If you buy a new truck with a 3/36 warranty and then have an issue 4+ years later - do you pay for the repair or do you complain that 'they don't stand behind their product'? (serious question - by no means any flame intended)
I haven't needed to use any firearm warranty to date, and don't know what I'd do if I had reliability/safety issue like the one mentioned in the OP... but like in your example, I wouldn't be inclined to go to the manufacturer first.
Couple reasons for that... first, I'm not going to hold a gunmaker responsible outside of the terms of the warranty. That's just silly. Second, I like to support my local gunsmith, so I'll have him look at it first before I talk to the manufacturer. If my local smith can't fix it, and he says it looks like a defect in manufacture, I'll get on the phone to the manufacturer. But so far I've had few gun problems that my local smith couldn't set to rights in short order.
I've had a number of Kahr pistols since they came out with the original K9 back in the 90's, and all have performed in stellar fashion. I'd go so far as to say that Kahr pistols are as reliable as any other gun out there. I'm down to just one Kahr right now, but am looking at getting a couple more in the near future and am confident they'll work as well as the ones I've had in the past.
