Trying to make my buddies Kahr 380 work.Nice looking little gun but the most unreliable semi I have ever messed with. Other Kahrs have been fine but not this one. From what I have been reading, they are known to have a lot of issues. FTF, FTE, FTC- you name it. Tried 4 different factory mags and 5 different brands of ammo. Is there a fix or is it just a dead horse? Any help would be appreciated. Craig

Have you tried the standard 'rack the slide 200 times, lock the slide back overnight, clean & lube' routine already?

Tomac

What are the specific problems with this pistol?

If brand new, this is pretty much step 1.

I have racked it---jacked it---locked it---lubed it, all the basic 101 procedures. Left it locked back for several days. Slide moves freely. I have over 50 handguns and worked on more than I can remember. Not all Sigs or high end guns. A lot of middle of the road guns. I have had some that need a break in amount of rounds to get 99% reliability. Some picky on ammo. Even with those guns, they will run 4-5 or more rounds, even a full mag at times until things settle in. If this P380 manages to chamber the round at all you would be lucky to get 2 consecutive rounds off. It has a pretty strong recoil spring. Considerably more so than my other small compact 380's. Not sure where to go with it. Pisses me off that I can not identify the problem. One of the dealers I use to do transfers said he just will not sell the P380 any more. I just can not believe it can not be fixed. Craig

Here is what I find. Tell me what you think. Total slide travel without recoil spring is 1.320. Installed length of recoil spring(there is 2--an inner and outer) is 1.795. Outer spring has a wire diameter of .035. There are 14 .5 coils.  1.795 coil installed length minus 1.32 slide movement leaves .475 left for compressed spring. 14.5 coils equals .507 coil bind. I have never seen recoil springs that were not closed wound flat end on both ends. These are only one end closed flat and the other looks like they were just cut with wire cutters. In fact they were because you can see under a scope the jagged cut.  I will size up a bunch of different spring rates and see what happens. I will keep you informed in case someone else needs help. Craig

The best advice I can give you is Glock 42.

Done anything crazy like contact Kahr?

I can tell you what's wrong with it but I'm going to sleep so here's the short and sweet

the little metal protrusion on the slide lever is being contacted by the bullet itself sometimes and causes it to lock prematurely

i ground one down and now it works perfectly.
the one kahr sent me to replace it does the same crap

works great now, but I don't have last round hold open.

I'll put up a photo in the am.

I would contact Kahr.  OP, I think you’ve gone about everything common sense to resolve the issue.

the Kahr polymer design seems very sensitive to design tolerances.  If everything is working perfectly, they run well and the big complaint is spare mags will dump loaded rounds during carry.

If something is a little off in a particular build, they are jammomatics that can go back to Kahr several times without ever being fixed.  And spare mags will still dump loaded rounds during carry.

Personally, I’ve been tempted to pick up a P380 a couple of times because they are tiny pistols that fit my hand about as well as a tiny gun can, and they have real sights.  But these stories keep popping up snd I don’t need another source of high blood pressure.

And now St. Gaston came along and gave me the G42, so I have moved on.

I’d be curious to see this fix.

My buddy contacted Kahr. Response was , well that is why I have it. I am damn determined to fix this thing so I will keep you informed. Thanks all of you for your input. Oh- he has already purchased  a Glock.

I totally got busy yesterday and forgot. I'll try to make a youtube vid showing you the deal. I've had the problem with PM9's and P380's many times. Great guns, but it's their major flaw.
I carry mine everyday because it's absolutely accurate. Just don't have the last round hold open, but neither do most tiny semi-autos so no big deal.

Had one.  Choke-a-matic.  Did not work with American factory ball ammo.  Sent to Kahr.  Came back.  Still didn't work.  Dumped it.  Flaming piece of shit.  BTW, Kahr acknowledged that the instructions were incorrect for field strip.  Genius.  Fuck Kahr and their P380.  Never again.  Never forgive, never forget.  

That’s crazy OP

I haven’t had any issues with mine since the initial 200rd break in period and like the gun since it’s small and has real sights, but I had toyed with the idea of replacing it recently and shelved it because I haven’t had issues.  Posts like these always seem to put that bug back in my head of “maybe just get an LCP”.

Guess I'm lucky, mine's worked flawlessly.

I have the CW380 and it is also flawless after a couple of jams with WWB flat nosed ammo in the first hundred rounds. Since then it has digested every round of ammo, including the Gold Dot hollow points I carry it with and has functioned perfectly. I have just over 500 rounds through it so far, which is a lot of rounds for this type handgun. It is a special purpose gun as I needed a stainless and polymer micro gun to carry while cycling. Long rides in hot or warm weather is sweaty business on a bicycle. My Glock 42 is too big for that job and isn't stainless. I will also have to say that the CW380 shoots much better than should be expected for a gun that size.

I also had a Kahr P9, which was my warm weather carry gun for 7-8 years. It never required a break in period and never jammed regardless of the ammo brand, type or power level. Not one jam. I carried Gold Dots in it as well. Only replaced it when Glock got the trigger pull right on their newly introduced Glock 43. First ones of that model had stupid stiff triggers which I would not tolerate. Could only bring myself to sell the P9 after several years when another man really, really wanted it. Since I replace it with the G43 I eventually did sell it to him.

Kahr handgun magazines can sometimes cause feeding problems. I never had any issues with my two Kahrs including a couple of extra mags for each, but others have. Shame, but it seems like something which Kahr could fix, but they still haven't done a good job correcting the issues with some of their handguns, especially in the .380 size. The real world Kahr owners I have met on the shooting ranges or in gun shops are fans of the guns, but not everyone has had a good experience with the brand. Kahr has a good design and they should put a bit extra into ensuring that every gun functions correctly before leaving the factory. My opinion only.

Real world experiences of actual people with the Kahr guns in-hand is something the factory should be interested in, as opposed to others on the internet who just parrot any criticism. You know these type posters, the ones who pick a brand (Sig, Glock, S&W, etc.) and just "parrot" any kind of criticism usually without any personal hands-on experience. Or often with stupid one-liners which add zero to the discussion. People like the OP offer actual good experiences to share on forums along with other posters who offer quality advice. The "parrot complainers" only muddy the water for anyone wanting good information. Worthless as tits on a boar hog they are.

Check out all the threads and videos on rounding the lower edge of the extractor so that the case rim slides under it without effort while chambering.  Makes the gun feed perfectly.  If you goof up, an extractor is cheap to replace.  I got one for $150 because it was a jam omatic. Did that fix before I shot it and never had a malfunction.  Can slow cycle load it by hand.  No slide lock release nonsense.

@CMSENGINE any updates?

I do a lot of gunsmithing and am confident doing work on guns. I've only had a few I couldn't get running (and I did have some issues long ago with a PM9, and I didn't trust it after that--but I loved my P9).

I bought 3 Kahr CW380s, one after another, trying to get one that could be made to work. Finally, I gave up. I tried the fluff and buff, slide-open, racking, and even breaking them in with hot ammo (first 2 got about 500rds, third only got 300).

I went with a G42...then a 43...then, after the bugs were worked out, a P365...now a 365 (with XL grip) and a 43X are competing to see which gets carried. None have needed a break-in or anything to be 100%.  

For super tiny 380s, I really loved my RM380 (got it for like $199 with a $50 rebate or something insane). It shot almost as soft as the 42 (though not as accurate) and was almost as tiny as the Kahr/LCP.

I have a stainless slide one. Bought used. Had issues. Sent back to Kahr twice and they stood behind their product. Eventually they replaced the frame. I guess they had a bad batch of frames. It has been fine since. I bought another one because you cannot beat the size and I liked the trigger the best of all the micro pistols I tried. Black slide and night sights. No issues with this one. That's my story. A true pocket pistol though I always carry an extra mag.

My P380 is rock solid, never jammed.  I bought it new. The only think I did was polish the feed ramp with a Dremel and jeweler's rouge. But none of this fixes your problems.

Call Kahr.

Here is the update on the Kahr 380.I called a dealer I have known for years who has sold a fair number of Kahr's. He said Kahr has a lifetime warranty and he would send it in. So that is where it is at, and no word yet from them. Hopefully they will be able to fix it because it is worthless at this time. I will let you know how it turns out when it comes back. Craig

LCP2 is peak baby-380.

Same exact issue and fix for mine. I don’t mind not having last round hold open. I really don’t carry mine much though. My J frame usually is my edc.

I tried all the known methods, but only sent one of the three duds back--and it came back just as bad.

I'd tell your friend to sell it and buy a Ruger LCP MAX (10/12+1 and BARELY bigger than the CW380).
The trigger won't be as smooth, but so far, this is an insanely amazing gun (though I only have 127rds through it).

I ended up doing this to my Ruger EC9s as well.  Went to Ruger. Still did it.  Bought a 2nd slide lock lever, filed off the nub and BOOM! Never did it again. Only complaint about this fix is the mag ejection is really soft now vs before they flew out.

But this ammo issue of today, has me pondering about dumping it and getting a LCR 38special. I have ALOT of components for reloading 38s.  But I'm just rambling now.