Kudos to Kahr for always providing stainless steel magazines, one of them even with an extension.Īs for the handling elements: Although it was easy to reach the slide stop and the magazine release, they were only designed for right-handers. Those with somewhat meatier fingers were well advised to take care during discharge if they wanted to keep their skin from getting caught between the upper front edge next to the trigger and the frame material (-3 points). Another mercurial factor was the size of the gaps beneath the firing pin cover.

As with all pocket pistols developed for close range shooting, the lack of a height adjustment feature was not assessed here.īy and large, the finishing was excellent, even though a certain amount of play was detected, sometimes more, sometimes less over time, between the upper and lower structure. The sights offered a clear view, although a few of the tested models demonstrated overly narrow halation (-1 point). It may be true that the trigger-frame design is well-executed, but some of the testers still felt that the grip panels were a touch too smooth (-1 point). That’s not to say that the bantam class steel pistol was faultless. It’s a real plus that the manufacturer has managed to maintain an essential level of quality. The pistol has been around for a while already, so testers have had numerous opportunities to test the weapons over the past decade and a half. The handgun comes with two magazines, one with six rounds, the other with seven The Kahr MK9 test: The barrel locks using a block in the ejection port on the slide, and is controlled by the rigid, closed cam beneath the chamber. The Kahr MK9 is fitted with a recoil spring in telescope design. The gunsmiths in Massachusetts had an eye for another detail as well: unlike in the many stainless steel firearms produced during the 1980s and 1990s, the MK9 came with black, inlaid sighting elements with white trimming to ensure that the naked metal wouldn’t have a negative impact on aiming. Which didn’t make much difference in terms of weight: the gun came in at 658 grams – not even 100 grams heavier than a Glock 26 and a whopping 200 grams lighter than the 9 Para pocket pistol classic, the Star M 43 Firestar and others. Traditionalists appreciated the material selected for the Kahr: the Massachusetts-based manufacturer chose a slide and frame made of solid stainless steel. The striker-fired semiautomatic pistol was designed with a Browning-Petter-SIG locking block combined with a rigid, closed control cam in the style of a CZ-75. When it was previewed at the end of 1998 and first made available starting in 1999, the Kahr MK9 became the smallest 9 Para pistol on the market at its debut.

Kahr mk9 9mm