mckenney99
Member
A close friend had a winter place in Ft. Myers Beach Fl and took a direct hit from Hurricane Ian but they were safely here in OH when Ian struck. He and his wife finally were able to get down into their community to assess the damage to their home last week (2 weeks post Ian). They brought back a few salvageable items including a Kahr Arms PM9 that was in a lockbox completely underwater. I told him I would go through the pistol and see how bad it was, if it could be cleaned up and what needed to be replaced. This pistol has a polymer frame with a black treated Stainless slide. When I disassembled the pistol there were several spots of bright orange rust in spots, primarily in those spots adjacent to and in contact with springs. When I began cleaning the frame and the slide, I was surprised at how there appeared to be no damage/pitting to any parts and even the springs cleaned up fine. He also had a Crimson Trace Laserguard Laser sight on the pistol and after removing it, cleaning it up and installing a new battery, IT WORKS. Now for the bad news. Upon looking down the bore it was filthy. When I ran my preliminary solvent soaked patches through the bore I could feel some roughness. After numerous alternate scrubbings with a bronze brush and wiping out with umpteen patches I could see what I thought was a heavy dark area in the bore about 1/2 inch forward of the chamber. Thinking this looked like a deposit of some sort, I thought it might be rust so I went to work with Kroil & JB Bore Past on tight patches and scrubbed and scrubbed, making no progress. Finally took the barrel back to my work shop and set up the Lyman Borescope and was completely flabbergasted to see the bore is SEVERELY pitted around it's circumference about 1/2 inch in front of the chamber. (The round that came out of the chamber is slightly discolored but otherwise unremarkable.) The remainder of the barrel looks fine. Considering how little damage I noted to the rest of the pistol, I am floored at the damage the bore suffered. A couple of images attached. After getting this thing put back together, I'm going to take it to the range and try running some rounds through it to see how it does, then assess whether it's going to have to have the barrel replaced.
