Is Kahr working on a solution?

[modraker]

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that Kahr does not manufacture their magazines. If this is correct, they obviously need to get some additional control over their supplier or change to another. I've had bad mags in pistols over 45+ years of shooting, mostly in 1911's, but have never experienced a broken follower. However enough Kahr customer do to necessitate a solution.

The magazine follower breaks but the barrel's feed ramp breaks it. That is why the so called "rampectomy" has become popular with Kahr owners who experience follower breakage often.

[FCastle88]

I'm also curious if this is a NEWER problem. I don't recall seeing this issue crop up here much until the last year or two. I'm on my 3rd 9mm Kahr and none of them, even after shooting the crap out of them, have ever broken a follower or even shown much sign of wear on the follower. My P9 and PM9 are years and years old. Both circa 2008. My TP9 is 2010 or 2011.

Wondering if they've changed plastics, changed process, do they make them or outsource them, etc. Just curious. This does seem to be becoming more of a reported issue. Is it just more owners of newer guns or what.

A quick google search comes up with complaints of broken followers going back to at least 2009. If Kahr is working on it, they certainly seem to be taking their time. While I'me sure the majority of Kahrs don't have this issue, it seems to be more than a tiny percentage. There's quite a few complaints on various gun forums. Given that the fix is grinding down the feed ramp, it seems pretty obvious that either the feed ramps should be shortened slightly, or there are a lot of out of spec feed ramps. I guess I got lucky, no issues with my CM9. However my CW380 that I bought online recently has some minor cosmetic issues. Scrapes/scratches in the steel on the slide, and the inside of the slide has a couple burs and sharp edges. I've seen posts on other forums of people looking to buy a CM/CW model and finding multiple guns that were poorly finished and/or the trigger won't fire the gun. QC/QA or whatever you want to call it does seem to be lacking.

[FLBri]

I'm with GaryB here. It's not Quantitative Physics or Rocket science.
Yes Kahr magazines are mediocre ... but that's not the problem.
Of 7 Kahrs I presently own, one went back for the Rampectomy. It was NOT breaking followers (never had a broken follower) but was dislodging the pin on the follower from it's contact with the slide stop pin. Result was that the slide would not lock back.

In talking about the problem on the phone ... I believe it was Jay .... he said they literally remove a few thousandths. That's how much makes a difference.

So you can talk all day about small guns and tight tolerances .... but regardless of how tight they are, building in a 'few thousandths' of clearance seems pretty simple to do to correct a 5 year production run problem for the future.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my Kahrs and believe in the system and engineering behind them. That's why I own as many as I do. But as a company I am more and more disappointed in both their execution and, More importantly, their attitude towards customer service. I do hope they listen before it starts a spiral they can't recover from. This if from a very loyal Kahr owner (me).

S&W, Sig, Glock, Ruger ... they ALL have issues in production from time to time. It will always be thus. But when was the last time time you EVER heard someone complain about S&W customer service. That's why they will ALWAYS sell tons of weapons. Same with Sig and Ruger. I'm not as familiar with the others to comment. They will always sell more handguns than Kahr because of that ... regardless of the system and engineering. My bet is, they will also ALWAYS be more profitable for the same reason.

[C0untZer0]

Is there a tutorial on modifying the ramp for do-it-yourselfers?


I've read of a few people doing it but I can't find a thread on it and my search of YouTube returned ramp-polishing videos.

[garyb]

QC or QA?

I agree with Muggsy....it is a feed ramp issue and perhaps because the mags are outsourced, the two components are not QC tested as they should be. Or perhaps, the repair shop, production and management are not communicating, which makes it a QA problem. As silly as it may be, regarding QC vs QA (who really cares) something is wrong - at times. If it is a communication issue - a QA problem, which is a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services to customers. It is applied to physical products in pre-production. QA refers to Administrative and procedural activities....and systematic measurement comparison with a standard, monitoring of processes and an "associated feed back loop that confers error prevention". Perhaps that feed back loop in their QA is missing.
Or we can contrast this with Quality Control, which is focused on process "output". QC is a system for ensuring the maintenance of "proper standards in manufactured goods, especially by periodic inspection" of the procedure. Perhaps the problem is getting missed during QC, because "QC emphasizes testing of products to uncover defects and reporting to management, who make the decision to allow or deny product release."
So, is it QC or QA?.....and who really cares! That specific issue is an internal Kahr problem, relating to their Factory performance...be it their QC (of final products) or QA (of their feedback loop). The customer's problem is a periodic defect in feed ramps breaking followers...one which can not be denied. Now this one has been pounded in the ground.