Kahr® Firearms Group: American Ingenuity at Its Finest
Company Headquarters: Greeley, Pa. Founded: 1995
Sales: International
Website: www.kahr.com
Justin Moon, Kahr Arms’ CEO launched Kahr Arms as a student at Harvard University. Justin personally designed Kahr Arms’ all-steel K9 pistol. He was inspired to design the gun after he searched high and low for a concealed-carry handgun but couldn’t find exactly what he wanted.
After a few years of trial and error, Moon tweaked his design until it lived up to his exacting criteria. By 1995, Moon was ready to introduce his creation to the public. He purchased a very modest 10-foot by 10-booth at SHOT Show –the world’s biggest annual tradeshow for the shooting, hunting, and firearms industry and premiered his K9 9-mm pistol. It was a huge success, and Kahr Arms was born.
Since then, Kahr Arms has continued to expand its product line of small, concealable handguns most notably by joining the polymer gun market in early 1999. With the introduction of its polymer “P” series guns, Kahr’s growth became meteoric. Through the years, Kahr Arms has expanded its product line by offering new calibers, barrel lengths, finishes, and more model options. Today, Kahr Arms is unquestionably a leader in the firearms industry.
Along with the introduction of P Series Kahr handguns in 1999, Moon chose to expand the company by purchasing Thompson/Auto-Ordnance. This brought the famed “Tommy Gun”, M1 Carbine, and GI Model 1911 into the Kahr family of products. All Kahr Arms and Auto-Ordnance are proudly made in the United States.
Magnum Research, based in Pillager, Minn., joined the group of companies in the summer of 2010. Magnum Research greatly diversified Kahr Arm’s product line by incorporating the world-renowned Desert Eagle, Baby Eagle, Biggest Finest Revolver (BFR), Magnum Lite Rifle, and Desert Eagle 1911. Kahr Firearms Group was formed in 2012 following these acquisitions, bringing Kahr Arms, Auto-Ordnance, and Magnum Research under a single corporate umbrella.
Not long after the formation of Kahr Firearms Group, the corporation decided to move its headquarters from New York state to Greeley, Pa. Groundbreaking for its northeastern Pennsylvania headquarters was in 2014 and move-in began, appropriately, on the weekend of July 4, 2015. Today, Kahr Firearms Group is well settled into its 40,000-square-foot building, on a 620-acre campus. A 6,000-square-foot retail factory outlet store called Tommy Gun Warehouse opened in fall 2016 in the corporate headquarters building.
New for 2018, Kahr Arms will expand its S Series line of pistols into additional calibers and barrel-length options. Thompson introduced a 9-mm Tommy Gun at SHOT Show 2018, the first time this product has ever been offered in the history of the Thompson Sub Machine Gun.
Auto-Ordnance is offering a 9-mm 1911, which will be available for shipment in summer 2018. New from Magnum Research are the TTS – Integrally Suppressed .22LR, the Desert Eagle L5 in .50AE, and some very exciting offerings yet to come in late summer and early fall. Magnum Research also launched a Custom Desert Eagle Builder website (www.customdeserteagle.com) to give customers the option to build their own and see it before they buy it.
Kahr Firearms Group is also working with Outlaw Ordnance, a custom shop in Louisiana, to offer a host of custom guns encompassing all of the product lines.
