Kahr CM9 Range Report

[dbeardslee]

My new CM9 came home with me yesterday, and last night I did some of the recommended break in. I racked the slide 500 times, and dry fired it 200 - probably more. The trigger is a little hard to figure out to get good follow through, so the dry firing is definitely time well spent. That Kahr trigger grows on you though. More on that later.

I think most of the recommended slide racking can be traced to one thing - polymer rails. I did my homework on this thing before I bought it, and I knew the rails were made out of glass filled nylon - which is some pretty tough stuff and about as chemical resistant as plastic gets. There are two small 4140 steel inserts near the rear of the slide, and two 4140 runners in the front part of the frame. The one's in the front engage slots cut into the slide, with the result being metal forward and aft guiding the slide. I kind of like the idea of the slide running in a track both fore and aft. I also kind of like the idea of the polymer rails as plastic is some pretty slippery stuff, and modern plastics will sometimes outperform steel - we'll see. The inserts and runners are two of the patents that Kahr holds on this pistol's design - and there's 5 more hiding in there somewhere.

The slide is made out of 416 stainless, and my understanding of the properties of steel is the same type of steel rubbing together can cause galling. To avoid that the solution is evidently to use dissimilar types of metal. 416 Stainless rubbing on 4140 would suggest to me that's why they're made out of different metals. That's just a guess from somebody who knows very little about metallurgy, though. Anyway, it's a different kind of setup.

I fired 165 rounds to get a good jump on the break in - not that it seemed to need any. The only malfunction I experienced, if you can call it that, is the slide failed to lock back on the last round for the first five or six magazines. It was underpowered Federal Champion stuff, as well as the first full recoil with the tightly fitted slide, so I didn't worry too much about it. I fired 50 rounds of the Federal with no other issues at all. Except this thing is pretty darn accurate. My test target was a soup can sitting on the 25 yard line, and once I figured out where the sights were hitting it was a pretty dead soup can.

It does shoot high, around 10" at 25 yards with the Federals. I switched to Fiocchi 115 gr JHP's and it gobbled them up like it was starving for them. The poi came down a bit with them to more like 6" high at 25 yards. 50 more rounds of Federal Champions, and low and behold the slide lock problem had fixed itself. And poi was back to 10" high. I finished with 15 rounds of Winchester 147 gr JHP Personal Protection. Point of impact with those was still high but about where the Fiocchi's were hitting - maybe a little lower 4-5" high. Accuracy seemed about the same as did recoil.

And speaking of recoil, it's actually kind of pleasant. Kahr claims that due to their patented offset trigger bar and cam they are able to put the barrel lower in your hand. The lower the barrel is the more of a straight back push your going to get on recoil, and the less muzzle flip. I'm always skeptical about those kind of claims, but you know what - I think it's true. The recoil wasn't bothersome at all, and it really didn't require the death grip you would think. If you don't want the double action only trigger making a negative contribution to accuracy, it's a good idea to hold on pretty tight, though.

And speaking of that trigger - it's patently different - that's for sure. It sort of defies description, but I'll make an attempt. My trigger gauge has it at 7.5 pounds, but it's the weirdest 7.5 pounds you'll ever feel - and I mean that in a good way. It's smooth all the way back, and you can almost stage it at the end of the pull - which is kinda long. Not too terrible though, and double taps aren't too tough. The tough part about the trigger is, when it lets off you've got 7.5 pounds of pressure snapping back and it causes the sights to want to move a bit. You have to really look for the sweet spot in terms of grip and trigger pull technique. For me I found if I concentrated on pulling back with my non firing hand near the bottom of the trigger gaurd, pushing forward firmly with my firing hand, with my firing thumb down (to keep it out of the way of the tip of my trigger finger - monkey thumbs, you know), non firing thumb laced with firing thumb, and pulling with the joint of my trigger finger rather than the pad worked the best when dry firing. Worked the best on the range too, which is why that dry firing time is time well spent. Something like that is real hard to figure out under recoil.

I found this puppy to be a pretty decent 25 yard plinker - whooda thunkit? The reload cycle came around pretty often with just a six round magazine - I didn't realize how much muscle memory I had developed for loading ten . I tried it on a number of loadings with a full mag and one up the spout and I don't think this thing knows what a malfunction is. It just seemed to be happy there was more to eat - it's a little glutton. And dead nuts reliable. I'm gonna have to do something about those sights, though, and see if I can bring the poi down around 6". Anyone who knows me knows sights are one of my pet peaves. I'm going to have to shoot some paper to figure that one out, though.

I'll get some pics up later when I clean the little princess. I'm kind of surprised that my right arm feels fine. If I'd fired 165 rounds through my PT145 it would probably be talking to me about it right about now. I can't say enough about how well that pistol handles the 9mm recoil in such a small package. Grips a bit rough, but I wear gloves. Hey, I'm getting old - so I cheat. If you've ever been in the Ohio Valley in July, you know how humid it gets around here, and the heat and humidity did more to kick my butt than anything. Right now my nap alarm is going off, but I'll put pics up later.

[Armed Pacifist]

Congrats! Welcome to the Kahr club. Hope she keeps treating you right.

[chicharrones]

Good range report, very detailed which I find very useful.

A couple of questions though.

Did you fire this little pocket dragon at closer ranges than 25 yards? If so, how was high was the POI at the closer ranges?

Also, did you happen to "point shoot" with it at those closer ranges? I like CCW pistols that point shoot well at say, 5 yards or less.

[dbeardslee]

Here's the thing - the 25 yard mid range trajectory of a 9mm bullet is going to be something on the order of 1". To be 6-10" high at 25 yards means its going to be high all the way back to were the bullets path crosses the line of sight - which I would guess is somewhere around 7 yards. Aha! you might say - that's perfect for a self defense weapon! Except for one little thing - at 7 yards the only thing I'm going to look at is the front sight, so for me the adjustment is pretty moot at that range.

I grew up plinking tin cans at 25 yards, and that's still what I like to do the best. If it's tuned in at 25 yards, then the maximum the bullet is going to be off at any range back to the muzzle is that 1" mid range trajectory, or the distance from the center of the barrel to the top of the sights. On this pistol that appears to be about 9/16". As far as the range at 7 yards it would be at worst 9/16" low. See what I'm driving at? I won't be sacrificing anything short, but I'll be gaining better accuracy at longer ranges.

What I shot today was all from the 25 yard line. It's under cover, and there's a carpeted picnic table that makes for a good rest. There wasn't anybody else on the range, so I guess I could have gone shorter. Thought about it, but the sun was really beating down and the humidity was bad enough. I took the lazy mans way out and stayed in the shade. I've got some more stuff I'm planning to do - chrono and water jugs mit der denim. Haven't tried any +P's through it yet either, so that's on the list. Today I really just wanted to run some rounds through it and get it broken in, and see how it acted. I just bought a pistol, so my ammo budget said go to wally world. As it stands I wouldn't hesitate to carry it.

I liked the looks of the Winchester 147 gr JHP's and I saved some for a jug test. At $20 for a box of 50 they weren't too bad. Definitely cheaper to shoot than the .45's. I'm likin' it a lot.

[dbeardslee]

I'll say one thing for Kahr - they certainly lubricate their pistols thoroughly. I think they put a bit too much on it as it keeps oozing out of different places. The manual tells you not to strip it any farther than field stripping, and cautions that if it's improperly reassembled and fails the warranty is void. So I read that as 'make damn sure you put it back together right.' I wanted that oil out, and I wanted to replace it with my favorite underarm spray (OFH will explain that reference, if he shows up ), so I went looking for detail disassembly instructions. I found an excellent video, but the guy in it is doing a real Charlie Chaplin - it's a silent video, which is weird. Shows what you need to know, though.


With the aid of the video I broke the slide down all the way. The arrow shows where the missing nut for the end of the recoil spring rod should be. I called Kahr from my FFL and they're sending me a complete recoil spring assembly. Gotta love free extra parts . In the meantime it runs just fine without the nut - more cosmetic than anything.




The trickiest part of the whole thing is getting the rear cover off. The extractor assembly actually runs all the way back to the end of the slide, and it has a little detente rod at the very back. That rod engages a cutout in the cover, and the cover ain't coming off till you push that little bugger out of the way. I used a very small jewelers screwdriver to push it in - you don't have much room so it takes something very small. You also have to hold the striker spring guide rod forward to get it off, and the video shows a good way to use the slide stop to retain it. This clearly shows the cutout for the extractor rod in the cover -




And here the arrows point to both the cutout and the channel for the rod -




And one from a different angle -




Although I don't think it's a great idea never to detail strip, clean, and lubricate your slide assembly, Kahr has done something very simple but potentially affective to address cleaning. The arrow points to a hole in the slide that's there to insert the tip of an aerosol cleaner's red tube. You're supposed to hose it out through that port which allows the debris and solution to run in both directions. And this pistol seems to be loaded with simple little common sense solutions like that. For me, I'll take it apart every now and then, but the ability to effectively hose out the channel should reduce the necessity.




The slide itself is a pretty beafy chunk of metal. Of the 14 ounces that it weighs without a magazine, only 3.57 ounces are accounted for by the frame. School I went to that means the slide with all it's components accounts for the other 10.03 ounces. And that's probably another contributing factor to the very manageable recoil of this pistol - a high percentage of the weight is in the part that moves.


As far as the frame is concerned, it had some interesting secrets to reveal. First thing I noticed was the front of the frame looked funny. I kept thinking the slide was sitting crooked, until closer examination revealed it to have kind of a modified coke bottle shape to it. They beafed up the plastic in this location, and I'm guessing it's to add more support to the molded-in 4140 guide rails. I put two roughly parallel lines so it would make it more obvious where it flairs out.




The top of the trigger acts as a stop that arrests it's forward movement by making contact with the frame -




You want to be careful not to get your finger too high on the trigger as it can catch you there. It's not really much of a problem as the nature of the trigger tends to put your finger more on the center of it. But if you're wearing gloves they might get snagged if you're not watching for it.




Where the lug on the bottom of barrel drops into the frame, there is just enough room for it. Kahr left the plastic very thick in that location which I think was smart - it's where the slide stop goes through, so the extra plastic should help with durability.




Here you can see the patented offset trigger bar. This allows Kahr to put the barrel lower in the slide with dividends paid to reduced felt recoil.




And here you can see the trigger disconnect tit towards the rear of the trigger bar. You can also see the 4140 inserts in the rear of the rails, as well as the ejector and the sear in its trigger-forward position.




And a couple shots of the sear. This shows the sear in it's forward position. As the slide comes forward it catches the hook on the striker, and puts it into a half cock position. If you look at the back of the slide rails you can also see the 4140 inserts near the back of the rails. And ain't that a purty ejector?




As the trigger is pulled the sear moves to the back, fully cocking the striker until it breaks and the striker goes forward to strike the primer. The other lobe on the sear moves up at the same time to overcome the striker block. If you don't pull the trigger, it won't go bang. Even if the striker managed to slip off the sear (which it can't), it's only at half cock and probably wouldn't have enough energy to do much - even if it got past the block. It's plenty safe - but the manual safety is your trigger finger. This shows the position of the sear with the trigger fully rearward.




And this last shot shows the barrel itself. Note how thin the metal is at the bottom of the lug - again contributing to getting the barrel as low in the frame as possible.





And if you're curious about the video - here it is. I saved it for last - otherwise you might not have checked out my camera work .

[sparks9293]

Congrats on your Kahr. Outstanding review and all the pictures made it easy to follow your key points.

[chicharrones]

That is great info, dbeardslee. I can't say I've seen the innards of a Kahr shown on the net like that before.

[dbeardslee]

Glad you liked it, Chico. Actually I was just trying to get you to salivate enough to push you over the edge to buy one . Seriously though, I don't know about you, but I can never seem to find the details I really want to know. I found enough information scattered around to make a decision, and just enough to get me really interested in the stuff I couldn't find.

A couple other things maybe I should have mentioned - if you look at the way the sear works it appears to me that it gains mechanical advantage as it moves to the rear. That would account for the smoothness of the trigger - as the striker spring is being loaded and increasing tension, the mechanical advantage is improving and working to counteract the increased spring tension.

The other thing I should mention is by way of a pre break-in tip. Before you rack your slide 500 times it's a good idea to put some sports tape, duct tape, or a bandaid on your thumb and forefinger. You could saw wood with the serrations on the slide, and even though I was wearing gloves that pair now has one less thumb than they did when I started. My advice is don't do it bare-handed - you'll be sorry. I actually kind of like the serrations though - they're easy to get a hold of. Mostly by virtue of the way they bite into your flesh . For the number of times you would normally rack a slide though, they're really good for the job.

And, oh yeah - took my first walk with the dogs this evening with the Kahr in my pocket. All I can say is 'aaaaahhhhhh - nice'

[chicharrones]

Glad you liked it, Chico. Actually I was just trying to get you to salivate enough to push you over the edge to buy one .

If I hadn't already bought so much gun related stuff this year, it would be all I could do to track one down at a gun store. I haven't bought a carry gun in a while, so maybe in 2012 when my gun funds come back up.

[jimbeaux82]

excellent review - thanks a bunch!