Lookin for a little guidance on new CW 380

[twowheels]

I have a pretty new CM9 and like it just fine. I've run 3-400 rounds of my RN relaods through it and it has been 100%. I like it a good deal better than the LC9 I had. The little Kahr has a far better trigger, much nicer sights and is more accurate. It also feels like a more quality piece.

That experience led me to pick up a CW 380. It is substantially smaller than the baby 9 and is much easier to carry in a pocket. I have fastidiously cleaned and lubed it and have patiently run about 300 rounds of factory ammo through it including blazer brass, magtech and hornady critical defense. It regularly stovepipes with all of the ammo. By regularly I mean approximately 1 round every couple of mags. I havedifferent 4 mags and it does this with all of them. In addition, itsometimes throws brass straight up.

My guess is that the extractor spring tension is too high. It feels very tight. It is hard to surmise whether the recoil spring is out of spec.

I have ordered from Kahr 2 extras each of the front and rear extractor pins and the extractor spring. I also ordered a single extractor. I haven't been able to locate recoil springs. When the parts come in, I'm going to polish the extractor and take some tension out of the system probably by taking a little off the rear pin.

I called and spoke with Kahr yesterday. Aside from taking a while to get through, the guy I spoke with had no ideas to offer and transferred me over to somebody else who didn't pick up or return my voice mail message. Disappointing.

I like the way this little gun shoots and will be happy if and when I get it running reliably.

BTW, I am not limp wristing it and it is lubricated properly. I know that little autoloaders can be difficult to get to run right but frankly I am a little disappointed with the way this gun doesn't run and the difficulties getting any help from Kahr. It is quite a contrast from Ruger and CZ customer service.

My question--am I on the right track? I'd rather understand and make this right myself than spend a fortune in shipping charges sending it back.

Thanks!

[jocko]

if u do any mod to the ezxtractor area, do it in te pins ad not the spring...020 would be well enough to take off that long pin and retest. Polish the extracotr while u have it off to.

If u take off this uch/less and it still doeksn;'t correct itself, I would not think also what u did will hurt a damn thing if and when kahr gets it to fix it to.

One thing in the cylinder kand slide specifications when they offer custom work on kahrs is tension extractor. Now I wonder what that means????????

[twowheels]

Thanks for the advice jocko that is what I will do. I'll post an update after I receive the parts and have a chance to do some tinkering.

[muggsy]

If you end up having to send it back request a prepaid mailing label from Kahr. They can e-mail one to you that you can print out. If for some reason they won't give you one send the gun back through your local FFL. The cost will be one fourth of what you would pay sending it on your own.

[mtnwinds]

Did you get your 380 used? If the recoil spring is not stock it may be too strong and not allowing the slide to travel far enough to the rear.

[SlowBurn]

The guy I bought my P380 from was having a similar problem last fall. He sent it in to Kahr and they replaced the entire slide and the recoil springs in addition to generally servicing the pistol. It hasn't had any problems since.

I know there's been problems recently with Kahrs customer service, but that may be your only option.

[SaltyNC]

Twowheels,

Sorry to hear your CW380 didn't run correctly out of the box. Most experiences I've seen with the CW380 have been very positive, and my experience has been good.

The extractor spring on my CW380 is very tight, as well. Have you tried hand cycling an empty casing or some live rounds to see how it ejects those? It might reveal if the cause is related to the slide not fully traveling to the rear, or might give some clue to the direction the casing is being directed. It might also be a good idea to see where on the casing head the ejector is striking. Perhaps the angle on the ejector wasn't cut correctly or has been damaged. Let me know if you want to see a pic of how the ejector looks on my CW380, and I'll be happy to post it up for you.

[twowheels]

I bought it new. I have hand cycled rounds but haven't drawn any conclusions. Thanks for the offer to post pictures of the ejector location. That would be helpful. If I need to send it in, I will ask for a prepaid label. But I hope I can resolve this on my own.

[SaltyNC]

Twowheels,

Here are a few pictures of the CW380 ejector and extractor. I hope they help. Please ignore dirty gun.

Looking down on ejector from top of slide:
http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u490/saltync/CW380/CW380EjectorOverhead.png (http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/saltync/media/CW380/CW380EjectorOverhead.png.html)

Note how ejector rides right up against the underside of the slide. If it is bent lower toward the frame, that may cause the spent casing to eject more up than out.
http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u490/saltync/CW380/CW380EjectorPositionAgainstSlide.png (http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/saltync/media/CW380/CW380EjectorPositionAgainstSlide.png.html)

Note position of ejector in relation to the follower and magazine lips. Note cutout in the slide behind ejector.
http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u490/saltync/CW380/CW380EjectorAboveFollowerandSlideMachining.png (http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/saltync/media/CW380/CW380EjectorAboveFollowerandSlideMachining.png.htm l)

This shows the spent casing being removed from the barrel by the extractor. This is just at the point where the casing begins to make contact with the ejector. At this point, it begins to rise slightly, then begins to be pushed to the right by the ejector.
http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u490/saltync/CW380/CW380Extractoratpointwherecasingbeginstobepushedag ainstejector.png (http://s1070.photobucket.com/user/saltync/media/CW380/CW380Extractoratpointwherecasingbeginstobepushedag ainstejector.png.html)

They aren't the best pics, but the best I could do with pistol in one hand and phone in the other. ;) Maybe it will at least let you compare your CW380 to mine to see if there are any obvious differences.

If anyone is wondering about the line on the breechface on the second photo, that was like that from the factory, only it was shiny and not coated with powder residue. My guess is that some tooling barely scraped that area. It doesn't appear to be a scratch of any depth that I can detect, but more like a polished area. It's a little weird. When I first saw it, I thought the slide had cracked. :) Nope. Just a weird little cosmetic mark. I will hit it with a little polish when I get around to it and see if I can remove it.

SaltyNC

[twowheels]

Salty thanks much for posting the pictures. I will see how my 380 compares tonight.

[twowheels]

Salty, mine looks just like yours. I'm going to tune the extractor tension and see if that helps. If not, I'll send it in.

[SaltyNC]

I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know, but here is the sticky on detail stripping the slide:

http://kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14746

Good luck with the extractor.

SaltyNC

[dsears2@comcast.net]

I had a problem that sounds much like you are having. I used email to contact the support group and attached pictures showing the problem. I received a response that afternoon and spoke with them the next day.

The extractor was replaced, in my case. Kahr will send a pre-paid shipping label or you can print one for faster return. The response was a bit slow but in my case this happened over the Christmas/New Years holidays. So I can't complain.

Since, I have had only one jam of the 170 rounds put through this 380. I have read in other forums that because of the tight tolerances that at least 200 rounds have to be put through this pistol before it is considered "broken in".

I read in another forum that a couple of Gents recommended locking the slide back, for a couple of days, helped with the spring tension as well. I do not see any effect from trying that in my case. Just thought I would share the experience of someone else.

[twowheels]

Thanks dsears. It seems like an extractor related issue to me and I have a new extractor, spring and front and rear pins on the way. I expect to sort out the issue with these parts and a tension adjustment. I will report when I have receive the parts and get some tinkering time.

[sw66hiviz]

Twowheels - what motorcycle forums are you on? EX500?

[twowheels]

I'm not riding motorcycles anymore. A friend was killed on a road ride a couple years back and I sold all my moto 2 wheeled machines except for a scooter. I still ride bicycles and occasionally participate in the velocipede salon.

[twowheels]

Update:

I took .015-.020" off the rear extractor pin and ran 12 or so mags through it today without a single malfunction. My ejected brass pattern is better with most brass slinging to the right about 5 feet from me. I still have a few that shoot straight up. My thinking is that the extractor is probably not quite perfect and it could maybe use a bit less tension but I'm calling it good for now. I won't tinker further until I get the last part I need from dillon to set up a .380 toolhead and build some handloads. But thanks to all for the advice. I really appreciate it.

[twowheels]

Update: I got my .380 dillon toolhead setup and ran off 30 rounds of test ammo using a middle of the road load of 231. The loads ran perfectly in my sig 232 but stovepiped in the CW 380. The cw ran well with factory ammo, which feels hotter than my reloads. I'm going to go up .1 or .2 grains on the 231 and I think I will take a little more extractor tension out of the cw and also snip 1/2 coil out of the recoil springs. I think my original diagnosis of too much extractor and recoil spring tension is right on.

I ran a couple hundred rounds through my CM9 and it continues to run 100%.

This little CW380 is tweaky. I'm glad I know how to work on my own guns. But I like how it shoots and carries and feel it is worth the work.

[twowheels]

I finally got the CW 380 running 100%. I pulled the extractor and it looked like someone lightly banged on the edge that grasps the cartridge rim with a small steel axe. I replaced it with a new extractor I purchased after polishing it pretty well. I'm surprised a critical part like an extractor got put into a new pistol in such bad shape. I also put in a new rear extractor pin to actually up the tension a little. I felt like I perhaps removed a bit too much off the stock pin. The pin Kahr sent was much longer that the stock pin so I removed quite a bit of it. It was so long I don't see how it possibly could have fit on the pistol. In any event, I went to the range and ran about 100 trouble free reloads through it and a couple mags of hornady critical defense. I now feel confident carrying it.

I love the way it shoots and handles. However, I'm pretty disappointed with Kahr's QC.

[CJB]

Good job.

[twowheels]

Update:

I keep running rounds through this piece and continue to have random intermittent issues. Somedays it runs perfect, other days not quite. However, I had a very strange experience yesterday. While attempting to load a mag of hornady critical defense 90 gr FTX using the slide release-- I have run probably 100 rounds of this load through the CW--the round wouldn't load. It became jammed on the feed ramp. After returning home after work, I attempted to load it again and it worked fine. Hmmm, strange.

[ammodave]

I gave up on my CW380 after 200 frustrating rounds with about a 10% failure to feed rate usually resulting in leaving the slide open about 3/8". I'll return it to Kahr if they ever send me a shipping label. After repair, I'll put it up for auction. I have 2 Ruger LCPs that worked great out of the box. I bought the Kahr in hopes of finding a better trigger. The trigger is only marginally better but it's hopelessly unreliable to shoot.