CM9-Jams, sometimes won't chamber all the way

[scope422]

This is my first Kahr and I'm just about reaching the 200 round mark, at about 170 now. I had this occur once at about my 20th round through the gun. Then it was fine for the next 100 rounds or so. Now the last 50 its happened about 10 times. Almost always occurs on the last round but have had it 2-3 times in the middle of a magazine as well. Problem is, sometimes the round won't chamber all the way. It seems the base of the bullet is just entering the extractor on the face of the bolt and jams there. Its almost like its on too steep of an angle to slide into the extractor claw. Not sure??? I am shooting the regular 6 round magazine. The follower is not broken and the spring is correctly installed in the magazine. I can hit the back of the slide forward and it will drop it into the chamber and fire but I only tried that a couple of times, usually just clear it the right way and rechamber from the magazine. Has done this with Winchester 115gr fmj and American Eagle 115gr fmj. I know I'm still not broken in yet all the way but it seems to be getting worse rather then better. I saw a few posts in here mentioning similar jams but can't seem to find a good explanation as to what's happening. I can duplicate the position it gets stuck in if I drop the slide down slowly on a live round from the magazine, it will catch in this position.

I'm still gonna run another 100 rounds through it but is there anything to polish or check for this? Maybe recoil spring or is it catching on the extractor? Angle coming out of the magazine? Why is it usually the last round? I love this gun and I'm not judging its performance till I break it in all the way.

Anyone else see this?

Can't post photos on here but you can see them here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/116135794@N04/sets/72157640400650104/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/116135794@N04/12258045144/in/photostream/

[jocko]

for sure releasing the slide slowly is not the way to load a kahr, so forget that scanario as that is not proper protocall.

What kind of ammo are u shooting that is casusing this??. Normally kaghrs feed raqmp is nicely polished but u can sure enhance it by repolishingg it to. Try polishing under the feed lips of the magazine to with some 600+ grip paper, One never knows and ur not huring a darn thing. If it moves---smooth it. I am assuing ur havng this issue with the 6 round flush fit magazine?????.

What u can do to testout is go to wolffs gunsprings.com and order off the kahr PM9 parts their outter recoil spring. that is allu need. that spring is interchangeable with your cm9. Then I would consider looking at their 5% more strength magazine springs 6 round for your kahr. It could be that at that last round thatis the weakest time for that mag spring to be doing its job, that extra 5% more power might just get that round up there faster to feed propery. Again that certaibnly is not gonna hurt anything either.

Being the followr is OK check to see if any of the rounds might be hitting on the insdie of the slide lock lever, This will trow that round off just enough to screw things up. More than likely ur OK there but eaqsy to check. See the kahr tect secion and read the propper prep thread. Some dandy tips to check out..

keep us posted.

[deadeye]

Just as a side note, my AR15 that had been flawless started doing the same thing after I bought a new Magpul 20 round mag. Wouldn't feed right or lock open after the last round. Did what jocko just suggested - polished the follower and cured it completely. Even Magpul has a bummer once in a while.

[GLOCKROCKER]

Hey Jocko, just curious, how many little red squiggly lines popped up as you typed that response?

[codegeek]

Here's a silly question... Did you lube her up good? How about hand racking the slide a gazillion times. I know those things made a world of difference with mine.

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[Tinman507]

Hey Jocko, just curious, how many little red squiggly lines popped up as you typed that response?

http://i1147.photobucket.com/albums/o542/tinman507/jockospellchecker.jpg

[scope422]

I have been reading these boards for awhile now, even before I picked up my CM. I racked the slide a bunch of times before I fired it. Followed the prep guide and lube guide. I did clean it and lube it very well, 3 times already. I am familiar with releasing the slide with the slide lock, it does work every time. As a matter of fact, it chambers fine when I slingshot it too. I just mentioned letting it down slow to describe what the jam looks like when it occurs. Thats why I mentioned maybe the recoil spring or could be weak ammo, makes sense, not enough slide travel???. Seemed to occur more with American eagle ammo then winchester. When I was at the range I did take the mag spring out and gave it a little stretch then put it back in. I ran about a half dozen mags with just 2 rounds loaded and it seemed to work but I need to shoot it more to tell if that helped. Will test some more today. I'm at the mercy of the gun shop as to what ammo I can shoot, will try to find some 124's today.

[muggsy]

Hey Jocko, just curious, how many little red squiggly lines popped up as you typed that response?

Jocko has never been one to stand on formality. He considers his spelling much like a hand grenade. Close is good enough. I have in my possession a good supply of Jocko decoder rings that I'm willing to part with for a nominal fee to those of you who are having problems with your Kahr pistol. Unfortunately the rings seem to be selling like hotcakes of late and the price may be going up. It's the law of supply and demand. :)

[sas PM9]

Hey Jocko, just curious, how many little red squiggly lines popped up as you typed that response?

GR:

Step lightly Glockrocker or a horse/sheep head may be sent your way.

-steve

[GLOCKROCKER]

Acknowledged!

[Bawanna]

Nobody has more horse heads than me but a sheep head might be a nice change of pace especially if it's a cute sheep ya know.

[Txmansa]

I am new to the Board, Kahr's, and the CM9. I am soaking up the knowledge on this Board - it's awesome. I have not experieced the Op's problem, but took a look at the Wolff site anyway. Jocko, are you recommending their 18lb factory standard or their 20.5 lb recoil spring? Again thanks for the wealth of knowledge.

[jocko]

In the 9mm the 18#is fine, but for the cost to buy, try one of each or more. I would srongly recommend the 20.5# for the 40 cal PM or cm series, as kahr uses thee same ecoil poundage in the 40 and 9mm and there is a big difference in recoil as most 40 owners will tell you. I like the 20.5 but u gotta remember sme of this ovber the counter ammo stuff althugh good is a tad under powered comapred to puree defense ammo, so sometimes for the first 200+ rounds on a 20.5# recoil spring u "might" encounter lack of last round the slide staying open. I say might, for I never had this happen to my PMJ9. If ur gonna order those from wolffs definitely get the 5# striker spring. It drops right in, makes a super nice mod and the trigger tgravel doesn't change, only thepoundage does. Just sayin

[jocko]

thanks muggsd, glockrocker, ur on my list. saspm9 has evidkentley received a parcel for his wall mount. Just sayin.

fokk spell checker. who ever said they were totally correct either. If we had any real scholoras here, they wuld know that they belong on the glock forum for that forum is politically correcrt. Just sayin

GO DENVER

My condolances to Terry Bradshws loss of his dad to. I always like bradshow. he kinda reminded me of me A DICK. I bet Bradshaw never used spellecheck either, guy has been married a few times to. lived in a trailor after pro football. seeme dlike he got his plow cleaned after each divorce. Still to me a down to earth "dick".

her shold be on this forum. Just sayin:Amflag2:

[berettabone]

In the 9mm the 18#is fine, but for the cost to buy, try one of each or more. I would srongly recommend the 20.5# for the 40 cal PM or cm series, as kahr uses thee same ecoil poundage in the 40 and 9mm and there is a big difference in recoil as most 40 owners will tell you. I like the 20.5 but u gotta remember sme of this ovber the counter ammo stuff althugh good is a tad under powered comapred to puree defense ammo, so sometimes for the first 200+ rounds on a 20.5# recoil spring u "might" encounter lack of last round the slide staying open. I say might, for I never had this happen to my PMJ9. If ur gonna order those from wolffs definitely get the 5# striker spring. It drops right in, makes a super nice mod and the trigger tgravel doesn't change, only thepoundage does. Just sayin
For a while there you had me, the first sentence was coherent...........http://kahrtalk.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[jocko]

I will do better, sorry about that

[Schriscoe]

That's some funny Shiite right here.

[scope422]

omg you guys are funny! like old ladies in a sewing club, lol. How about I bring this post back to the issue at hand in case anyone has the same problem. I went to the range yesterday and put 130 flawless rounds through the gun. Hit the 300 round mark on the gun. I couldn't even make it jam when I tried. Limp wristed several clips, rode the slide down gently a bunch of times, and shot a whole lot of just 2 rounds in the clip trying to duplicate my original problem. Wouldn't do it again. Couldn't get it to jam or fail to chamber at all. very smooth, shoots incredible. Not sure exactly what i did to fix it but spent a couple hours the night before cleaning, buffing and applying some or the pointers posted in the forums here. Here's what I did:

-Polished feed ramp. Don't know if I got much better then the beautiful factory polish but did it anyway.
-Lightly smoothed the boltface while i was at it. Looked a little coarse so i took a very light emery cloth to the face to just slightly smooth any rough spots. Did not remove factory ridge lines, just a light go over in case the base of the bullet was not sliding smoothly up the face.
-I did the magazine follower as well. I followed gb6491's post on smoothing out the hump on the follower to change the angle. I didn't notice much difference on how the bullets sit in the magazine but it sure feeds a lot smoother. I also lightly smoothed any flashing marks around the sides of the follower. Went over the metal lips at the top of the magazine too. Very smoothly feeds rounds in even when purposely riding the slide. Nice!!!!


All in all, just a good going over, cleaning and polishing. Still shooting cheap 115gr winchester target loads as well, no problems. Very satisfied with performance now and seems to be breaking in nicely.

[DavidR]

That's great to hear. Still thinking about a CM9 so its good to hear good reports.


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[xxchuck1221xx]

Good morning everyone,


I'm about as new to this forum as I am to Kahr arms. I recently purchased a CM9 after doing some research on quality concealable 9mm's. I should start about by saying that, though I've shot guns all my life, and I'm in the military, I'm not very knowledgeable about them. I know the fundamentals of gun safety, and I can pick up a gun and load it and fire it, and likely field strip and clean it. However, I definitely don't have that technical knowledge that you all seem to have.


That being said, I took my new CM9 out to the range yesterday (note: Without cleaning it first...my bad! I didn't know I needed to pre-clean it) and ran into some of the same problems that scope ran into (maybe a few more). I think my problem began with the selection of ammo. Hopefully you guys can confirm. I just went to Academy and grabbed the cheapest 9mm ammo for the range...that's what you do right? Apparently NOT! I bought a few boxes of Dynamic Research Technologies 9mm, 85g Terminal Shock (http://www.drtammo.com/DRT-Store/Product-Viewer/9MM-85GR-TERMINAL-SHOCK). I would shoot a round or two, then pull the trigger and get what I thought was a misfire. I ejected the mag, pulled the slide back and found no round falling out of the chamber. Inserted the mag, chambered a round, fired, same problem. So, w/o ejecting the mag, I pulled the slide back and saw no round in the chamber.


So, I loaded up some Winchester Full Metal Jacket and fired a mag of that w/o any problems. I noticed the gun kicked much harder, which I later learned was because the Winchester rounds were a higher grain (and therefore also had more power?). Then I tried some Remmington ammo. It shot pretty good but I still had about one jam per mag. Unfortunately I don't have the specs on that ammo, but, it was in a very plain white box with black writing and it wasn't hollow point.


When I was experiencing the "jams" (I'm talking mostly with the DRT) as I call them, this is what I was seeing. Either A. a round just didn't feed at all into the chamber. B. the spent casing was stove piping on it's way out of the ejection port. or C. at some point during the cycling of the slide the round being fed into the chamber was not properly going into the chamber and the slide was jamming halfway open (if that makes sense). So, at that point, I could partially see a round jammed in the gun which the slide halfway back to the locked position.


My buddy attempted to shoot my ammo through his Barretta 9mm and ran into a ton of problems (jam after jam after jam!) which made me feel ALOT better. As did the Winchester rounds I put through my CM9. However, it still concerns me that the Remmington ammo jammed my gun up, because I thought that was pretty good stuff.


My theory is that the 85g ammo I was shooting just wasn't powerful enough to make my new, tight, compact gun cycle properly and that's why it was jamming up (I HOPE). But of course now I'm questioning it's reliability because of the Remmington ammo problems.


I only put about 70 rds through the gun because I was worried about damaging something by allowing it to jam over and over. I'm going to clean her up now and later today try doing some polishing as you guys suggested. Then, I'm going to take it out to the range and fire some of the Federal Premium ammo that I purchased for walking around...along with some more Winchester and see how she runs.


If you guys have anymore tips based on what I explained, I'm all ears! Thanks a lot for the help you've already given above, and I'll let you guys know how it works out.

[RRP]

If you guys have anymore tips based on what I explained, I'm all ears! Thanks a lot for the help you've already given above, and I'll let you guys know how it works out.

Clean it. Lube it. Use 115 or 124 gr FMJ and shoot it with a firm grip. Your problems will vanish.

[sas PM9]

Clean it. Lube it. Use 115 or 124 gr FMJ and shoot it with a firm grip. Your problems will vanish.


XX:

What he said /\ /\ /\.

I might add that your gun will fire lower powered ammunition very well once it is broken in. But, for starters, while breaking it in use higher powered ammo until the springs loosen up a bit and all the mechanicals wear in together.

HTH.

-steve

[eaglefrq]

Clean it. Lube it. Use 115 or 124 gr FMJ and shoot it with a firm grip. Your problems will vanish.

I looking at getting a CM9 tomorrow. Do you have to shoot 115 or 124 gr FMJ? I reload and right now I'm loading 147 gr Lead. I ordered some 124gr FMJ, but I"m trying to get rid of the 147 gr first.

[RRP]

I looking at getting a CM9 tomorrow. Do you have to shoot 115 or 124 gr FMJ? I reload and right now I'm loading 147 gr Lead. I ordered some 124gr FMJ, but I"m trying to get rid of the 147 gr first.

147 is fine. It's weak ammo that causes cycling problems.

[xxchuck1221xx]

What do you guys think about Federal Premium 124 gr JHP? That's what I plan to use as my walk around ammunition. Does it matter that it's not FMJ? I'm thinking it doesn't but I just want to make sure. Thanks!

[RainingAgain]

What do you guys think about Federal Premium 124 gr JHP? That's what I plan to use as my walk around ammunition. Does it matter that it's not FMJ? I'm thinking it doesn't but I just want to make sure. Thanks!That's good SD ammo. Best out there often depends on barell length. My preferred for most guns is Federal HST in 124 grain. It is the newest of the Federal and used at many Law Enforcement agencies. Speer Gold Dot is good too.

I try to buy a round I can get in 50 round boxes and is "always" available. Shot 50 to test for reliability in YOUR gun.

[RRP]

What do you guys think about Federal Premium 124 gr JHP? That's what I plan to use as my walk around ammunition. Does it matter that it's not FMJ? I'm thinking it doesn't but I just want to make sure. Thanks!

Chuck, the recommendations for 115 and 124 gr FMJ are for range use. These have proven to be good choices to break-in a new 9mm Kahr. The smooth, round nose of the FMJ feeds well and is less prone to cause stoppages during break-in.

For self-defense, hollow points are the standard. JHP are less likely to over-penetrate than FMJ due to the expansion design of the bullet. Once the break-in is complete using less expensive FMJ, you are correct to carry JHP when putting the gun into service. Verify your pistol will function reliably using the JHP round you plan to carry.

[muggsy]

Well, Chuck, now that you're one of us I'll let you in on a little secret. A dirty gun and crappy range ammo is a recipe for disaster. Guns, like people, are individuals and some have their ammo preferences. My Kahr pistols seem to like all ammo except the flat point Winchester range fodder. I've learned to live with it. Low power ammo can also cause problems in a new gun with tight tolerances. There is a wealth info in the newbie section to help you break in your new Kahr. You might want to go there and do a little reading. It explains a lot. At any rate, welcome aboard and enjoy your new gun.

[kwh]

Also agree with all above and Federal HST for CM9 for carry round.

[xxchuck1221xx]

Hey guys,


Just wanted to give you all an update. I haven't been able to get out there and shoot my CM9 since the "day of the jams." Haha. But I've done everything else you guys suggested. First of all, I took the gun apart and cleaned it and lubed it up properly. Then, after reading your posts, I got my hands on some 2000 grit sand paper and polished the feed ramp as well as the feed lips on the magazine. Then, feeling like I hadn't polished these areas enough, I borrowed a dremmel tool from a buddy and got to work! Using a buffing pad and some Mother's metal polish, I did a better job of polishing those areas. Now I just need to get it out there and shoot it.


As far as the ammo that I'm going to walk around with, like I said, I purchased Federal Premium Hydra-shoks (124 gr). But you guys are actually suggesting going with Federal HST. Is there a reason why you'd suggest HST over Hydra-shoks?


Comparing the 2 on the website, I've noticed that 9mm HSTs come in a 124 gr with a muzzle velocity of 1150 fps and the picture shows a huge claw on the spent round.


The Hydra-shok has three different weights (124 gr, 135 gr, 147 gr) with muzzle velocities of 1120, 1000, and 1060 respectively. Additionally, the picture of the claw looks much smaller than the HST.


So, I'm not sure if you guys recommend the HST's based on muzzle velocity, claw size, or just how well the round performs in Kahrs. What are your thoughts?

[berettabone]

Everyone has their favorite ammo................I use Fed HST 147gr. jhp for carry in my MK9, and Fed HST 230 gr. jhp in my Sig. It works well in both of my firearms, the price is tolerable, and from what I have seen.........the expansion rate is very good. I like big holes. Nothing wrong with using 124 or 135 either. If you can afford it, you may want to try several brands, to see what works best..........with you and your firearm.