Kahr pistols, Product Reviews

KAHR PM45 .45ACP

Compact, easy to carry and boasting a big bore punch it’s the ultimate mini-45!

COMBAT TEST | Combat Handguns, June 2008, p. 38 - 42, 91
By Mike Detty
Photos by Alex Landeen

With the introduction of the PM45, Kahr has rewritten the standards by which we judge concealed carry guns.

The move for individual states to issue concealed carry permits to qualified citizens has led to an unforeseen development in the firearms industry. More and more companies are offering smaller and lighter guns designed to provide the user with an easily concealable and comfortable-to-carry handgun.

Remember, it was only a decade ago when many considered the Colt Detective Special or a customized 1911 to be the ultimate concealed carry gun. None of us would have dreamed then that 10 years later we would be packing a polymer.45 with a loaded weight of just 23 ounces.

That’s exactly what the brand-new Kahr PM45 weighs loaded with 6 rounds of CorBon 165-grain Pow’RBall bullets. Weighing less than 1.5 pounds and measuring slightly more than an inch thick, the PM45 packs 5 + 1 hard-hitting .45ACP rounds. Kahr has rewritten the standards by which we judge concealed-carry pistols!

To the concealed weapons carrier the lightweight and diminutive PM45 means that the gun can be as easily concealed as a small automatic like a Walther PPK. In essence, it means that the user won’t have to sacrifice power for concealability.

Long ago, if you wanted to carry a gun chambered in .45ACP your choices were limited to one heavy gun. Fortunately, we now have more than a few manufacturers of 1911s that built subcompact guns with lightweight alloy frames. But the Kahr pistol is more compact and, believe it or not, lighter.

Gun Details

Tired of carrying heavy guns but want the stopping power of a .45ACP? Kahr’s PM45 is the answer to those looking for a compact and lightweight .45 carry gun.


Kahr Arms bevels the rear of the slide release to prevent abrasion to the shooter’s thumb.


Kahr’s patented offset feedramp allows the trigger bar to ride next to the barrel’s lug rather than under it.


Kahr molds a stainless steel insert into the polymer frame.


Kahr’s recoil spring system is what makes this tiny .45ACP pistol possible.


Disassembly of the PM45 requires no special tools.


Factory ammo consistently grouped five shots under 1.5" at 15 yards. Hornady 230gr FMJ rounds produced this 1.17" five-shot group.

The Kahr PM45 features the same double-action-only (DAO) trigger system that made the original K9 so famous and desirable. It also makes the PM45 a better choice for concealed carry than the 1911 system. The striker fired PM45 is without an external hammer and does not have a beavertail grip safety or manual thumb safety that can dig into the skin during concealed carry.

In fact, there are only two protuberances on the PM45: the magazine release-located in the Browning-inspired location and slide release. Kahr has listened to its users and now bevels the rear of the slide release to prevent abrasions to the thumb. When I fire the gun my thumb rests naturally atop of the slide stop much like it does on a 1911 safety.

Though the PM45 was two years in development, Justin Moon, Kahr Arm’s President and Chief Design Engineer, didn’t need to change much in his hugely popular PM9 template. One improvement that the Kahr engineers have made is to make the magazine release from metal. When the polymer guns were first introduced they used a plastic magazine release with a steel insert. It wasn’t a big deal for the 9mm cartridge but problems arose with the higher pressure of the .40 cartridge. The release on my own P40 broke. Kahr’s new magazine releases are manufactured with the MIM (Metal Injection Molded) process and should be impervious to breakage.

Kahr also widened the bottom of the barrel lug to provide more surface area contact with the slide stop pin. Though breakages with the pin were not that common, they occurred enough that Kahr engineers solved the problem.

I’ll have to admit that I was tremendously enamored by the original K9 when it was introduced nearly a decade ago and was more than a little leery of the polymer subcompact, PM9, chambered in 9mm, when it was unveiled four years ago. It seemed almost too light and small for good effect. This opinion changed immediately after shooting it. Its lightweight and small size has made it one of my favorite carry guns.

Like the PM9, the PM45 utilizes a polymer frame with a stainless steel insert molded into it. The idea here is that there is no metal-to-plastic contact that might accelerate the gun’s wear. Bilateral rails molded into the sides of the gun’s dust cover engage cuts on the slide’s dust cover. The stainless insert is also exposed at the rear of the frame so that the slide’s rails reciprocate on steel.

The frame features raised, grenade-style checkering on its front and rear straps to help the shooter maintain a solid firing grip panels are textured for the same reason but not to the point that it will cause clothing to hang up on it or cause abrasion should the gun be worn next to the skin.

Kahr buys rifled barrel blanks from Lothar Walther and machines the blank into a complete barrel at their facility. The barrels are made from a special blend of 4140 steel and feature polygonal rifling. Besides the incredible accuracy that they provide, higher velocities are claimed due to the better gas seal between the projectile and rifling. Polygonal rifling stays cleaner and, according to Lothar Walther, possess a longer life expectancy.

If you haven’t ever tried one of the Kahr pistols’ DAO triggers you’re missing out. It is unlike any DAO semi-autopistol. The trigger pull is approximately 0.910 of an inch long and my test sample’s trigger breaks with 7 pounds of pressure. There are no hitches or clicks or stacking during the pull, just smooth, consistent resistance. Trigger reset is positive and during my shooting evaluation I never experienced any short strokes or failure to allow the trigger enough room to rest for the next shot.

Because of the gun’s tiny dimensions, especially in the area under the barrel, it is doubtful that anyone could make a spring strong enough to reliably cycle the gun. If they were able to, the spring would be so stout that it would probably be impossible to manually cycle the slide to chamber a round.

Kahr’s solution to this problem was to use two recoil springs, one inside the other. There’s a small diameter, tightly wound spring around the steel recoil spring guide. There’s a stainless steel cap that goes over that spring, around which another spring of larger diameter is wound. This system prevents the springs from rubbing against each other so cycling is extremely smooth. It gives the gun the needed spring mass for proper functioning, yet it is still easy to hand-cycle the gun.

The right side of the slide has what appears to be an oval cut at the leading edge of the ejection port. This cut is to allow cartridges to be ejected.

Range Time

I’ve been shooting Kahr pistols for as long as they have been making them. That includes every model ever manufactured in every caliber. I have yet to find one that wasn’t extraordinarily accurate. But because of the PM45’s petite size and weight, and the fact that it is chambered for the very potent .45ACP cartridge, I wasn’t going to hold it to the same accuracy standards that I had become accustomed to. That was my mistake. I set up my targets at 15 yards and fired all of my groups utilizing a Millett BenchMaster for support. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

I fired five shots to a group. As per my usual practice, I would load five rounds in the magazine, chamber a round, put another round in the magazine and then fire the first round into the backstop. This eliminates the common 4+1 groups that afflict most semi-autos. That is, where the first round, hand cycled into the chamber, shoots to a slightly different point than the rest of the rounds.

Make no mistake about it, this gun wants to shoot. My smallest group was fired with handloads that consist of a LaserCast 200-grain round nose bullet and WW231 powder. Hornady’s 230-grain printed the smallest factory load group at just 1.17 inches though the other loads were not much bigger. It ate every round, regardless of bullet nose profile, without a chock or burp.

On another day I set up my steel targets at 12 yards and used a PACT electronic timer to measure the time between shots on double taps. My splits, or time between shots, measured consistently at half a second with the PM45. On this same day I also had a full-size, steel-framed 1911.

Using the same handloads my splits with this gun and its single-action trigger measured 45/100ths of a second. I was impressed. Look, you know ahead of time that a lightweight gun will sacrifice a certain amount of controllability. There’s just no re-engineering the laws of physics. But if I can carry a gun that weighs half of a 1911 and only give up 5/100ths of a second in controllability on a double tap, then my choice decision has been simplified.

Shooting the PM45 is not as brutal as you might imagine. I fired probably 100 rounds from the bench during the accuracy portion of the test and I did get fatigued, and start to flinch a bit towards the end of the testing but I was by no means beat up. In fact, I recently tested a 9mm pistol from another manufacturer that hurt more to shoot. Its extreme light weight and the fact that its backstrap was very narrow made it painful to shoot. But the PM45’s backstrap is broad and puts the entire width of the frame into contact with the heel of the hand.

Of course, the excellent ergonomics of the gun contribute to its shooting comfort. The gun sits low in the hand thanks to Moon’s innovative offset feed ramp. On the Kahr pistols the trigger linkage rides next to the barrel’s lug rather than below it and that makes an incredible difference in the gun’s height dimensions. Because the bore’s axis sits closer to the hand there is less muzzle flip than if the gun sat higher in the hand.

Disassembly of the PM45 for routine cleaning is simple and requires no special tools. Start by removing the magazine from the gun and then clearing the chamber. Now retract the slide until the witness mark on the frame matches up with the dimple on the left hand side of the slide. Remove the slide stop and pull the slide forward off of the frame — you’ll need to pull the trigger to get the slide all of the way off. Compress the recoil spring assembly and remove it from the bottom of the barrel. Now the barrel can be removed from the slide. For routine cleaning, this is as far as gun should be disassembled.

Kahr’s website advertises an extended six-round magazine for the PM45. It extends approximately 0.75 of an inch below the bottom of the frame. Using this magazine will undoubtedly sacrifice a certain degree of concealability but might make great sense for carry in a pocket as a reload. In any event, the extended magazine was not ready for me to evaluate at the time this was written.

Final Notes

For most of us making the decision on which gun to use for concealed carry is a gamble of sorts. Some will say that their lifestyle and threat level is extremely low and, for them, a small pocket pistol of some sort may be perfectly acceptable. While others will say that even though their lifestyle is of low threat that they still want to have as much horsepower as possible in the event that they ever do need it.

For those people the Kahr PM45 is the best bet going. With its size and weight not much bigger than most .380 pistols, the Kahr PM45 packs a fight stopping punch. There is now no reason to go with a smaller caliber for a lighter and smaller gun. But don’t just take my word for it, find a PM45 and check it out for yourself. I guarantee it will cause you to re-evaluate your concealed carry criteria.