WOT, and Guys, make a little mental note here...
Glad to hear that your new Kahr Arms semiauto Thompson "can't be beat", as many of them can be beat. Until recently, at least, they had a well deserved reputation of having one of the higher rates of new gun nonfunctionality of any firearm on the U.S. market. And if you want warranty service, there is a pretty solid database on how that works out, or doesn't. Multiple customer reports are available, spanning at least 8 years during which I closely followed the subject, as summarized below.
There is no one particular problem with the guns. Problems reported by owners include, poor metallurgy, heat treatment, completely out-of-specs machining dimensions, barrels which unscrew with mere finger pressure, loose compensators which literally fall off or shoot off, rear sights which fall off because of bad riveting or almost no riveting, guns which simply will not feed any configuration of ammo, widespread evidence that no pre-delivery quality control inspection has ever taken place at all, extractors which repeatedly break, machine cuts and magazine releases so poorly and wrongly made that neither a drum magazine nor a stick magazine can be inserted or locked in place so that the bolt can pick up a round, bolt faces which just break, sear and firing pin mechanisms so poorly made that they jam up and the gun cannot be disassembled to repair or replace them without destroying more parts, and probably a few other minor problems I am forgetting.
Oh yes, the aluminum frames are a major problem, or series of problems. Erosion and galling of the feed ramp is a big one. There is no fix, except a new frame or gun. It is the source of many Kahr non-feeding difficulties.
Kahr Arms recently notified customers that warranties would be voided if they used steel cased ammo, such as that from Wolf. That was because they were well aware that their extractors and bolts were breaking because of poor quality and use of steel cased ammo. I avoid such ammo anyway, but WW-II Thompsons were made to milspecs assuming that steel cased ammo would be used without breakage problems. Kahr semis won't hack it.
The Kahr drums are an entirely 'nother can of worms, both 50 and 100 rounders. A friend of mine, and an outstanding firearms craftsman in Oregon, Merle Bitikofer (aka "Merle the Drum Doctor"), makes a nice income remanufacturing and TESTING brand new inoperable Kahr Arms drums so that they work...as they should have done before leaving the Kahr Arms factory. By contrast, Chinese repro drums recently placed on the market are inexpensive and work flawlessly, with extensive user reports verifying this. Kahr management has been quite angry about that, and their lawyers have fought to harass the importers and threaten varous forms of retaliation against them and even against buyers of the drums! They have DEMANDED that some of these drums be surrendered to them...which gave me a good laugh. I own two.
A Thompson owners' website offers the rare opportunity for owners to get together and compare notes. The result has been pretty conclusive. Caveat Emptor.
A highly skilled gunsmith in Delta, Colorado derives a considerable portion of his total business just from taking new, or almost new, Kahr Arms 1927A1 semiauto Thompsons and virtually remanufacturing them so that they will at least work.
Yesterday we had a political fund raiser for a nearby Republican candidate; people, mostly non-gun folks, got to shoot exotic guns for a fee, and some were newly drawn into the shooting sport. One of the guns was a 1927A1 semi-auto Thompson, and I'll be darned if it didn't work.
Happily.
The American Thompson Association (TATA) and its members have, for years, tried to help, persuade, cajole, motivate, and intimidate the craftsmen at Kahr Arms to improve this situation and see that the guns work before leaving the factory. The only change they have made so far was to replace the old "cheese grater" cocking knob with a more attractive 1928 style knob which looks better but is also poorly made and knurled. Sometimes we think things are improving, but usually we turn out to have been premature in our optimism. But every now and then one hears an owner report that one of these guns is actually working, like yours. That's a good sign.
I avoid all that pain and frustration by owning an original registered full auto 1928AC gun which actually passed a rigid Auto Ordnance (the real one) quality control inspection in 1943.
If you have a Kahr Thompson which works, congratulations. They can indeed be fun, and the magazine content lasts a little bit longer than mine, when I get overly enthusiastic on the trigger.
Oh yes, it might be pertinent for a prospective purchaser to know that Kahr Arms is a subsidiary of a certain Saeilo corporation, which is a wholly owned (or perhaps "holy" owned) commercial front for the South Korean "Unification Church", more popularly known as the "Moonies", and the U.S. factory is directly run by one of the sons of founder Reverend SUN Myong-mun.
Just remember, if you are walking a gun show and see a used Kahr semi Thompson on the table...better keep walking. It is probably there for a reason. If it was built in West Hurley by the late George Numrich's earlier version of Auto Ordnance, it is probably O.K. If not...keep hiking.