Another PM40 Range Report

[mser]

Finally made it to the range today with the new PM40. Second time around with the 6 round magazine leaves me with a broken follower. Strike one. I've got another 128 rounds to fire so I continue on with the 5 round magazine. Kept experiencing a malfunction like premature slide lock except the slide stop wasn't engaged. The slide was just locked open, wouldn't move. Drop the magazine and try manipulating the slide and slide stop at the same time; slide finally frees itself. Malfunction occurs at least once on every magazine. Extremely frustrating to say the least. Strike two. With only about 15 rounds left I discovered the slide stop is backing out of the frame (moving from right to left) causing the slide to lock open without the slide stop actually moving up and engaging the slide. Finished shooting the last remaining rounds and boxed everything up. Walked out of the range into the showroom and immediately called Kahr. Spoke with Eion. He's sending me a new follower and slide stop spring. Hopefully chapter 2 will be a much happier experience. To be continued.....

[mser]

Closer inspection after returning home and field stripped for cleaning. The slide stop doesn't fit as tightly into the frame compared to my PM9. It slides out rather easily and doesn't click snugly into place when reinstalled. With the slide off and slide stop installed into the frame there's an ever so slight and barely noticeable amount of play from side to side. The PM9 is snug moving in for installation and out for disassembly, and clicks firmly into place upon installation with no side to side movement.

And I never noticed until now. The slide stop spring screw on my PM9 is not a torx but is slotted. The side plate access on the right side of the frame has no screw, only a post. Older style maybe? The test fire date was 10/14/02. Doesn't really matter to me. This thing has functioned like a Swiss watch since day one.

[jocko]

Closer inspection after returning home and field stripped for cleaning. The slide stop doesn't fit as tightly into the frame compared to my PM9. It slides out rather easily and doesn't click snugly into place when reinstalled. With the slide off and slide stop installed into the frame there's an ever so slight and barely noticeable amount of play from side to side. The PM9 is snug moving in for installation and out for disassembly, and clicks firmly into place upon installation with no side to side movement.

And I never noticed until now. The slide stop spring screw on my PM9 is not a torx but is slotted. The side plate access on the right side of the frame has no screw, only a post. Older style maybe? The test fire date was 10/14/02. Doesn't really matter to me. This thing has functioned like a Swiss watch since day one.

check over on the kahgr tech section. I think there could be some sort of tutorial about this slide stop spring and some tips to adjust/check to see if ur spring is doing OK. Look under cw45 fixes by GB6491..

[mser]

Certainly, the new spring will fix that. You will probably be hard pressed (pun intended) to pop out the slide lock by hand until you shoot a few rounds.

That said, on one of my PM40s the slide stop pops out with a vengeance under very little pressure. It has never walked out by itself.

I tried switching the slide stops between my PM9 and PM40 as I believe they are interchangeable. The PM9 slide stop fit the same as the original slide stop in the PM40 frame; loosely with a slight amount of movement from side to side. The PM40 slide stop fit snugly in the PM9 frame with no movement. Under magnification and comparing the PM40 slide stop spring to the one on the PM9, it appears the PM40 spring is marred / bent ever so slightly where it comes into contact with the slide stop lever. I sure hope a new spring cures the problem. I really like this little pistol and don't want to lose faith like I did with the P380. On my way out now to pick up the proper size torx driver so I can install the new spring when it arrives.