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| The Kahr Arms CW9 with DeSantis Belt Slide and Apache ankle holster. |
The new Kahr Arms CW9 (Concealed Weapon) is, as I see it, the "but" handgun, long needed in the Kahr line-up. The CW9 overcomes the one sticking point I've repeatedly heard when someone was discussing various concealed-carry handguns and had almost, but not quite, settled on buying one of the Kahr pistols. They would comment the guns were a bit pricey, saying something along the line of, "It's (while gesturing to a particular Kahr) just what I want, but…it's more (money) than I can afford." (I've also not heard anyone, in similar circumstance, say Kahr pistols were not worth the asking price.)
Gun Details
Kahr Arm's press release on the CW9 describes the pistol as being "value priced," a marketing term which should be familiar to most consumers. For me, when I hear or read this, I think "cheaper" or "less for the same price" and I tune out.
Fortunately, before reading this, I had occasion to meet and speak with Kahr Arms Vice President, Frank Harris, who let me examine a preproduction sample of the CW9 last year at a trade show. He disabused me of any concerns as to a decrease in quality. He explained that the purpose of the CW9 was to allow Kahr Arms to expand its market share, and the company recognized that a lower retail price, while maintaining good quality, would go a long way toward accomplishing this. Frank went on to say that the CW9 is the result of a thoughtful re-examination of the gun's manufacturing process, with an eye to reducing cost via less machine time to make the gun but, he emphasized, without a reduction in quality. Indeed, the CW9 has a suggested retail price of $533, while the PM9 list at $676...a significant 21-percent price reduction.
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| The author found the CW9 pleasant to shoot. |
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| The CW9's polymer sights have white-dot front and white-bar rear inserts. |
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| The CW9 (right) uses flat cuts to eliminate the sharp edges, while the P9 (left) has its edges rounded. |
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| Compare Kahr P9 (above) to CW9. |
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| Five shots fired from 17 yards. |
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| Bob George, left, and Bill Cassidy, right, each fired half of this 7-yard group with the Kahr Arms CW9. |
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| Kahr feed ramp is offset to left. |
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| The Kahr magazine has a metal insert in polymer follower to decrease wear. |
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| The external extractor serves as a loaded-chamber indicator. |
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| The Kahr slide travels on metal inserts, the front two within the dust cover. |
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| As seen from the under front of the slide, note how the front sight of the CW9 is staked on with two pins. |
Upon receiving a regular production T&E sample, I then went about comparing the CW9 with a P9, from which the CW9 derived, while trying to recall the changes Frank Harris had pointed out.
Before getting into these, for review I went back and read what I had written in 1995 about the first Kahr Arms, the K9, on which the entire Kahr line is based, the CW9 included. What I wrote then follows, in abbreviated form.
"The concept for the Kahr pistols comes from Justin Moon, President of Kahr Arms, who, as a longtime admirer of both the GLOCK and SIG pistol designs, went about creating what he saw to be the smallest 9mm that could handle +P 9mm loads. In this he was obviously successful and holds, jointly with Kahr Arms, patents on the cocking cam, the striker and the manner in which the trigger is attached to the trigger bar."
I liked the K9 then and wrote that it was (and is) a comfortable-to-carry, dependable and accurate concealment arm, backed by a company committed to quality. At that time, Kahr Arms sent a letter along with the instruction booklet spelling out the various 9mm loads it had found to be satisfactory, including: Winchester USA brand 115-grain FMJ and 115-grain Silvertip; Remington UMC 115-grain FMJ and 115-grain JHP; Federal American Eagle 115-grain FMJ; Federal Classic 9BP Hydra-Shok 115-grain JHP; 124-grain JHP and 147-grain JHP; and PMC 115-grain FMJ and JHP.
At that time, Kahr Arms also indicated the K9 had been tested with Cor-Bon +P 115-grain loads, but it had not been run through all +P and +P + 9mm offerings. The letter then also admonished the reader not to consider the K9 reliable until 200 rounds had been fired.
The current instruction booklet does not have such a list, but does continue the strong suggestion to shoot a few hundred rounds before considering the gun to be totally reliable. I would guess that over the years, the pistols, both in 9mm and .40 S&W, have had enough exposure to alleviate this concern.
Continuing to review the design, the Kahr pistols do combine GLOCK and SIG styles, if not designs. The stainless slide is very much GLOCK as it's rectangular; and the grip frame shaping, in the PM series polymer, follows that of the SIG P-239. The polymer frames have impressed checkering front and rear, with fine stippling on the sides. The Kahr is double-action-only, striker fired and has a trigger pull weight which can range from seven to nine pounds.
There is no second-strike capability for a misfired round. To re-strike the primer, the slide must be retracted about one-half inch to reset the striker. (I think the desirability of being about to re-strike the misfired round is much overrated, given the quality of modern ammunition. If you do have a bad round, the overwhelming odds are it won't go off even if you hit it with a sledgehammer!) The feed ramp area of the barrel is off-set to the left of center such that the trigger drawbar is flush with the receiver body, decreasing the width of the gun.
The CW9 follows the original design, it does not have any external manual safeties. Indeed, the only external controls are the slide stop and the magazine release catch, both on the left side of the gun in their normal location.
The same magazine used in the standard-size Kahr continues in the CW9, but only one, not the usual two, is included. It has a stainless steel tube, holds seven rounds, has a removable plastic base plate as well as six cartridge witness holes on either side of the magazine body. The magazine follower, while polymer, has a round metal plug insert in its left forward face where the follower and the metal slide stop interact. This greatly enhances long-term durability of the follower.
The CW9's sights are different. They are polymer and the front sight is now pinned into the slide (but with two pins to ensure staying put) rather than being inset into a dovetail. The rear sight continues to fit into a dovetail cut whose width has been reduced front to rear. The sights still have the circular white-dot front and white-vertical-bar centered rear.
The CW9 lacks the rounding of edges found in other Kahrs. Flat and angled machine cuts have been substituted, which achieve the same no-snag surfaces. For example, the muzzle is a series of inward sloping cuts to allow easy re-holstering and rather than rounding the slide, the top edge is now an angle-flat cut. Also, the curved "artistic" line on both sides of the slide has been dropped. The next change is the barrel, which is conventionally rifled compared to the polygonal rifling used in what I now see as the "Traditional" or "Classic" line.
A lower-profile slide stop, first used on the subcompact Kahr, is on the CW9 and is made by Metal Injection Molding (MIM). To doubly ensure the durability of the MIM part, internally the opening beneath the barrel that controls its locking and unlocking is now wider, which then spreads the recoil force over a larger area of the slide stop's crosspin, decreasing stress on the metal. A very clever engineering change!
The recoil spring and guide are not captive, but remove and re-install in the normal manner. Kahr Arms emphatically states that the recoil spring must be replaced after 3,000 rounds. I suggest more frequent change if +P or +P+9mm ammunition is fired.
Range Time
After picking up the CW9, Joe Venezia and I did the range work indoors at the Lower Providence Rod and Gun Club in Oaks, Pennsylvania, due to bad weather. Jointly, we fired about 50 rounds of Remington 124-grain JRN to follow the break-in direction, albeit shortened, and to re-acquaint ourselves with the Kahr DAO trigger. With a Shoot-N-C "Dirty Bird" humanoid target set up at 17 yards, we both shot for group and then did some draw-and -shoot drills using a very nice DeSantis Belt Slide holster previously in earlier Kahr T&Es (Kahr Arms features holsters from DeSantis, Mitch Rosen Leatherworks, Galco and Renegade).
Neither Joe nor I had a good day this time out. We would manage to get three or four good hits, but one would always slip out. It was no fault of the gun though, since we both called the "out" shot before checking the target. But even with this, the groups remained under three inches.
The CW9 liked Remington Golden Saber 115- and 124-grain JHP, Cor-Bon Performance Match 140- and 147-grain JRN and the Cor-Bon 100-grain DPX defense load. The CW9 also shot well with Hornady 115- and 124-grain JHP/XTP and Winchester "white box" 124-grain JRN, 124-grain Partition Gold JHP and 147-grain SXT Personal Protection, as well as Federal 105-grain Expanding Full Metal Jacket Personal Defense ammunition. I also shot up some old stock: Samson 124-grain JHP and PMC 124-grain JRN. The CW9 did not like any of the brands of the non-toxic or frangible ammunition, with groups opening up to five inches. This is curious, as I have had excellent results with this ammunition in other 9s. Perhaps more rounds through it will improve the performance.
Two other club members stopped by and also shot the CW9 and the four of us had a total of two malfunctions; in both instances a failure to chamber the first round, one from slide lock and other with the slide forward. Both times, the loading cycle was redone and the cartridge successfully chambered. Since these occurred well after shooting over 100 rounds, it might just have been the gun was getting dirty. This was borne out when I was cleaning the gun and noted it was particularly dirty, perhaps due to burning up the old ammo.
Now, I don't have any inside information about the company's philosophy, but during my continued review and examination of Kahr pistols I've always had the thought that they were over-engineered. Don't misconstrue this; I mean it as high praise with the Kahr effort ranking with such firearms as the Heckler & Koch Model P7 handgun and their world-famous MP-5 submachine gun, or the SIGARMS Model 210, which looks and runs similar to a Rolex watch (with a price to match).
As my friend John Lysak observed, what Kahr Arms has done here is what some old-timers might remember: Kahr has simply made a more-affordable version, somewhat akin to what S&W did with its large-frame .357 Magnum revolver. S&W simply cut out the "frills" and came up with Highway Patrolman that lacked the high blue finish and some checkering and grooving on the top strap and barrel - same gun, but at a lower cost.
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