New CW-9- my first Kahr

[carwash]

I recently picked up a New CW-9, $299 NIB at Tanners in Jamison Pa. I pocket carry an LCP in the summer and belt carry a Kel-Tec P-11 in the winter, the CW-9 should be a good in-betweener.
Here is my story and impressions so far.
I took it home and cleaned and lubed it, Kahr uses some stinky shipping grease.

>>Range trip #1-- About 70 rounds, PERFECT! Surprisingly comfortable to shoot considering it's size, more comfortable than my Kel-Tec P-11. Got another 7 round mag and (2) 8's from Midway.

>>Range trip #2-- About 100 rounds Didn't clean it after trip #1, I had a few FTFeeds. I field stripped it and gave it a wipedown, did not re-grease it, FTFeeds got much worse. Also had 2 or 3 instances of the mag dropping while firing.
Gave it a good cleaning and relube, installed Hogue Hand-All JR.

>>Range Trip #3-- 50 rounds, Perfect (*) again. This pistol definitely likes to be clean and wet. Hand-All JR. makes this gun even more comfortable. With the required break-in over I now try to run some Hornady Critical Duty through it. The first round is very hard to load, here's why the above (*), at some point during the 50 rounds the follower in my original 7 rounder broke. I ran the mag anyway, it worked fine. I ran each of the other 3 mags full of Critical Duty and they all worked fine except the follower in the other 7 broke as well. I had 1 more instance of mag drop. Mag drop could be me inadvertently hitting of the release, not sure yet.
Emailed Kahr, they are sending replacement followers and mag release.

>>Range trip #4-- 50 rounds, Clean and lubed of course, Perfect even with the broken followers. No mag drops.

My conclusion so far, I love the size and the way it shoots. Great trigger. Great sights. an all-day shooter. It's a shame about the follower problems, they go back years. I'm sure one way or another Kahr will make it right but it's still a blemish on an otherwise great pistol. I also experienced the usual guide scraping, now after 4 range trips the finish is almost gone and it functions just fine so I'm good with it. I think if Kahr won't ship the CW-9 with the stainless guide rod(understandable on a value pistol) they should just stop putting a finish on the existing one, problem solved.
I'm now waiting for the replacement followers, I may try Bang_Button's fix ( http://www.kahrtalk.com/showthread.php?t=22506&page=2 ) , but the gun seems to function(so far) even with the broken ones.
A CW-380 may be in the future.

[jocko]

u broke two followers, IMO I think u should ask kahr to pick up the gun and fix the feed ramp. Its probably gonna happen again. hoefully not but two in such a short time is a real indication tha tthe feed ramp is hitting the followers. Pre mature mag release could be u as u stated, but I tend to think it could be the feed ramp slamming into the magazine making this happen. I soubt if the mag release button is the culpritt, but it only takes 5 minutes to replace it. There is a tutorial on this forum telling u how to do it. Normally the guns will work with a busted follower but again it is not supposed to do that and do u wantto have a busted follower in your gun???

I would wait bein they are sending you new followers and try only one and shoot it a 100 rounds to see what is happening. If it breaks again, I would call kahr and tell them you have now busted 3 followers, They willissue a pick up on their dime and fix it right

Followers just do not break UNLES sumpin is hammering the piss out of them. If they were made of steel, the gun would then just malfunction. It won't solve the issue. I think u are just delaying the inevitable. The gun is gonna have to go back PERIOD. You bought it at a super price IMO.

That guide wear part is absolutely normal It is the spring retraction etc that isjust wearing off that finish. That is normal and fine. I spray my recoil assemblyh with Remington Dry lube. no runs or anything.

[DavidR]

Great price.

[carwash]

u broke two followers, IMO I think u should ask kahr to pick up the gun and fix the feed ramp. Its probably gonna happen again. hoefully not but two in such a short time is a real indication tha tthe feed ramp is hitting the followers. Pre mature mag release could be u as u stated, but I tend to think it could be the feed ramp slamming into the magazine making this happen. I soubt if the mag release button is the culpritt, but it only takes 5 minutes to replace it. There is a tutorial on this forum telling u how to do it. Normally the guns will work with a busted follower but again it is not supposed to do that and do u wantto have a busted follower in your gun???

I would wait bein they are sending you new followers and try only one and shoot it a 100 rounds to see what is happening. If it breaks again, I would call kahr and tell them you have now busted 3 followers, They willissue a pick up on their dime and fix it right

Followers just do not break UNLES sumpin is hammering the piss out of them. If they were made of steel, the gun would then just malfunction. It won't solve the issue. I think u are just delaying the inevitable. The gun is gonna have to go back PERIOD. You bought it at a super price IMO.

You're right, I just emailed Kahr requesting a return label to get it "fixed" properly.

[feedramp]

Congrats on the new CW9, and pooh on the magazine problems. Followers should not be that delicate on a brand new firearm ...
Inspect the pistol very carefully to see if it shows any specific reason for the followers to go bad that quickly.

[codegeek]

Congratulations on your CW9! Kahr is pretty quick on the turn around for rampectomies! You'll have her back in no time!

Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk

[carwash]

Kahr sent me a label today and the pistol is on it's way back home.

[DavidR]

New CW-9- my first Kahr

Excellent.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[carwash]

If anyone's interested here's a comparison of the CW-9 and Kel-Tec P-11...


...the P-11 is actually smaller but being a double stack it's a bit thick for IWB.
I have a Sticky holster for the CW-9 when it comes back, I haven't actually "carried" it yet but I tried it a little bit at home and it seems to work well.

[AnnieO]

I got my CW9 from Tanner's as well. I don't know how they are selling them for $299, but it was a no-brainer for me. It runs perfectly just like my PM9 and I could not be more pleased. I also bought a bunch of Kahr 7&8 round mags from the Midway sale and have not had any issues as yet. Can't say the same for the early PM9 7 rounders though.

My only Kahr related complaint is that I just wish the Kahr mags coming from the factory would uniformly drop free from the mag-well. I'm tired of having to do my own feed lip and other adjustments because half of my factory new mags won't drop free when I push the mag release. In the same breath though I love the Kahr platform and hope to score a nice K9 to round out my collection one day.

[jocko]

I think we make way to much of a big deal out o0f dropping magazines. My PMJ9 has never dropped a magazine upon release and it suits me fine. I would bet I am as fast now with it as one who is dropping his mags. Certainly if one doesn't carry a sare mag, then WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE

Hillary's famous statement. Actually unless kahr has changed their manual, it never states tha tthe magazines are to drop fully either. It is what it is , u adjust.

I used to shoot alot with my PMJ9 (over 32K rounds)_ and quite frankly I kinda like the partial drop of my magazine,I never was digging in the grass or dirt for it,.

[AnnieO]

I'm not making an overly huge issue about the magazines but the fact is if I'm at the range practicing magazine reloading drills I want all my magazines to work uniformly so that in a real world situation I can count on the same continuity. If all the mags only dropped partially, that would be fine as I would train to that scenario. The scenario I'm most used to and comfortable with is that the mags drops free. To each his own, and I'm not trying to nit-pick here but surely one can understand from a common sense perspective the value of the magazines producing uniform results one way or the other. I don't want to have to guess which magazine is going to do what when either practicing or when TSHTF. Just my meager .02.

[jocko]

good pointy, refer to Muggsys comment on how to fix that issue if that is what ur after

[carwash]

Got my pistol back today , 1 day shy of 3 weeks since I sent it in, not too shabby.
Kahr "reworked" the feed ramp and replaced both of my broken followers. I haven't tried it out yet, I keep ya posted...

[carwash]

I finally made it to the range last night, the first time since I got it back. I purposely only used 1 magazine to be sure it was "fixed". I started with about 30 rounds of 115g fmj, then I tried 5 rounds of Critical Duty +P (which functioned fine btw), then I put maybe another 30 rounds of fmj and BAM...broken follower.

I ran another mag through it with the broken follower and it ran fine. I emailed Kahr when I got home explaining the sitch and asking how they wanted to proceed. This morning I received an apology email and a label to return it again.

Hopefully they can just trim another hair off the ramp and without affecting function because hassles aside I really do like this pistol. I carried it the other day in a Sticky holster, very comfortable. And it shoots great.

To be continued...