I bought my P40 for my 21st birthday last year in April. I waited the standard 3 day wait for it and was stoked when it arrived just in time for me to take it home.
The fit and finish was excellent and the trigger was silky smooth. Me being a small guy (5' 7" and 140 lbs), this pistol is a dream for me to hold. I took it home and learned how to take it apart and got a good feel for how everything in it works. I gave it a good scrubbing to get the test ammo powder out of it and even took apart the mags and cleaned those.
It was time and I was thrilled, like every gun owner when the time comes to fire your new weapon.
I loaded up the mags with some American Eagle FMJs for a good initial 50-round shakedown. Set up my target (lived in the boons, I miss shooting in my own yard!) and got ready. The first round hit the bullseye. The second round hit the bullseye. Every round was either a bullseye or close to it at 10 yards... Not one single hiccup. The recoil was extremely manageable for such a small, lightweight pistol as well!
I took it inside for a quick strip down and cleaning since I like to keep 'em clean during the break-in period. I went through 400 rounds that day without issue.
Now if you've read this far, you will have gotten the hint that I was extremely impressed! Onto the bad.
The time came to show the pistol to some friends. We had a little hootnanny (hah, what a fun word) one day at the house and of course, all I've been doing is bragging about this gun. I hand it to my friend with the slide locked back along with a full mag. Let the problems begin! Well, he doesn't end up making any considerable marks on the target at 15 yards. He hands it to our other friend, who repeats this feat. Bullets ALL over the paper. I take it and try again, same thing. The accuracy has suddenly taken a big dump. I field stripped it and cleaned it and oiled it. I inspected it for damage and everything seemed in order so I tried again, going reaaaaal steady. The marks improved, but still nothing comparable to before. I, as well as my friends, were let down.
I later discovered the magazine followers had all shattered to pieces, and it was time to go back to Kahr. Their customer service was alright, they arranged for FedEx to come get it and it was returned to me in about 3 weeks later with two extra magazines "for my troubles". They had replaced the barrel, "polished the extractor", and replaced all of the followers/included some extras. They had a bad batch of polymer from their supplier for the followers and were steadily dishing new ones out to people (or so said the CS rep over the phone).
I cleaned it up, brought it outside and tried my hand at another target at 10 yards, a soda can. I hit the can 5 times out of 18 rounds. At this point I'm wondering if it really is my own doing, so I went inside and grabbed my G22 and GP100, and they shoot the can JUST FINE at 10 yards, go figure! I pick the P40 back up and fire some more, only this time the pistol is failing to go into battery completely every couple of rounds. The slide would hang up at the very last few MM's of travel and I would gently "thumb" it forward the rest of the way. To top it off, another magazine follower broke AND now the mags are dropping after every shot fired.
I called Kahr once again, obviously LIVID at this point. It gets sent back way later because I was in the process of moving. It came back in 3 days this time with a note saying they replaced the entire upper half of the pistol, the magazine followers, magazine catch, and magazine catch spring. I sent them an email asking why, and the answer was that the barrel was "excessively peened, which destroyed the slide". Until this time, I had no idea what "peening" was and had to look it up, but once I found out it made sense to me.
I cleaned it up once again and took it to a friend's house. I was actually helping him move out and he shoots on that property all the time, so we fired just two test shots, which of course isn't much but just those two shots proved to be one hell of an improvement because I nailed two bottles at ~20 yards or so with the two shots. I think the accuracy is back for now, but who knows how long that will last..
I will of course update this later after a full evaluation.
What you are probably wondering is, "Do you trust this weapon now?"
The bottom line is, quite frankly... "Yes."
The fit and finish was excellent and the trigger was silky smooth. Me being a small guy (5' 7" and 140 lbs), this pistol is a dream for me to hold. I took it home and learned how to take it apart and got a good feel for how everything in it works. I gave it a good scrubbing to get the test ammo powder out of it and even took apart the mags and cleaned those.
It was time and I was thrilled, like every gun owner when the time comes to fire your new weapon.
I loaded up the mags with some American Eagle FMJs for a good initial 50-round shakedown. Set up my target (lived in the boons, I miss shooting in my own yard!) and got ready. The first round hit the bullseye. The second round hit the bullseye. Every round was either a bullseye or close to it at 10 yards... Not one single hiccup. The recoil was extremely manageable for such a small, lightweight pistol as well!
I took it inside for a quick strip down and cleaning since I like to keep 'em clean during the break-in period. I went through 400 rounds that day without issue.
Now if you've read this far, you will have gotten the hint that I was extremely impressed! Onto the bad.
The time came to show the pistol to some friends. We had a little hootnanny (hah, what a fun word) one day at the house and of course, all I've been doing is bragging about this gun. I hand it to my friend with the slide locked back along with a full mag. Let the problems begin! Well, he doesn't end up making any considerable marks on the target at 15 yards. He hands it to our other friend, who repeats this feat. Bullets ALL over the paper. I take it and try again, same thing. The accuracy has suddenly taken a big dump. I field stripped it and cleaned it and oiled it. I inspected it for damage and everything seemed in order so I tried again, going reaaaaal steady. The marks improved, but still nothing comparable to before. I, as well as my friends, were let down.
I later discovered the magazine followers had all shattered to pieces, and it was time to go back to Kahr. Their customer service was alright, they arranged for FedEx to come get it and it was returned to me in about 3 weeks later with two extra magazines "for my troubles". They had replaced the barrel, "polished the extractor", and replaced all of the followers/included some extras. They had a bad batch of polymer from their supplier for the followers and were steadily dishing new ones out to people (or so said the CS rep over the phone).
I cleaned it up, brought it outside and tried my hand at another target at 10 yards, a soda can. I hit the can 5 times out of 18 rounds. At this point I'm wondering if it really is my own doing, so I went inside and grabbed my G22 and GP100, and they shoot the can JUST FINE at 10 yards, go figure! I pick the P40 back up and fire some more, only this time the pistol is failing to go into battery completely every couple of rounds. The slide would hang up at the very last few MM's of travel and I would gently "thumb" it forward the rest of the way. To top it off, another magazine follower broke AND now the mags are dropping after every shot fired.
I called Kahr once again, obviously LIVID at this point. It gets sent back way later because I was in the process of moving. It came back in 3 days this time with a note saying they replaced the entire upper half of the pistol, the magazine followers, magazine catch, and magazine catch spring. I sent them an email asking why, and the answer was that the barrel was "excessively peened, which destroyed the slide". Until this time, I had no idea what "peening" was and had to look it up, but once I found out it made sense to me.
I cleaned it up once again and took it to a friend's house. I was actually helping him move out and he shoots on that property all the time, so we fired just two test shots, which of course isn't much but just those two shots proved to be one hell of an improvement because I nailed two bottles at ~20 yards or so with the two shots. I think the accuracy is back for now, but who knows how long that will last..
I will of course update this later after a full evaluation.
What you are probably wondering is, "Do you trust this weapon now?"
The bottom line is, quite frankly... "Yes."
