

[hardluk1]

So doe it run fine with the stock 6 round mag?? I runs well with remmy ammo just not with junk www. Does it feed your favorite HP. I can think of other things to worry about other than finding out a handgun hates WW ammo. WWW and a federal bottom line ammo tend to have more problems with tight chambers than most any others. It may feed and fire in a sloopy chamberd full size just fine. Just got to deal with what a smaller handgun likes and dislikes. Buy the smallest versions of most 1911's and you can find the same problems. ammo and mags raise hell with many an owner in small handguns. Don't use www, Try some blaser brass, magtech, more remmy Georgia arms canned heat or some other brands. Find some better ammo and those other mags my work better too.

[dsom2006]

Field and Stream in Erlanger KY had a ton of FMJ 4540 and 9mm. Not sure where you are but if you have one close that may work for you. Limit 3 Boxes per day.

[dorangolv]

So doe it run fine with the stock 6 round mag?? I runs well with remmy ammo just not with junk www. Does it feed your favorite HP. I can think of other things to worry about other than finding out a handgun hates WW ammo. WWW and a federal bottom line ammo tend to have more problems with tight chambers than most any others. It may feed and fire in a sloopy chamberd full size just fine. Just got to deal with what a smaller handgun likes and dislikes. Buy the smallest versions of most 1911's and you can find the same problems. ammo and mags raise hell with many an owner in small handguns. Don't use www, Try some blaser brass, magtech, more remmy Georgia arms canned heat or some other brands. Find some better ammo and those other mags my work better too.

Yes the 100 rds with no jams were out of the 6 rd mags. Haven't tried any HP yet. I figure if it can't reliably feed FMJ, better not try HP. Found Blazer with aluminum cases. Didn't buy it though. I think I'll head back there tomorrow and pick it up if there's any left.
Just bought some Magtech and Fiocci. Haven't had a chance to shoot those yet.

[dorangolv]

Field and Stream in Erlanger KY had a ton of FMJ 4540 and 9mm. Not sure where you are but if you have one close that may work for you. Limit 3 Boxes per day.

Stuck in Las Vegas... for the past 10 years. :cool: Got Wally World and lots of overpriced small gun shops. Sportsman's Warehouse seems to have good prices and decent supply.

[muggsy]

Failure to feeds were random throughout the magazine, although the failures to go into battery were nearly 100% on the first 3 rounds of the mag. Other types of failures to feed were random - sometimes they just jammed horizontally, a few jammed diagonally, and a few just never made it more than a quarter of the way into the chamber.

There were no apparent problems with the extractor or ejector themselves other than some stovepipes and other typical break-in jams. Interestingly though, when brass did eject properly, it ejected with a serious ferocity which I've never experienced. It ejected so hard that it bounced off the wall, came back and hit me, and still had enough energy to hurt (what can I say, bald head). The range master was watching and laughing and how hard it was ejecting, neither of us have seen that type of hatred for spent brass before.:biggrin1:

Familiar with the platform and love it. Before the range, I stripped it, removed factory lube and cleaned, re-lubed according to the diagram posted on this site, and put it back together.

Range master fired the gun, same issues. There were no failures of the slide to lock back or of locking back early.

Over the last few minutes I disassembled the gun to look it over. Nothing looks out of the ordinary (you guys know the quality of these things). There was the typical 'polymer dust mixed with gun oil' in the slide rail recesses from a new receiver break-in. When operating the slide it now feels much smoother and looser and broken in compared to before its range time. I also checked the chamber with a few rounds, and no problems there. The fit is right, polish is good and no concerns there.

I have a solution for the bald head problem. Where a hat. It's worked for me for over twenty years. :)

[knkali]

fwiw, my p40 had a boat load of problems when I first got it. Some(maybe most) of them were the shooter and some were the gun needed to break in( a lot). The guys here talked me through it and now I am darn happy with the gun. Unfortunately, there seems to be more people having problems with their Kahrs than I am comfortable see or hearing about. I was out at my BLM area shooting and the guy with me was having nothing but problems with his Kahr .380. I think these guns are too tight from the factory. They need to rattle like my other guns that seem to function 100% right out of the box.

[xsailer]

http://www.kahrtalk.com/album.php?albumid=123http://www.kahrtalk.com/album.php?u=13133

Reference post #12
It looks like I may have this problem. I haven't fired my new CW45 yet and because of the forums checked on this potential problem. I CANNOT push the bullet into the chamber any further than what is shown on the picture. Do you agree this is a problem?
SORRY i've tried repeatably to add pic and can't. Don't know how I guess. I've read the method to do it but too dumb I guess. Anyway the bullet in not all the way in the chamber by about 1/4"

Pic is in upr lh corner if you right click on it and open new tab. This isn't the usual way it?

[CJB]

More information, none of it good.

Although the slide itself moves freely on the rails, if with an empty chamber and a magazine I pull back the slide just to the point of full unlock, then let go....it sticks open at that point for a second. The strength of the recoil spring does not pull it back shut. That's bad.

If I get the gun into full battery on a loaded chamber, pulling back the slide to extract the round is literally so difficult that it takes nearly all of my strength. I can't believe it cycled at all at the range.

Something is seriously wrong with this gun. It seems like the end of the ramp and the end of the magazine or follower are in interference during locking and unlocking. Hence the difficulty getting into battery and the ejection issues. It's an ugly problem and I believe it's nothing that collective forum thought can solve, although I certainly appreciate the help you guys have given.

Looks like it's going back to Kahr. QA must have been dead asleep or badly hung over not to have caught this issue.

I'm going to try to get up some pics and/or video of this.

First thing, the slide is hanging on the follower. It will not do that with ammo in the magazine. Its normal.

Second thing. Field strip the pistol, remove the barrel from the slide.

Take each and every round you plan to fire and test it in the chamber of the barrel. Make sure they're all to spec. I've had WWB and the cheap Remington stuff be way out of spec on more than a few occasions. Kahr chambers are tigher than most Colts and FNs. In fact the only chamber I have tighter for 45acp is a Wilson barrel I have in my Springfield Compact. Even the Bar-Sto's are looser than the Kahr chambers. You need to test cheap ammo if you're having chambering issues.

Out of the maybe ... I dunno 1500 rounds of WWB I've had two boxes of 100 that were iffy for size. And the only box of Remington was even worse, and I wont be getting any more.

And FWIW, the Aguila that I got is perfect, and drops in the Kahrs like greased massager on a porno model. Just sayin!

[gb6491]

http://www.kahrtalk.com/album.php?albumid=123http://www.kahrtalk.com/album.php?u=13133

Reference post #12
It looks like I may have this problem. I haven't fired my new CW45 yet and because of the forums checked on this potential problem. I CANNOT push the bullet into the chamber any further than what is shown on the picture. Do you agree this is a problem?
SORRY i've tried repeatably to add pic and can't. Don't know how I guess. I've read the method to do it but too dumb I guess. Anyway the bullet in not all the way in the chamber by about 1/4"
http://i39.tinypic.com/33ok11x.jpg
Pic is in upr lh corner if you right click on it and open new tab. This isn't the usual way it?
The case head in that photo looks flush with the barrel hood to me, so I don't see a problem, but to be sure, check this diagram against what you have (you're checking where the case head/rim is in relation to the end of the barrel hood):
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/3109/45seatingpossibilitiesx.jpg
(image originally posted by BDS-THR on TFL http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=495250)
Regards,
Greg

[xsailer]

Greg, Thank you for your response and while I'm at it I must say your detailed explanations, of which I've seen several, are exactly what new comers must see to understand.
Now, my barrel/bullet is the third from the Left in your picture. So I'm good to go and I thank you again. I'm so much a novice at this I didn't understand how far the bullet went in the chamber. I also couldn't see that it would with clearances I was seeing, hence the question and picture. I was concerned I had a problem. Nice to know I don't.

bob

[dorangolv]

Yeesh. This sounds ominous. I just got my P45 to run without failure. I'm still conditioned from experience to anticipate a jam after every shot fired. The last 250 rds have been almost flawless.
Now it looks like there is the potential for yet another problem? I'll double check my barrel and keep it running wet the way I have been.

Let a friend shoot 4 mags in a row last Sunday. It was the first Kahr he'd ever fired. He loved it! No failures. Since he was shooting an XDs45, he wasn't accustomed to the long Kahr trigger pull and reset.
I'm not even sure if I am even after 1,150 rounds fired since September 16, 2013 when I bought it. I never quite know when The Beastie's going to go BANG!

It was the first time shooting with this guy who is a co-worker. We always talk guns when at work but we never went out. I think he was surprised that I was hitting everything I shot at. I saw him a couple times out the corner of my eye watching me plink away at his steel target without failure or miss. Really caught his attention. It's only a 3.5" barrel! I was having a blast showing off the accuracy of this Little Monster. Making a Coke can jump around from 25 yards in the cold desert air warmed my heart. I concur with John Lennon, "Happiness is a warm gun, yeah."
I'm really pretty excited now to have a gun that works. It's all I think about. I feel like a little kid with a brand new bike and he wants nothing more than to ride around all day long.
Now to shop for a belt and holster!

[dorangolv]

:oI think I might have fixed the problem(s) with my P45. Haven't had any failures of any kind since making these repairs.:eek::D:001_tt2::amflag:
http://www.kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21904

[dorangolv]

As of Wednesday 1/15 all is right with the world...

A day at the range with my daughter...
Took my daughter with me out to the desert to shoot my shotgun and semi-autos. She'd been asking me for a couple weeks when we could go. First she shoots and Springfield Armory XD45 then the Kahr P45.
(Skip ahead to 1:32 for the Kahr P45.)
The two malfunctions were caused by the users. The first one is a Failure To Chamber a round. Then the guide rod works it's way out the front of the slide during the course of three shots fired. This is because the spring was installed backwards. duh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twahP-20x1c

Within minutes of reassembling the slide (correctly this time) I filmed this string of shots. 4 mags;2-6rd, 2-7rd all emptied.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfLWi7R_5og

To date, 1,450 rounds fired through this Little Monster.

Most of you know how much trouble I had trying to get it to run and cycle without SOME kind of malfunction. Lots of scraping, grinding and hitches throughout the slides travel. All kinds of resistance to smooth operation. Sent it back to Kahr who said they fired 280 rds without a hitch.
I have since found the root cause of all my headaches and corrected it.
http://www.kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21904

It is a totally different gun now. It has turned into the reliable, smooth gun everyone says Kahrs are supposed to be. It just took me 900 rounds and hours of tinkering to make it so.