CW 380 a work in progress

[Black Train]

I took the new CW 380 out for a few rounds. I had lubed the pistol. I did not clean the striker channel before this outing.



I started out with 50 rounds of the Winchester train and defend ammo. The CW 380 produced 2 light primer strikes @ round #40. I put both rounds back in the chamber and they would not fire the second time. The next round following each went bang. I can not say if the problem existed due to hard primers. I did not clean the pistol during this portion of the session and moved on to the Aguila ammo. This stuff is dirty. The pistol ate it very well. There were no light primer strikes during this 150 round portion of the session. After 130 rounds of this stuff, I got 3 failures to return to battery. I am guessing the cause was the extreme amount of crud under the ejector, not allowing the rim of the round to slide beneath it. The last ammo used was the Hornady Critical defense. I fired 12 rounds of this. The CW 380 ate all 12 without a problem.

I still had not cleaned the pistol during this session. There was another person with me. Each of use would load a magazine while the other was firing. We kept this gun nice and warm throughout. I think the CW 380 did very well considering the cheap ammo and the torture it was subjected to. I plan to take it out again this weekend. I have flushed out the striker channel. It was nasty!! A large amount of black crap and some flakes of metal flowed out of it. The gun has been thoroughly cleaned and lubed. I will let you know how this one comes out.

Read on for updates!!

[Armybrat]

Sounds like it's going to be a good one. I did blast the striker channel pretty good on my new CT380 before the first range session. Had no problems at all with the Remington & Hornady CTD, but not one round of WWB would fire. Haven't tried to shoot the "bad" rounds through another .380 yet.

[SlowBurn]

Sounds like it's going to be a good one. I did blast the striker channel pretty good on my new CT380 before the first range session. Had no problems at all with the Remington & Hornady CTD, but not one round of WWB would fire. Haven't tried to shoot the "bad" rounds through another .380 yet.

+1. Never had any luck with wwb or any other flat nosed fmj in these Kahr micro 380s. The "train" rounds in the Winchester t&d series are the same.

[Black Train]

Today's session was pathetic. I used four different kinds of ammo: Golden Sabre, Winchester train & Defend, Critical Defense, and Hornady American Gunner with XTP. There was no distinction between any of them, performance was abysmal. Each magazine produced several instances of failure to return to battery. The rounds would fire if I pushed the slide forward. There were also numerous failure to feed situations. Both magazines produced the same results. The rounds were loaded correctly. I used the slide to chamber the first round of each magazine. This method failed a couple of times. The barrel and slide would not move completely forward. I left it on the bench. It will not go back into my pocket until I get this figured out. I only fired 42 rounds today. I had problems with @ 14 of the 42. I did not want to fire it as a single shot pistol.

[RonW]

Sounds like the pistol may need a good cleaning & lube, in addition I take my mags apart after each outing & clean them too. A lot of times a sticky mag follower is the culprit.

[Black Train]

Sounds like the pistol may need a good cleaning & lube, in addition I take my mags apart after each outing & clean them too. A lot of times a sticky mag follower is the culprit.

Between session the gun was disassembled and thoroughly cleaned and lubed. The striker channel was cleaned. The barrel, feed ramp, and breach face were all cleaned very well. The recoil guide rod was cleaned and lightly lubed. The magazines had been taken apart and cleaned. The mag follower on each magazine was cleaned, as well.

[RonW]

I will say this, if you look at the feeding ramp on the pistol, it has a very sharp angle and that is going to cause the user to look for ammo that will feed well, and it looks like the Hornady is the one, I use that same ammo in my M&P 380.

Brass cased fmj Monarch brand from the Academy works well, if you can find it, give it a "shot". WWB has been hit or miss, Remington UMC works well. Win Train & defend works wonderfully in my Shield 9mm but not so much in the 380...

Kahr does say that the pistol is going to need about 200 rounds to break in, I say keep on shootin' & see how it does in time, good luck!

[Black Train]

Kahr does say that the pistol is going to need about 200 rounds to break in, I say keep on shootin' & see how it does in time, good luck!

I have put well over the 200 rounds as break in. I have spent over $200 on ammo trying to get it to feed and fire. I had to work hard for the money to pay for the ammo and the pistol. A new firearm should not perform like this when the recommended break in has been met. It is now in the hands of FedEx and Kahr. I will let them fix the issues and hopefully the pistol will perform as it should upon return. If it does not, I will trade it for something that will.

[Alfonse]

I do not know if this is the issue, but I run my pistols with more than light lube on the guide rod. The rails are wet with an appropriate grease, and the barrel is well lubed as well. I find they like to run fairly wet.

[Black Train]

I do not know if this is the issue, but I run my pistols with more than light lube on the guide rod. The rails are wet with an appropriate grease, and the barrel is well lubed as well. I find they like to run fairly wet.

I tried this. I put 2 drops of Hoppe's oil on the rails on the slide. I allowed these to run down the entire slide. I oiled the metal slide rails on the frame. I put a little oil on the feed ramp and oiled the chamber and barrel lightly. I took the guide rod out and oiled it and the spring lightly. All of this was done immediately before I attempted to fire it today.

It could require more lubrication on the guide rod. Many of the failures today involved the slide and barrel not moving forward fully. It is possible that it was binding on the guide rod. I have noticed the tolerance between the guide rod, the point where it rests on the barrel and the hole in the slide is tight. When I insert the guide rod back into the gun, I have to pull up on the slide end of the rod. It will not insert if this is not done. It simply will not go into the slide and allow the spring to compress enough to put it in the correct position against the barrel.

[SlowBurn]

Between session the gun was disassembled and thoroughly cleaned and lubed. The striker channel was cleaned. The barrel, feed ramp, and breach face were all cleaned very well. The recoil guide rod was cleaned and lightly lubed. The magazines had been taken apart and cleaned. The mag follower on each magazine was cleaned, as well.

It was running before, it was field stripped, and now its not. Its possible it might pay to take it apart again and reassemble.

[wyntrout]

The last step of cleaning the barrel should be a dry patch. I wouldn't oil the chamber and I would wipe the ramp pretty dry. The Kahr .380 is prone to failures to feed when it gets dirty... which can happen around 50 or so rounds fired. I use my pinky finger and a rag or paper towel to try to wipe the ramp clean frequently at the range... tight fit.

I use a little Flitz polish on the ramp sometimes in cleaning, but don't leave it wet with lubricant... accelerates accumulation of crud, especially with "dirty" ammo.

The Recoil Spring Assembly (RSA) needs to be pretty close to aligned with the forward receptacle/slide hole for assembly... another tight fit... just normal.

Wynn

[wyntrout]

As for stripping down the slide. I like to do that at least once before relying on the non-chlorinated brake cleaner spray. There could be crud in there to begin with and I've seen chunks of lead and shavings from the bullet components in there. The cartridges get banged around and bits knocked off during firing... pretty violent action between chamber and breech face and combustion gases force junk through the striker pin hole... and sometimes from all around the side and back of the slide and frame... making it a very good idea to wear ballistic eye protection. I've videoed and freeze-framed all kinds of fire trails like that... burning powder or whatever, but it all doesn't go out the barrel!

Wynn

[jocko]

wyns right, I feel every slide should be taken completely dow and cleaned onc eto be sure and then after that, that little clean out hole up front on the bottom of the slide is all u ever eed to do. I took my G43 slide compltely down last nite to check it out to make sure allw as OK, and normaly Glocks come pretty clean and little lube on them. this gun had thgat copper sh
!t up by the breech face, that I am not sure spray cleaner would have ever got it out. I had fired 150 rounds thru it before doing this with no issues buyt I am glad I did this. Now I know its clean, b efore that I could only assume.. Just sayin

[Black Train]

Page 17 of the operating instructions addresses the dis-assembly of the slide. " DO NOT DISMANTLE THE PISTOL FURTHER THAN THE MAIN COMPONENTS DESCRIBED ABOVE (except magazine). To do so may create an unsafe condition and affect the pistol's warranty". To me, that makes it their problem. I can not afford to have the warranty voided on a week old firearm that performs poorly.