[Ljutic]

I've had intermittent issues with my slide stop engaging when it shouldn't. I'll be 2 or 3 shots into a full mag +1 string and I'd have to thumb the slide stop down to finish the mag. It doesn't happen on every magazine, but with enough frequency to bother me. I'm well over the 200 round break in and probably coming up on the 500 round mark with this particular pistol.

A couple of weeks ago, I called Kahr about it and they sent me a new slide stop to try. When I compared the old vs. the new, I could see it wouldn't make my problem any better. My P380 had to make a trip back to Kahr when it was new. They polished some stuff and replaced the slide stop and recoil springs on that trip. I didn't realized how much they had ground down the slide stop where it hangs over the bullets and magazine follower. Putting in the new stop would have made things worse as there was more meat to come in contact with the bullet tip.

I went to the range today with 6 different ammos to try. I knew I wasn't thumbing the slide stop up during recoil, but I was extra careful about that. If I couldn't get one of the 6 ammos to work, my plan was the grind the heck out of the old stop to the point where all it would do is manually engage and eliminate all the meat that lets it manually engage off the magazine follower. So it would work similar to the slide stop on the LCP. I'd sacrifice the automatic slide hold open on empty if it would mean a more reliable gun.

At the range I got the slide stop engagement stoppage with several ammos. As a last resort, I tried the Remington Golden Saber. It was the last one I tried due to other P380 owners not having much luck with it. Happy to report that it's the best choice for this particular P380. I ran through 2 25 round boxes with zero stoppages. Based on the results with the other ammos, I should have had at least 2 stoppages with that many rounds fired.

I'm happy. Still need to try it again soon to be sure, but confidence is returning.

 

[jocko]

if it is ammo related, which it sounds like it was, one should be able to take the slide off the gun, reinsert the slide stop lever and then insert a loaded magazine and see if thouse rounds are hitting the slide stop. Also when u do it this way, u can also see if that slide stop is being raised upward by the rounds hitting it on the inside.

My P380 wold never funciion with golen dabres 102 grain ammo, just hit all the time. I shoot pwerball in mine now and it works great. If your thumb is not the culprit, it has to be ammo related.

some times one has a picky gun, where as most all kahrs are not ammo sensitive but that being said this little gun is a defense gun and there are lots of good 380 defense rounds out there. Just find the one that is totally reliable and stick with it. I personaly loved the 102 golden sabre, just my gun didn't.

 

[Ljutic]

I think this may have more to do with the top/next round of the magazine sliding forward during cycling. No rounds hit the slide stop when they are fully pushed back in the magazine. Shift a round forward slightly, and you get a much different result. For some reason the Rem GS seem to slide forward less than the others. As long as it works, I'm not going to complain.

 

[scott240]

I think this may have more to do with the top/next round of the magazine sliding forward during cycling. No rounds hit the slide stop when they are fully pushed back in the magazine. Shift a round forward slightly, and you get a much different result. For some reason the Rem GS seem to slide forward less than the others. As long as it works, I'm not going to complain.

I have noticed this problem. I have noticed that if the top round slides toward just a little bit it will allow the tip of the bullet to be able to dive down a bit. That is why I ordered the wolff magazine springs for the p3at rated at 10% stiffer. I have not shot it with them yet but I have noticed that it seems to keep enough pressure on the ammo in the magazine that the rounds aren't sliding toward which should keep the tip of the bullet up at the steep angle which should keep the bullet from hitting the slide lock and should help with feeding too. I am no gun expert so this is just a guess I made by using common sense, so it may not be right but seems right to me unless an actual gun expert tells me otherwise

 

[Desperado]

Its an old habit that I picked up so many years ago that I don't even remember when, but after loading rounds into a magazine - any magazine from my .380 to my .45 - I always tap the primer side of the magazine fairly sharply against the heal of my other hand. It helps seat the rounds back into the magazine and I believe eliminates the FTF that you are discussing.

I now have over 200 rounds down range with my P380 and it seems to have loosened up to being dependable with one exception. After about 50 rounds yesteday, fairly quickly fired - I was still breaking in so more concerned with putting rounds down range looking for problems with FTF, FTE, and slide lock back than shooting for maximum accuracy - I started to get failure to fully battery. The slide would lack that final mm or so of being fully seated. Once that resulted in a misfire where the pin didn't hit the primer hard enough to fire. I reused the round later and it fired. Two other times, the pistol didn't fire so I pushed the slide forward with the thumb on the hand holding the pistol and it went to full battery and fired. I only had one premature slide lock back early on and after changing my grip so that my off thumb could not possibly touch the lock lever it never happened again. I figured I caused that as it doesn't take much of a brush.

My impression was that the pistol was heating up from the fairly rapid firing - the slide was warm to the touch when holding it like you would to rack it - and possibly expanding to the point of some internal resistance. This was not a problem for the first 40 or so rounds when it was cooler.

The gun had been well cleaned and the rails were greased, worked and then lightly wiped to remove excess grease. Admittedly this gun probably wasn't designed to be fired that many times that quickly.


Anybody else seen this?

 

[Cokeman]

I've taken mine out twice now and had the same problem. I have fired 50 rounds each time and had the slide not close all the way after I had fired the first four mags. This happened on both trips. The first 24 rounds worked great but the slide didn't close all the way a few times and had one stovepipe in the last 26. I figured the gun was getting too dirty because of the dirty ammo I am using.

 

[halfmoonclip]

I have a love/hate relationship with the P380; love the sights, love the trigger, love the ergonomics. What I don't like are the few problems that make you uneasy about a gun that might be used in gravest extreme.
I had the slide stop issue, shortened the stop myself, finally changed out the slide stop spring and the problem went away. I'd feel better if I knew why the first spring malfunctioned.
Also have had the failures to go into battery/stovepipes when the gun started to get dirty, tho' truly it hasn't happened past the break-in period.
I've shot that damnfool LCP thru' two full courses of fire in our snubby league, 60 rounds and never a bobble. Gotta wonder if the Kahr will pass that test.
Moon