Kahr K40, stainless or not?

[45collector]

I picked up a K40 this weekend and the satin finish is not too badly scratched up, but just looks dirty and dingy. Can I polish this sucker down with 1000 grit wet sandpaper? This isn't something I'd normally do, but it's no collector's gun, so I don't care what I do to the finish. I bought it to be a beater summer carry gun.

 

[45collector]

OK I found this thread, which pretty much answers my question.

http://northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=55592

I'll give it a try and post pics when I'm done. Might be a while though, because I'll probably get really meticulous with this.

 

[Kaos116]

Have you shot it yet? The muzzle flip makes it almost impossible for quick follow up shots. The ported barrel Kahr sells helps alot. With that said, my K40 is my primary summer CCW without the ported barrel.

 

[45collector]

Yes I put 100 rounds through it without a hiccup the day I got it. The looooong-ass trigger pull also makes follow-up shots tough. I actually expected more of a muzzle-flip than I experienced. Being it such a small frame and .40, I was expecting to be all over the place. 50 rounds on an NRA slow fire pistol target @ 25 yards - I missed the paper completely with about 3 or 4 rounds. The rest were mostly high and right.

It's no target gun, of course.

 

[45collector]

Finally got around to taking a pic of the K40 polished up a little...
Turns out this gun may be nickel plated, not stainless.

I used 600 grit to get the beadblast smoothed, then 1000 grit w/ water, then 2000 w/ water. I did this to the sides of the slide, the outer surface of the extractor, and the raised part of the receiver, around the mag catch and slide stop. I left the forward part of the receiver alone because, I don't know, I think it looks cool like this. And also because I might have had some trouble around the "Kahr Arms Worcester, MA" on the left side, and the serial # on the right side. Oh, and of course I didn't want anyone to think I was trying to get rid of the serial #!!

What do you think?

 

[Kaos116]

Nice job! I have a S&W5906 that is beat up. I might give it a try based on your results.

 

[45collector]

Yeah I'm happy with it. After spending a few hours taking it apart, sanding, polishing and putting it back together, I noticed on the side of the box it came in "Nickel" written with a sharpie. I didn't know these came in nickel, I thought they were all either stainless or "blackened" stainless. I didn't see anything about nickel options on Kahr's current website. This is an older model, I believe, which is why I could get it in MA in the first place!

Either way, as stated, it'll serve it's purpose as a beater carry. It's been 100% reliable so far with a couple hundred rounds. 300 more and I'll consider it worthy.

 

[wolf223]

nice!!!!!

 

[BuggsBunny]

I've owned a couple K40s. They were both incredible guns - 100% reliable (one of them I only fired 50 rounds out of, the other quite a few more) and amazingly accurate. After shooting Glocks, I was tickled pink at how much more accurate I was with the Kahrs. I'm not saying that was the guns' doing, though.

Trigger was...eh...took some getting used to, but it grew on me.

Should never have sold them.