... and that's just ridiculous. Even at $15 a box for burner ammunition, that's $60, and at today's prices it's closer to $90 (if you can find it at all), for something that should have been done at the point of manufacture.

Kahr, I'm looking at you, but you're not the only one I've heard needs some rounds before the factory will do anything for you. Granted, I'll put some rounds through it anyway before I'm sure it's reliable, but I want 200 rounds with no problems, so that's another $90 on top of the first batch if there were any bobbles.

My K9 (ca 1997) didn't require any break-in, and neither did my Browning HP, so the plants can build them to shoot out of the box, if they want. They just choose to shift the costs to us.

...and what about those that advocate 500 rounds of your favorite defensive ammo before ever carrying a gun for self-defense....BUCK+ a round... And if at round 499 the gun has a FTF...you then start over??


Bob

YMMV, but I'm not carrying ANY weapon for offensive/defensive use until I have quite a few rounds downrange through it!

Reliability is not just about the firearm, but also the way you handle it and are familiar with it's characteristics.....

I wonder what a Glock needs for a break in period.

I for one don't buy into any round count break-in period, persay.
I feel that a new firearm should function properly out of the box, and if it does - it's good to go.

I also will not dryfire my guns to 'smooth them out' - To me that's more like trying to 'wear them out'!
My concerns about a guns reliability are addressed more by maintenence and care. (Cleaning, lubrication, etc.)

+1 I figure if it doesn't work fresh out of the box it needs to go back to the manufacturer.

Easy enough to say, but what do you do when you call them for a shipping label and they tell you they can't/won't help you until you've sent 200 rounds downrange? Shipping handguns is expensive, and I'd prefer the maker to pay for it.

Well, I expect all of us who are patient will get a chance to buy some lightly used/unused handguns in a year or so when people decide they need to make car and house payments. I'd like a Kahr PM9 with a few rounds on it, cutting into the number of break-in rounds I'll need to pay for. I doubt we'll see the hoarded ammo...

I wish the manufacturers would do their own internal polishing, though.

When it comes to a defensive handgun, I fer damn sure want to know it will go bang every time under every reasonable circumstance before I'll consider carrying it.

Every gun new to me gets stripped at my bench, then cleaned and lubed. It's amazing how much crud I find in new guns. Then I take it to the range and shoot a bunch of ball ammo thru it to see how it shoots for me. Some new guns like Kahrs may bobble a bit in the first few mags, but if cleaned and lubed well they'll generally straighten out within 50 rounds. Some tight guns from custom makers may take longer (I'm talking custom 1911's, some Kimbers, etc., I've known & owned in the past).

As for carry ammo, it's a lot less of an issue than it was 15-20 years ago when JHP ammo often failed to feed in some guns, notably 1911's. Nowadays that just doesn't happen much. More likely is [bleep] mags, in which case you'll get malfunctions as you get down to the last 1-2 rounds in the mag.

Like I said, I run a gooodly amount of ball ammo for starters, then make sure all my mags work with my carry ammo on the last few rounds, at which point I figure I'm GTG. I wouldn't trust a pistol I hadn't put several hundred rounds thru.

Ammo costs can be mitigated by reloading, discount shopping, etc. But maintaining proficiency requires frequent shooting, so you've got to expend ammo anyway, so I don't really understand all the complaining about ammo cost.

Yeah but you're rich Doc.

One thing I noticed on a new Sig 938 was the entire slide was bead blasted or shot peened - incuding things that should have been left smooth, like the breech face.



After 20-40 shots, it was starting to hang up. I polished it in those areas, so I don't have to burn hundreds of round of unavailable ammo, through an aluminum frame of limited life, to get it the way it should have left the factory

The cars and trucks I've purchased all came with a recommendation to run the vehicle at varying speeds for the first 500 miles to break in the engine.

My old Honda motorcycle came with instructions to keep the rpm's under 6,000 for the first few hundred miles - it redlined at 12,000.

Manufactured goods are built of pieces, each piece built to a dimensional tolerance range. Kahr, among others, likes to keep those dimensions close so the new parts fit together tightly. That is a large part of what gives them their exceptional accuracy. Shooting the pistol allows those parts to wear against each other in the exact perfect spots where they touch in that particular pistol. Those exact spots of contact might vary by a few fractions of a millimeter in another pistol whose parts are all just slightly different in their dimensions.

If a manufacturer tried to polish each piece perfectly before assembly they'd still be off a bit due to those minute dimensional differences. Wearing the actual parts where they actually fit together ensures that "perfect" fit.

A factory could wear in a car-motorcycle-handgun before selling it, but the cost would then have to be passed on to the consumer and folks would then complain that they aren't buying Brand XYZ because it costs so much more than ZYX - particularly when brand XYZ has obvious wear patterns on it right out of the box!

I have 3 Kahrs and not one of them has ever failed to function, either during the first 200 rounds or since. The only factory ammo any of them have seen is a magazine of whatever ammo they are loaded with when carried.

Ditto - 3 Kahrs here also and after well over 500 or more rounds through each, not one has seen a failure to feed, fire, extract and eject, which is a testament to how well they're built.

But I still did not trust them until I ran 200 rounds through them as the manufacturer recommends. And I won't take a brand new car on a long trip at a steady 65 mph until it has 500 miles on it at varying speeds.


I would, however, wear the hell out of a virgin, if I could find one...

Lie

A good gun done right, doesn't need to be "broken in"; that's an urban myth & a fallback for a poor gunsmith/product.

Verifying reliability (different from durability) does need to be done with either various or a specific ammo.

MM

Agree 100%.

Further more the odds of failure increase naturally the more you fire the weapon. If you don't use something it can't fail, were as the more you use something the greater the odds of a failure.

Or don't buy a Kahr to begin with.

I only have about 100 rounds down range thru my Kahr. Never had a problem with it and I trust it just as much as I trust anything else mechanical.

If they told me to shoot 200 rounds I would say ok. Then call them back in a few days for the shipping stuff.

Still regularly pack my Sig P229 40S&W circa 1996. Rock solid reliable. Never a failure to function or feed.

Been looking at Kahr and Glock for a smaller lighter carry piece. Something with a little more pop than my Beretta Tomcat 32ACP. Seems like a Kahr in 40S&W wouldn't weigh much more.

BIG BS flag here. A friend of mine built most of the Bianchi Cup top finishers guns last year. When he build a 1911, he might put a 1000rds or more through it before the customer touches it. Don't make yourself look stupid and say he doesn't know what he is doing.

TAK that is not really apples to apples.

Today I put 100 rounds thru the new Kimber CPD II and 100 thru the new M&P .40 Vtac both shot without a hiccup and where good shooting to boot!

I don't think a smith at that level, ensuring a Bianchi Cup pistola is worthy of his name should be compared to an out of the box work gun.

I think a variety of ammo should be put through a duty gun before you go to work. Putting a number on it is a bit silly IMO.


Travis

I'm not building or shooting Bianchi Cup, but I will not even consider utilizing a gun for defense purposes until I have several hundred rounds through it. That number will likely be closer to the 1k mark before it bumps something else from the rotation.

I can work more to fund ammo, a failure at the wrong time has a much higher cost.

George

I worked in a large gun shop back in the early 70's. We sold a lot of pistols and no one expected to need a "break-in" period before a gun functioned properly. Then came the Colt Series 70 .45 Auto. Customers complained about poor accuracy and guns not cycling properly from the get go. Colt's answer was that the Series 70 needed a "200 round break-in" for the new bushing to seat properly. I have never heard of any other gun that the manufacturer said a break-in period was required for proper function.

You certainly don't know what your friend is doing. Extended shooting for a competion pistol has little or nothing to do with reliability - it's done to settle in the mechanical precision. Groups will open slightly as parts mate and the gunsmith will keep working the pistol until it stabilizes where he wants it.

As for the OP, multi-hundred round break-ins are good for those that don't know how to do it correctly.

New Kahr pm9, no break in, no failures, 5 years owned. If a gun dont run out of the box for me, it's gone. I like glocks for sure, Old SIGs are good, new SIGs not so much.

Which is even more goofy than 500-round break-ins. I don't even fire any type of new-to-me firearm - shotgun, rifle, or handgun - without going through it first

I won't speak for others, but it's not about "break-in" for me. It's more about confidence in the individual weapon.

I knew that my 229 wasn't going to have any issues when we replaced our old .45s. I damn sure wasn't going to just strap it on and go. I shot the schit out of it and trusted it before I put it on daily.

George

And that's a flat-out great reason.

I guess I don't understand why anyone is bitching about shooting a gun too much. 200rds is a pretty short range trip. No way in hell I am gonna carry a pistol that I haven't run at least 500, preferably a thousand through.

As for not dry firing, that's simply silly. Dry firing builds skills, plain and simple.

In regards to dry -fire, absolutely!

I'm fairly certain i could find 200 rounds of loose .45 in my truck and range bags

Absolutely. 200rds is such a small number, I guess it boggles me that this is a concern at all.

That's as it should be, but for manufacturers or 'smiths to say a gun needs breaking in to make it run right is CYA for poor workmanship. Period.

MM

TAK,

The only BS here is what's running out of your mouth & between your ears & your ignorance & what you don't know shows with virtually every post.

You're a sort of smart guy, but obviously you are enamored by yourself & competition.

You don't say whether or not your famous gunsmith friend's guns run from the get go or not or whether he has to rework them but I can tell you for a fact that a "normal" tuned 1911 should,can & will do so.

If you don't know that, then there's not much more I can say to you.

Obviously, I've never built guns for famous Bianchi Cup shooters, but I've laid hands on enough of them to know.

Problem is, it's the ones like you that don't know, that like to run their mouths the most.

And please, don't give me any more BS about being an instructor.......doesn't have a thing to do with guns working or not.

MM

I am sure this is the same gunsmith who convinced him that a full length guide rod makes the barrel lockup better, resulting in more accuracy in a 1911.

Laughin' here

MM

I think we can all rememeber examples of shoddy work that needed some TLC to get working right but some guns have a rep for simply running right from the first round.

I picked up a Rossi 92 in .45LC that would so rough cycling the lever it was unreal. I tore it apart and the machine work was so rough I cannot accurately describe it, rough edges everywhere. I cleaned the heck out of it and spend a few hours deburring and it was like a different gun.

What impresses me is when a LE agency gets new guns and they are up and running with minimal problems. When you see a hundred shooters with varied skills and techniques take guns out of the box, throw some CLP on them and then run the crap out of them and see zero failures for a combined 10-20 thousand rounds it sticks in your mind.

I agree
but how would you know if you didn't try 'em?

I like to shoot
A LOT
so 200 rounds is a light day at the range for any of my guns.
Usually more like 400!

I can't imagine any LE agency converting to a new gun and telling their officers that they need to shoot 200 rounds through them before they work right. The FOP would be screaming about endangering their lives with sub-standard equipment.

I don't carry a gun on my person unless it's been in MY hand for at least 200 rounds without a FTF/FTF or even a small F$%K up...

I like to think my personal azz is worth at least that much and I know my wife's is...

Yep, I suggest you shoot a few of what you plan on shooting and call it good, whoever the manufacturer.

Well, I'm NOT rich. Kinda pisses me off when people make that assumption just because I'm an MD.

Reality is that I have chosen to spend my spare dough on shooting and hunting instead of other discretionary items. I dont own a boat, RV, cabin, etc. I have a modest assemblage of firearms that ALL shoot reliably. I have an adequate supply of ammo and I shoot a lot.

I don't bitch that I "have to" shoot 200-300 rounds when I go to the range, I bitch that I don't have time to shoot more. But that's a choice, and a priority as well, so I shouldn't bitch about that, either!

Could not have said it any better... Spot on

My Kahr P9 has had untold thousands of rounds through it without a single hitch from day one. Kahr is just conveying to you what should be common sense regarding the carry of any sidearm for self-defense.

PS I'm not counting the very rare accidental depression of the mag release under recoil, which is a shooter issue, not a mechanical reliability issue.

Good points all. Wouldn't it be nice to know in the first couple of magazines whether or not you had a keeper? Shooting 200 rounds to smooth out burrs and rough spots that shouldn't be seems like doing the manufacturers job for them.

Well, determining whether a gun is. "keeper" or not takes extensive evaluation, IMHO, and there's no way to do that without putting rounds thru the gun. Even within a "type" (eg, 1911's), I've found I need to shoot a given gun quite a bit to know if I'm going to keep it.

I've owned about 20 1911's over the years, but only have 3 keepers. Buying/selling/shooting lots of 1911's taught me a lot about what's important to me about autopistols that i couldn't have learned any other way.

It's not expensive, relatively speaking, to do that. Buying a gun, shooting the bejabbers out of it, then selling it so you can buy another gun means I can buy a new gun for less than $100, on average. Do that enough times over a few years and you can get a LOT of experience with a LOT of gun types for relatively low cost.

I just purchase a Kahr P380 and did the 200 round break in only because most micro 380 have feeding issues. I cleaned and polished the feed ramp after every 50 rounds. Plus I wanted to see what ammo fed the best. They also recommend you operate the slide 500 times prior to firing the gun. Between break in ammo and trying out defense loads, I dropped another $150. Thats a good down payment on the next gun!