CW45 DOES NOT LIKE Hornady 230gr .45 ACP +P Critical Defense Ammo!

[DougGuy]

I had one ftf using this ammo a year or so ago, and I decided it was from a single drop of Frog Lube that I put in the striker channel, ran down and inerted the primer. Doh, don't DO THAT okay! Leave the striker channel DRY!

Few months later I did a function check and it fired no issues, that was 6mos ago. This week I did another function check, and sure enough the round that I have been carrying in the chamber went CLICK! I had two more ftf from what looked like light primer strikes. These are from different lots of ammo, but it's safe to say I will NOT be carrying any more of this Hornady ammo on the street.

My buddy had a box of Speer Gold Dot 230gr hp in the nickel case, and every round fed and fired without incident, the way you would EXPECT it to. It also feeds and fires CCI Lawman 200gr "Flying Astray" without skipping a beat.

I have no idea why the Hornady failed to fire, the gun was cleaned and blown dry with an air hose and no lube was used anywhere in the gun on reassembly. The gun is carried in a holster, so it isn't subjected to being full of lint or dirt.

Do I need an extra power striker spring?

[jocko]

I had one ftf using this ammo a year or so ago, and I decided it was from a single drop of Frog Lube that I put in the striker channel, ran down and inerted the primer. Doh, don't DO THAT okay! Leave the striker channel DRY!

Few months later I did a function check and it fired no issues, that was 6mos ago. This week I did another function check, and sure enough the round that I have been carrying in the chamber went CLICK! I had two more ftf from what looked like light primer strikes. These are from different lots of ammo, but it's safe to say I will NOT be carrying any more of this Hornady ammo on the street.

My buddy had a box of Speer Gold Dot 230gr hp in the nickel case, and every round fed and fired without incident, the way you would EXPECT it to. It also feeds and fires CCI Lawman 200gr "Flying Astray" without skipping a beat.

I have no idea why the Hornady failed to fire, the gun was cleaned and blown dry with an air hose and no lube was used anywhere in the gun on reassembly. The gun is carried in a holster, so it isn't subjected to being full of lint or dirt.

Do I need an extra power striker spring?

they don't make an extra power striker spring. Have u taken ur striker channel apart to make 100% sure there is no crud buildup by theinside breech face. We have seen somne maching craola come out of these slide/channels that would surely gum up a striker. It might work 985 of the time but if there is crud in there, IT HAS TO COME OUT. Once u get that channel clean, then indeed just use that clean out hole on the bottom of the slide up by the breech face, AND UR RIGHT, KEEP THAT AREA DRY. What I do is when I clean that area, I pull back ther striker (slide off the gun of course) and then spray directly into the breech fact, , that way u ar eopening up that clean out hole completely and most spray solvents will come out that hole.

I spray te same cleaner behind myextractor also and fluids will run out the back, but I do put a drop of oil on the back side of thatextractor and it will find its way down that chanel.

I have over 32K rounds through my PMJ9 and I have never had the extractor out of the gun and I have had the striker channel apart once many years back to insert a 5# striker spring. I clean the striker channel every time I clean the weapon, takes 10 seconds using that little hole. Just sayin

doughguy, not real sure those lite strikes are oil related, but u know u did put a drop of oil in that area, so it could well be. U can't go wrong with gold dots 230HP, so IMO stick with it.

does anyone know WTf that gold crapola hat comes in new glocks is. I realize it is a lub but I have never seen it on shelves, almost looks like there is a flakes of gold in that lub. Course we all know glocks are worth their weight in GOLD, Just sayin

[DougGuy]

doughguy, not real sure those lite strikes are oil related, but u know u did put a drop of oil in that area, so it could well be.

That was when I had the first ftf. Hasn't been ANY oil at all on this gun since that happened so the latest ftf can't be from oil.

[yqtszhj]

My cw45 doesn't like hornady either. They are a little long to work well. I use the gold dots too and put the hornady in my 1911's.

[CJB]

It might very well be Kahr's tight chamber spec. They're tighter than most. If the round doesn't quite fully go into the chamber, and I mean just a c-hair from being fully in there, the striker hit drives it home rather than setting off the primer.

[muggsy]

Kahr chambers are within SAMMI specs.

[CJB]

Are they? They're supposed to be!

I'll say this much, they're tighter than any other .45acp chamber I currently own, including three BarSto barrels, one Wilson Combat barrel, and some old Colt mfg barrels. About even with the tightest BarSto actually.... very tight.

I've had ammo - WWB, that would not chamber in the Karh, but ran through my other's like ***** through a goose.

When the chamber is at the small side of spec, and the ammo is on the high side... well... ya know, that aint such a cozy easy goin relationship they got there.

[DougGuy]

Update: After a buddy hooked me up with a 50rd box of Speer Gold Dot 230gr HP, the CW45 has been flawless and last night's REQUIRED SEMI ANNUAL function test went off with a bang first time, right out of the holster. It's a scary feeling to draw a sidearm you have been carrying and staking your life on and it goes CLICK instead of firing! It could be the Hornady may not seat fully and gets a soft primer strike as the firing pin serves more to push the case into the end of the chamber, it could be hard primers, it could be any number of infintessimally small reasons that this ammo didn't function 100% but for now, it sits in a box on the back porch, I cannot recommend this ammo for carry and I certainly DO NOT RECOMMEND it for the CW45. YMMV! Happy Independence Day fellas, and ladies, may your colors never fade and may your striker channel always stay clean and DRY!

[Longitude Zero]

Mine has eaten Critical Defense and Critical Duty with no bobbles.

[CJB]

And it might not be the chamber... totally at fault.

My good friend Andy put it this way: "Ammo makers make their ammo on the small side, because they'll take crap if it don't fit in someone's chamber. Barrel makers make the chambers on the big side, because they'll take crap if someone's ammo doesn't fit their chamber."

Some deviation from that... Kahr chambers run on the small side, as I said before, my own experience is that my Kahr's have chambers tighter than my Colt barrels, SIG barrels, or FN barrel. Also got a Wilson marked barrel, a few Bar-Sto barrels and Kahr seems to be more or less equal to the Bar-Sto. You get ammo with thick brass, slightly oversize bullet, not quite the taper cramp it ought to have, maybe a little burr edge at the case mouth.

[DougGuy]

Update: After a buddy hooked me up with a 50rd box of Speer Gold Dot 230gr HP, the CW45 has been flawless and last night's REQUIRED SEMI ANNUAL function test went off with a bang first time, right out of the holster. It's a scary feeling to draw a sidearm you have been carrying and staking your life on and it goes CLICK instead of firing! It could be the Hornady may not seat fully and gets a soft primer strike as the firing pin serves more to push the case into the end of the chamber, it could be hard primers, it could be any number of infintessimally small reasons that this ammo didn't function 100% but for now, it sits in a box on the back porch, I cannot recommend this ammo for carry and I certainly DO NOT RECOMMEND it for the CW45. YMMV! Happy Independence Day fellas, and ladies, may your colors never fade and may your striker channel always stay clean and DRY!

Here is the result of the round I fired into the dense North Carolina red clay last night, it went 8" down into the ground and cut a golf ball sized channel all the way to the bottom. I fished it out today with a really long pair of needle nose pliers and here it is. Couldn't ask for more perfect performance out of a hollowpoint. This one measures a whopping .720" in diameter and retains 229.1gr of it's weight.

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/Kahr%20CW45/SpeerGoldDotSoilTest7-4-2015_zpsyf4bj0w4.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/Kahr%20CW45/SpeerGoldDotSoilTest7-4-2015_zpsyf4bj0w4.jpg.html)

[GLOCKROCKER]

Back when I first purchased my CW45 I tried Hornady CD and although the pistol ran fine with it, I had a hell of a time extracting live rounds from the chamber. I didn't experience this issue with any other brand. Did a little searching on the interweb and found others had the same issue with CD. Pretty sure there are some older posts on here about this. I can't remember if the Hornady is slightly longer or slightly larger diameter (maybe both). I switched to Gold Dots for carry and never had any more problems.

[CPTKILLER]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoH4CMg1Shg

Read this. You will be OK with Gold Dot.