Ammo in Kahrs: Is a Shorter OAL better?

[McE]

I have both Gold Dots and HST in stock in 9mm 124g standard pressure flavor for all of my 9mm defense duty guns

What I noticed is that there's a visually noticeable difference in the overall length of the cartridges, where the Gold Dot ammo is longer than the HST (and these are same weight, same caliber rounds, and the HST has a larger cavity to boot, probably just seated deeper)

With the issues a few people have had with feeding in their Kahrs, would a shorter cartridge be preferable by being less prone to catching the feed ramp or hitting the slide release?

[yqtszhj]

My cw45 is the only one that is length sensitive. It doesnt like Hornady critical defense.

[McE]

Going off topic a bit for my own thread, but I have a CW45 as well. I have both standard and +P 230grn 45acp HST. Turns out I shouldn't shoot +P in my M&P45, is the same true for the CW45?

[tony k]

My cw45 won't shoot long round nose bullets. Not because of the feed ramp, but because of the short throat. Some 230 grain bullets loaded to a length of 1.26 hit the rifling, causing failure to go into battery. I load them to 1.24" and problem goes away. That's with xtreme plated bullets, which have a blunter profile than most FMJs.

With my CM9, the limiting factor seems to be the magazine for oal. The only self defense ammo I've used in it is critical duty and critical defense. both worked great.

I'm surprised to hear yqtszhj has problems with critical defense in a CW45. I've found that both my Kahrs like the pointy bullets used in the critical duty/critical defense hornady ammo. I tried golden sabers in my cw45 when it was pretty new. They would hang up on the slide stop once in a while, so I stopped using them.

McE: the CW45 is rated for +p ammo according to my owners manual. Most people don't recommend a steady diet of +p loads though.

[yqtszhj]

Thanks tony k. Thats what i was trying to say about mine but didnt provide enough detail.

[Pointblank]

My P45, PM9 and 2 CM9s have not been ammo sensitive at all.

[berettabone]

I use the 147 gr. HST's in my MK, and they work well......................they are a bit shorter than the Fiocchi 115gr, which I have had a few problems with........................

[muggsy]

Any ammo with an OAL that's longer than max won't fit in the magazine and won't feed properly. A case length that is too long will jamb in the forcing cone. Any bullet that is within SAAMI specs should work in your gun. If it is within specs and the rounds won't chamber properly the chamber is probably out of spec.

[tony k]

Any ammo with an OAL that's longer than max won't fit in the magazine and won't feed properly. A case length that is too long will jamb in the forcing cone. Any bullet that is within SAAMI specs should work in your gun. If it is within specs and the rounds won't chamber properly the chamber is probably out of spec.
hmm...I've shot somewhere between 1500 and 2000 rounds through my CW45. I should try some of my longer reloads (oal=1.26) to see if I still get Return to Battery Failures. If so, I'd say I have a short chamber.

For that matter, I should also retest the hydrashocks and gold dots that didn't work when I first got the gun. It's been back to the factory twice. First time for frame replacement; second time for broken trigger bar. With the new frame, it's a way better gun and some of the SD ammo that didn't work before might work now.

[tony k]

Hey! I just did the "plunk test" with some ammo ball ammo loaded to 1.26 oal. The CW45 passed, suggesting that I shouldn't have FTRTB issues I used to have.

For those of you who don't reload, the "plunk test" is a way to figure our the max oal you can use in a particular pistol. you remove the barrel from your pistol, hold the barrel vertically and drop a round in the chamber. The round should make a resounding "plunk" as the case mouth hits the forward end of the chamber. If the bullet hits the rifling you can tell because there's not "plunk" sound and the round sticks when you try to remove it.

I guess you could also use the plunk test to troubleshoot problems with factory ammo as well.

[jocko]

certainly most all kahrs are not ammo sensitive. If u shoot good American made ammo,chances are u will never encounter OAL problems either. No doubt it casn happen but that would be IMO more of a mfg=-er error with the barrel throat. When u start talking reloads, then ur on ur own as to what u can and cannot get away with. If I was reloading I would stick with factor OAL loading and just not screw around otherwise.

If u find a round that seems to not make the CLUNK test, then just move to anutter round, to many good rounds out here to get uselt over maybe one round maker, and no doubt even ammo makers fokk up to. Muggsy is right in his comment though, Listen to him, once in awhile he makes sense. Just sayin

[McE]

I have had a couple ftfeed jams occur in my PM9 with the Gold Dots, and I suppose it's a high percentage considering I only put 80ish rounds of it through there.

Anyway, I will put a box of HST through it and see.

[tony k]

McE, for me to trust SD ammo in a particular gun, it has to fire 100 rounds straight without any type of failure. I recall some people expecting 200 rounds without failure, but that gets to be expensive.

well, this thread inspired me to go out and put a couple hundred rounds through the ole CW45, to test "long ammo" that didn;t work in the CW45 when I first got it. First I shot a hunded rounds of 200 grain hornady xtp over 8.2 grains of Longshot. These were loaded long for this bullet (1.23"). The last three mags had fail to feed when racking the first round in the magazine. Firm tap of the magazine fixed that every time. No other problems. I might try them loaded a little shorter to see if that corrects the problem. In addition, the gun was filthy with power residue by this point. XTPs don't do well in dirty guns in my experience.

I then shot 100 rounds of 230 grain xtreme plated round nose over 5 grains of 700x with an OAL of 1.26. 1.26 is a very common OAL for factory ball ammo, in case you were wondering. As I mentioned before, when I first got this gun, I had to use a shorter OAL because the longer rounds would cause the gun to not go in to battery. Not anymore! These puppies ran like a champ without even a hint of a problem.

Sorry that I've kinda hijacked your thread, McE. To stay true to the OP: Yes, I think Kahrs like shorter overall lengths and pointier bullet profiles with SD ammo. Ball/ round nosed bullets feed much easier and are much less sensitive to OAL.