Magnum Research Sold?

[50AE]

Does anyone have the latest news regarding the purchase of Magnum Research by Kahr?

[Hard Chrome]

Where did you hear about this? :WTF:

[DamienAzrael]

This is the press release you can find on the Magnum Research page. You can find it under "What's New" and "News/Reviews"

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f287/DamienAzrael/Kahr.jpg

[seed]

Kahr is a funny company. One year it's up...the next it's down. I mean in terms of quality control and CS standards. Luckily, this year they are up! Apparently the P380 is a hit and that is encouraging. I have two Kahrs (PM9 and MK40) and am satisfied with both...although I will mention that in the former, I was somewhat lucky in that my very early edition PM9 did not begin the infamous peening and that Kahr was good at upgrading my recoil spring assembly and smoothing out the angle on my feed-ramp. Both measures were precautionary as the PM9 has yet to fail. And upon close inspection, I do not anticipate encountering the peening problem as my example has good clearance at the hood and ejection port upon cycling.

As for my MK40, it was a nightmare in the beginning. Of all the guns I own, this one caused me the most problems. But despite coming close to throwing it downrange once, I was patient and worked out all the bugs on a step by step basis. And now it works and works and works. Long story short, I replaced the mag catch with a later edition one with a shoulder/shelf which keeps the mag in the well much better than the older design which was dropping mags during firing. The only problem is the mags rattle now as they sit lower than they would with the original catch. I also replaced the recoil rod and assembly with a Wolff's set-up. Currently I have a 22# set up, but the 20# worked just fine. The original setup would sometimes fail to return the gun to battery and a push on the back was often necessary.

Some notes about Kahr. Whenever they have a problem with a gun, they usually blame metallurgy. I don't believe that because upon studying the design, you can often deduce that the flaw is inherent in the design with little tolerance for deviation in dimensions. For example: in the PM9, the chamber hood was peening with round counts around 2-500 in some early models...but not all. Upon looking at the design, you could see that area being peened was under great stress, due to it being angled to a sort of point. During firing, if the clearances were not good (the front of the chamber hood is being pushed by the front of the slide chamber well wall, rather than the barrel being pushed mostly, if not entirely by the base of the recoil rod at the very beginning of rearward slide travel), then you have a condition for peening. This is made much worse by the geometry of the front top of the barrel hood, which was angled to remove as much metal as possible to create clearance inside the slide during cycling. The reason this was necessary was because the inside of the slide is beefed up to add weight in such a short slide to bring about reliable cycling. This was the answer in design philosophy to shorten the slide from the intermediate step Covert series, which had the small frame, but long slide with original, square shaped barrel hood. Well on the PM's, all that force was brought to bear on the tiny remaining width of barrel hood (front edge) and if the clearances were not far enough to avoid initial contact, then peening. Getting this clearance comes from a steep enough angle in the frame, where the barrel slides downward on a polymer ramp. If the ramp was not steep enough, the barrel sat too high during cycling.

Now all of this comes from my own observation and is subject to correction. If I am wrong and you know this for sure, please correct me. Another observation I had was with the relatively more recent development of frame cracks at the base of the wells of some MK40's. Kahr of course blamed metallurgy anomolies and replaced the frames. I disagree with their official public assessment. My guess is that the frames cracked due to the use of the extended mags, where during firing, the pinky of the shooting hand is forcing the bottom of the mag extension into the back of frame, countering muzzle flip. When you look at the location of the cracks (near the bottom back of the wells), you can see how this is exactly where most of the pinky muzzle-flip counter force is imparted. So my answer to the problem is to not use the extended mags.

Bottom line is that Kahr sometimes shoots themselves in the foot, but basically they are a decent company. They are a bit overpriced, but often they fill a niche like no other. So if they are taking over MRI, this means Mr. Moon is probably going to drop some cash into it...at least at first. So that can't be all bad. And who knows where they will take it?

[Hard Chrome]

Thanks for the information.

Mr. Moon, are we talking about that freak Rev Moon? :dizzy:

Do we know if they are going to bring production to Kahr or will it be similar to when they purchased Auto Ordnance " Tommy Gun " keep the former employees, not much changes at work, and basically the Company just gets a new owner\boss?

[seed]

Yes and I think so. Yes, it is the son of the nut bag Rev. Moon and he himself is also one of the nutbags. The good news is that he does not run his company in affiliation with his brainwashing cult (incidentally I think all religions are pretty much cults on different levels). The other good thing is that he has the money to get things right when he wants to. The bad news is how he probably gets a lot of that money. Some people object heavily to it and in fact, had I known about it way back when I got my first Kahr, I might have never purchased it. I'm over it now.

As for how he will run MRI, I think you are probably correct in your guess. But I do think that over time, his and Kahr's influence will be noticed which may or may not be a good thing depending on whether he is up or down in attention to detail and interest.

[Sean]

Moon use to own or may still own PMC if I am not mistaken.

[hayes1966]

I have heard nothing but decent reviews about MR regarding quality control etc and not so decent on Kahr. Maybe they are just like Colt and you don't buy a firearm made on Monday morning or the day after the Super Bowl. I had a M1 copy make my Kahr which I had no issues with but never have had any of the pistols.

At least it isn't Keltec that bought them out :vino.gif:

[seed]

I have heard nothing but decent reviews about MR regarding quality control etc and not so decent on Kahr. Maybe they are just like Colt and you don't buy a firearm made on Monday morning or the day after the Super Bowl. I had a M1 copy make my Kahr which I had no issues with but never have had any of the pistols.

At least it isn't Keltec that bought them out :vino.gif:

I actually like Kel Tec. No matter what anyone thinks of them, they have the best CS in industry.

[Hard Chrome]

Same here!

Kel-Tec's 308 Bullpup is getting great reviews.

I purchased one last month.

She shoots like a dream. Recoil isn't as bad as my Armalite 308 carbine and no where near as violent as my M1A!

Once I mount a HQ optic, I will post some accuracy results!

[50AE]

I have heard nothing but decent reviews about MR regarding quality control etc and not so decent on Kahr. Maybe they are just like Colt and you don't buy a firearm made on Monday morning or the day after the Super Bowl. I had a M1 copy make my Kahr which I had no issues with but never have had any of the pistols.

At least it isn't Keltec that bought them out :vino.gif:

Kahr seems to be doing an outstanding job with improving on and selling another manufactures product.

Since they bought out AO "Tommy gun" the guns are second to none.

100% better machining. The wood that they are using for their stocks are crazy nice, awesome figuring, no machine marks on the receiver etc.

It's like a whole new gun!

[seed]

I would so get a Kel Tec RFB, if I wasn't designated an unworthy second class citizen (Kali resident). The RFB is simply awesome.

As for Kahr quality control, they've gone up and down...depending on how much interest and dough Justin Moon puts into his company. Lately, he has been paying a lot of attention (obvious from the acquisitions he's made) and has reportedly put in some more dough overall, from what I remember reading somewhere (please don't ask me where, 'cuz I don't remember, nor care to look). CS has noticeably improved to like some of the old days of Dottie and others, who are no longer there. Hopefully, they will keep it up.