Update! PM45 magazines fail & Boomer's going back again! Back home 11 Jan!

[wyntrout]

I guess I kind of hijacked the other thread:

http://kahrtalk.com/pm-series-pistol...html#post32379

My PM45 magazines failed and they and the gun are going back to Kahr. I think that my pistol needs exorcism... at least 4 of the 6 magazines... 3 different kinds, have metal-fatigue-like failures on the top rear edges of the magazine tubes and the top part is ripping away from the back **. See the pictures.
This note will accompany the emails and pictures to Kahr CS:

Dang, on closer inspection, one of the newest, a 7-round extended grip has the crack on one side. Its mate bought at the same time, seems okay, but…. And the 7-shot TP magazine seems to have a crack starting next to the weld on the top rear. I guess I might as well send them all:
2x 5-shot (K525) **
1x 6-shot (K625G) extended grip **
1x 7-shot (K725) and
2x 7-shot extended grip (K725G)(New April 2+) One of these **
The first four magazines I’ve had since I got the PM45.

Wynn

[Bawanna]

This is sad news Wynn. I'm really curious what they are gonna have to say about those mags. I've never seen that before even on junk magazines. Perplexed why all yours are going at the same time. I hate to lay blame to the gun without a jury trial but it's looking like that might be the case.

[wyntrout]

It has to be the gun. With these three or four different .45 magazines failing, I don't see anything else that could cause this.
I haven't fired any +P or anything heavier than standard pressure commercial ammo.

I figured that I fired 2,007 rounds to date and Kahr CS has fired quite a few, too, but that's not what I would call a heavily used pistol.

I hope they can sort it out and fix it... or replace it. I should get all new magazines as well.

I'm quite happy with the p380 and the PM9 is getting a little use, too,

Trijicon has my K9 slide and I haven't heard from them, yet. They say to allow 2 to 4 weeks for re-lamping. I still have to do something about my S&W 645's DEAD NS. Trijicon gave me a number for another company for those. They only work on their own.

Well, I had better try to get some sleep. We're getting up early (05:30) to take Wifey to the airport. She's going to visit her folks in Southwestern Colorado. I guess I can goof off more than normal... if that's possible.

Wynn

[jocko]

when I got my P380 back yonder, one of my magazines split out the back and I had seen photos on the AR-15 kahr forum of the same thing with the P380 also. My bet would be back magazines, metal fatigue. Kahr doesn't make um,so more than likely they wouldnot know they are bad until shooters like wyn put some rounds through them. I can't see how the gun itself can be casing it,. Hopefully they will tell wyn what they did, but IMO they will probalbty just replace the magazines, test fire and return.

[wyntrout]

I hadn't been keeping up with the rounds fired on any of my guns, but I checked every kind of information I had and came up with 2,007 rounds fired by me since I got Boomer the first week of March. I'm sure that Kahr CS put a few hundred through it as well. They had it three times and I'm awaiting pickup by FedEx now for the 4th time. I've done a lot of testing and breaking in. If they change anything, I'll have to do more testing! As long as it shoots, that's not a bad thing.

It's just really odd that 4 of my 6 Kahr magazines are splitting and one of the others seems to have a possible split alongside the weld on the top back. At about $35 a pop for magazines, that gets pretty expensive. I think I'll have to invest in some Wilson magazines for range use, at least, and save the Kahrs for carry. That's if I get Boomer back with a "Tested OK" and nothing changed.

If I split the rounds fired sort of evenly among the 6 magazines, and not count the Brolin Arms one, these things are lasting maybe 400 rounds?? All of you PM45 shooters ought to examine and see how your magazines are doing. It would be nice to know if anyone else is having this problem.

Maybe I'll change the name to "MagEater." Or Boomer the MagEater.

I'm so glad my baby Kahr is working fine now... not a hiccup the last two range trips since it came back from Kahr.

I checked on FlightAware and my wife is at 36,000 feet and flying westerly along the northern border of Louisiana at about 533 mph, on her way to Phoenix, enroute to SW Colorado. She's going to have just over 3 hours in Phoenix and her sister is going to meet and visit with her for a few hours.

I have 5 days and nights to do less than usual, which is hard to imagine.

There's a lot that I should do, but I can think of only a few things that I'll probably do. I'm going to add an external caddy-less hard drive enclosure to allow me to just pop in a bare drive for recording from my PAL HD DVR. I'm not sure if it's that drive or the DISH DVR that has gotten noisy, but I'm worried about hard drive failure. I have all of the parts and tools now, and I should be able to find the time.

I wish that FedEx would come on and then I could take an uninterrupted nap.

Wynn

[jocko]

wyn: I would be hard pressed to think kahr would not replace your split magazines. they never squabbled when I sent my P380 magazinein due to the back side busting out.

I am still on my original pM9 2 6 round magazinesa and they look perfect. Odd tha tyou would get 4 bad magazines but I just also feel there were "
bad" magazines from the day they were made and not nothing that you or the gun did..

[wyntrout]

Oh, they'll replace them, but if nothing's changed, I expect new ones to fail after about 400 rounds, too.
Have you had any problems with your PM9 magazines? I think your gun qualifies as "high use".

5:12 PM and Boomer's on his way back to the mothership. Déjŕ vu all over again.

Wynn

[wyntrout]

wyn: I would be hard pressed to think kahr would not replace your split magazines. they never squabbled when I sent my P380 magazinein due to the back side busting out.

I am still on my original pM9 2 6 round magazinesa and they look perfect. Odd that you would get 4 bad magazines but I just also feel there were "
bad" magazines from the day they were made and not nothing that you or the gun did..

I think that it's even odder that 3 different versions, maybe 4, of the magazines have the same faults at the same amount of usage, on the same range trip... about 400 rounds each (SWAG)... velly suspicious... and we haven't heard of any other?

I kind of expect them to test it, scratch their heads, replace my magazines and ship the gun back to me, unchanged, maybe. So... about the same point down the road, I can have these same failures.
If so, I need to get me some Wilson mags like Bawanna's to use at the range and save the Kahrs for CCW... at least the ones I want to carry.

I don't know what else to do, if they don't find a problem to fix or replace the gun.

Well, half of my Kahrs are down for maintenance now. The K9 slide is at Trijicon for re-lamping the night sights.

My PM9 is at-hand gun around the house and I'm wearing now and carrying the P380 as my EDC, which was the plan for this hot weather down here.

Wynn

[PigButtons]

Just trying to remember

Wyn,
Wasn't the first problem boomer had something about the bevel at the bottom of the slide not letting the magazine seat properly when full? Could the problem have really been that the slide or frame guide rails are out of spec depth from barrel centerline? Or even magazine seating too high in the gun?

This might then be catching or at least riding on the rim of the top casing as the slide goes back and fatiguing the back of the magazine. Even if the new slide fixed the problem, the damage to the magazines may have already occurred and they are finally just failing catastrophically.

Just a thought.

[crash]

Compare the upper rear mag well area of any 1911 to the upper rear mag well area of your PM45, installing a mag in each will help. The Kahr mag is not supported at the top because of the triggering system linkage. The mags are breaking when the 45 acp recoil (which is stout) slaps "the next round up" into the unsupported area at the rear of the Kahr mag. My 6 mags broke at about 125 rounds each.

[wyntrout]

I have noticed that the bottom of the slide rides heavily and pushes the top round in the magazine down and to the rear as the slide recoils. Evidently there is considerable force generated by the bottom of slide dragging the cartridge to the rear and it bangs into the unsupported top rear of the magazine, fatiguing it until it fails.
I'm really alarmed to hear about failure at 125 rounds. I was wagging about 400 rounds fired for each of my 6 magazines, but it's probably from 300 to 500 or so. Testing at Kahr CS was just using the 5-round magazines, but the 6-rounder was the worst failure and most problematic in insertion and seating in the magazine well.
The lighting at the range and my eyesight kept me from being able to see the fractures until I got home.

With the design of the current pistols, I don't see an easy fix. Possibly some material could be removed from the bottom of the slide and/or really fine polishing of the underside of the slide could reduce the friction and the force exerted against the unsupported rear of the magazine.

I just looked at the PM9 and it has the same lack of support and all, but I think the biggest factor is the magnitude of the recoil from the .45s. I've never used +P and if I had been using +P 230-grain bullets, I'm sure this would have happened sooner. I guess using lighter +P bullets probably lessens the impact on the rear of the magazine.

I checked my S&W 645 and the magazine is supported at the back up to within 1/8" of the top rear. I don't have a 1911-type pistol, but I figured the Kahr was lacking in support for the upper rear of the magazines. Maybe they could incorporate a really stout "leaf spring" back there to support the top of the magazine as much as possible. There's not much room for a lot of polymer build up for support, especially with the safety block cam located there.

I just looked at my K9 frame and it's the same. The top back of the magazine is unsupported for about 3/4" and that cam that pushes down the safety block is about 3/32" from the back of the magazine.

I wonder how the .40's are fairing with this "problem."

Dang. I think I'm going back to bed. The clock radio went off at 0530, set from the night before for us to get my wife to the airport. I'm really dragging from lost sleep that night.

Kahr will get the PM45 today and maybe I'll hear something by early next week... CND... Could Not Duplicate. Tests OK. I'll just have to stock up on "sacrificial" magazines for the range and shoot less. A lot of my shooting, besides for pleasure, was testing and break-in.

Wynn

[500KV]

Add Another One..

Well add another "cracked mag" to the mix.

After reading wynn's post I checked and one of my CW45 mags has the same hairline stress cracks that he described. (I'm guessing ~200 rounds through it).

I think crash has hit on the reason for these failures and bet that others will find some as well, now that the problem has been discovered.

Both CW40 mags and PM9's are ok for now but this situation will bear watching for sure.
Well...Back to Sears Roebuck I guess..

[johnatw]

Wynn
I have 6 magazines for my CW 40 and none show any sign of a crack in the weld or any place else. I have run over 3,000 rounds through the pistol, but have purchased the magazines at different times over the past 12 months. Therefore I can't say how many rounds went through one particular magazine.
John

[500KV]

The mass of the .45 round itself may be a contributing factor during recoil. Has it only been the .45 mags so far?
I would have expected the 40 cal. mags to show these signs, probably more recoil, but of course the rounds are lighter than the .45.

[jocko]

u don't hear of other brands of magazines splitting like these, so I just ain't buying the mass/recoil thing. They are just bad magazines. Besides that my P380 mags did the same thing when I bought the gun new in less than 200 rounds. Since replacement have around 1500+- in the replacement magazines and they look new.

Send um back to kahr let them replace them and also have a goodl ook at them to. A shame there is no lot# on these magazines, so they could trace them, but they might be able to do it through the serial number of your gun when the magazines came with it. Might give them some insight...