Kahr Guru

About Kahr

Kahr is known first of all for its popular pistol line. This American small arms manufacturing company was founded by a Korean businessman Kook Jin "Justin" Moon, who is currently a CEO of the Kahr Arms. The name Kahr is probably a combination of two things that affected him and it’s a German engineering and fast cars.

 The Kahr manufacturing facility is located in Worcester, Massachusetts. The action of the Kahr Arms is a Browning locked-breech design featuring a striker-operated firing pin with a firing pin safety which is passive, what making it a true hammerless action. The trigger bar immediately begins to rotate a double-lobed cocking cam when the trigger is pulled. The cam as one begins to draw the striker to rear and compressing the spring behind it, while depressing and deactivating the firing pin block. Basically, it is similar in principle, though it is very different in execution, to the action design of Glock pistols. It allows the relocation of the firing pin block further to the rear of the slide and that’s why further from possible contamination by combustion gases and powder fouling. Justin Moon was awarded for this innovation one of the five patents he owns on the Kahr pistol design. The system is used on all the Kahr models, regardless of caliber, frame material or size. The appearance of the Kahr pistols is also a bit similar to Glock pistols, however the construction is different.

Justin Moon enjoyed shooting guns even from the age of 14. He got a license to carry a handgun at age of 18. It was co-signed by one of his older brothers, however he was not satisfied with the small calibers compact handguns.  He made this decision to design one himself during his junior year of college.

In 1995 was founded the Kahr Arms, a company specialising in manufacturing of handguns. The Kahr Arms bought the Auto-Ordnance Company in 1999. This company was not associated with the original AOC, maker of Thompson submachine guns. The company was later owned and operated by the Numrich Arms that had bought the assets of the Auto-Ordnance started by General John T. Thompson and his investors. The Kahr Arms is offering its line of compact pistols at the time of serious liberalization of gun laws in many U.S. states. Actually, since the 1990s, many states have passed "shall-issue" laws, as it was promoted by the American National Rifle Association and also other gun right associations. The U.S. government banned manufacture and import of pistols with magazines that have more than a 10-round capacity in 1994. These pistols were, so-called "high-capacity" magazines, production and import of which again became legal in most U.S. states in September 2004, as the relevant federal law expired. This great change in the federal law rendered a lot of staggered-magazine pistol models, commonly with magazine capacity of 15 or even more rounds, less popular in the U.S. market. The Kahr was at the forefront, offering relatively small, however well-made pistols with magazine capacities of up to eight rounds of .40 or 9mm caliber ammunition. These single-stack magazines allow for slender, compact pistols which have proven popular with the buying public.