August 2001

It would be difficult to avoid acknowledging some of the disappointing experiences which some of our customers have reported on our message board, specifically those relating to reliability issues with our new .380 Guardian. I've seen similar remarks in other forums and am aware that some upcoming articles in the firearms press, while generally flattering, are not without reservation.

Ouch.

An apology, some explanations ... but no excuses.

It's disappointing to the customer and the company both whenever anybody suffers a bad experience with an NAA firearm. If your NAA firearm has ever failed to achieve your complete satisfaction, I offer my personal apology and promise that we will do everything possible to remedy the situation if it still exists.

As many of you know, we offer a 'lifetime warranty' on all our firearms - to return to 'like-new' service any firearm we've ever made, at no charge to the customer (it used to be at no expense until the various delivery services raised their charges, or simply refused our business, because of the criminal misconduct of their employees). We do this because of our commitments to our brand and our customers, and because we have tremendous confidence in our products.

In the case of the .380 Guardian, we have spent a substantial amount of time and money to develop this pistol. We believe our Kahr Arms partners have engineered this to be the smallest, most durable and well-made product of its type (though we recognize that others may feel otherwise). It has been designed very closely to the smallest physical limits required for a firearm to safely discharge the cartridges for which it was intended (it's easy to build a big gun), without limit or restriction to the brand or style of the ammunition used (it's also easy to design around a single cartridge type) - only that it be .380 ACP. In the design and development of this pistol, several pieces of the original configuration were successfully fired several thousand times, following which stage we began production. We have selected the best vendors the industry offers, including Pine Tree, Hogue, Wolf, and Taurus and have relied heavily on their advice and expertise in each of their respective areas.

Our best efforts in the development process notwithstanding, we recognize that improvements are always possible (we continue to explore for improvements on our 30-year-old minirevolver line). Unfortunately, the requirements for most of these modifications don't become apparent to us until some time after the production process has begun. Prototyping can only reveal so much, and the production tolerances of parts and machined surfaces are not the same as the prototypes. We could have prototyped and tested this firearm for the next three years without learning what we have during production. We now have had the experience of about 1000 pieces in the field.

While most of the changes we've made so far have been so incremental as not to be noticeable, we believe that the recently received new magazines from MecGar (with .075 longer feed lips) will address 90% of the reliability failures this gun has encountered (the other 10% represented by a machining burr or other equally unacceptable oversight). You may recall similar issues when the .32 was first released; magazine design is a challenge, and it appears that some earlier advice and decisions were not the best ones. We are very happy to exchange these newer magazines for older ones. As always, we promise prompt, charge-free attention to those firearms returned for our examination/repair.

The overwhelming majority of the guns we have delivered have found secure homes with satisfied customers, but we recognize that our record is not (nor likely ever will be) perfect, although that continues to be our goal. We have every expectation that we can improve upon the out-of-the-box reliability of this gun, just as we did with its precursor, the .32 ACP Guardian, whose debut also was less than satisfactory; similar tweaks were made early in production, after which Gun Tests reported that the piece "functioned flawlessly". We expect to achieve the same with the .380 and will promise that same reliability to both new and old customers alike.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) checks out the latest edition of the North American Arms catalog. He mentioned that he regularly carries two of the firm's firearm products after receiving death threats several years ago. ASSC's 1996 Congressional Leader of the Year Award was presented to Sen. Hatch "in appreciation of his leadership and commitment in defense of our heritage, our industry and our life"


Photo & caption by Robert M. Hausman - used with permission.