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My Kahr also has polygonal rifling. It is not restricted to handguns however. I remember in the 70's several rifles, mainly HK's had poly rifling. Not sure about lead bullets, have to dig out my Kahr book but I vaguely remember them not being recommended.

For some reason this has always seemed to be slightly more popular with European firearms.

Most poly rifles barrels are hammerforged but buy far most hammerforged barrels have traditional rifling (Ruger,Sako etc.)

 

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That is how the Kahr is as well. Nothing that resembles rifling at all. The bore is just not round but a polygon in shape and that polygonal shape just twists around the axis of the bore for it's full length which is also how the HK is.

 

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One of the supposed virtues of polygonal rifling is that the base of the bullet is not as deformed as by tradional rifling, The Whitworths set cast bullet records that are still right in there with the best today. As most of you probably know the condition of the base or heel of the bullet is extremely important.

As to accuracy HK rifles have always been very accurate. I'm not just taking about the 91 series but they also made a sporting semis that were very accurate as well.

This idea has always intrigued me. When I bought my Kahr 9mm I did not realize they had this system and was really surprised to find it. One byproduct is that it is really easy to clean.

 

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Smoky, you are incorrect about Kahr getting their barrels from HK. They get their barrels from Lothar Walther. If you go to the Kahr website and click on barrels it will take you to a page on how their barrels are made and it states clearly that the barrels are made by Lothar Walther, I have always heard of very good things about Lothar Walther barrels so I found that interesting.

Also if sometime up the road someone here looks at a Kahr and sees lands and grooves don't be too shocked. At least one model, the new CW9 polymer and stainless econo model ( if you can call well over $500 econo), has standard rifling but the rest still have polygonal.

 

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On the left side of home page is a blue area and one topic is Value Guns, if clicked it takes you to detail pages for barrels, slides etc. Click barrel or :

http://www.kahr.com/vg_barrel.html

Try this Note on the cutaway they actually show one of the newer rifled barrels but most of the high end Kahrs are polygon. Anyway not to change the subject but I got my Kahr when they first came out and would HIGHLY recommend them to anyone. This is my bedside companoin and fits my smallish hands better than any other gun that I would bet my life on.