Ported Barrel Revolvers - Your Experiences

[girvin02]

I shoot .357 magnums, regularly, from sevaral different model S&W's of various barrel lenghth. I don't notice any increased noise level, when shooting my 586 L-Comp. I shoot at a rather dimly-lit indoor range and have never suffered from the blinding muzzle blast that others here speak of. As for the percussion blast that hits you in the face, that happens with all of my short-barreled .357 magnums.

 

[H Richard]

I have a Mod. 29 that is magnaported, and notice no undesirable blast back at me, but it does tame recoil and muzzle flip. I shot a 1911 with a "comp'td" barrel for several years in IPSC competition, and had no problems with it, and yes it did help with muzzle flip and follow-up shot time.

 

[18DAI]

Other than alot of flash with carry ammo, shot at night, I've no problem with the port on my pre lock 586-5 L-comp.......well......other than cleaning the port. The cleaning is a chore, for me.

As to debris/gas hitting your face in a close in situation, simply cant the revolver (and thus the port) away from you, 45 degrees left or right. Problem solved. Nice revolver the L-comp. Regards 18DAI.

 

[Snapping Twig]

My friend has the same gun w/o porting. Using my rounds in both guns, 265g cast @ 1200fps, his is painful, mine is not.

Only downside is a dirty front sight at the end of a session.

IMO, short barrels benefit the most from porting.

I have 6" and longer that show little to no benefit from porting.

Flash blinding etc, not evident to me, but I've only been shooting these ported guns for 20 years.

 

[RufusG]

I've fired L-comps and K-Comps. If they're more offensive than unported guns, they didn't make an impression on me in that regard. But the port didn't make an impression on me as being especially helpful either.

 

[JNewell]

I like the S&W Power Port design but the Magnaporting appears to be a waste of money.

I can assure you that when you are sending .454 Casulls loaded at 65k psi or so downrange through a 7 1/2" tube, the Magnaporting works quite nicely! Whether something else would work better, dunno - too expensive to find out!

 

[Joni_Lynn]

I never had my FA 454 ported but I've had several 44 mags ported as well as my FA 44 mag. I would expect it to work better as the pressure rises but still I can't really tell much difference with my 44 mags.

 

[JNewell]

Yep...and didn't mean to be picking on you or picking a fight...my hunch is that lower pressures and/or shorter barrels reduce the effect, but I'm not a scientist.

FWIW also, if I'd bought it new, I would have bought a straight tube. This one was an early FA83 and came to me as a second owner, so it was what it was.

 

[Joni_Lynn]

They work better on a longer barrel due to the longer barrel, the port has a bit more ..........what would you call it...............leverage I guess. The more leverage and/or the more pressure the better it will work.

 

[S&WIowegan]

Magnaporting

In my early years of shooting my 5" 625 in IPSC matches, I got crazy and had the gun magnaported. The porting had minimal effect with factory .45 ACP ammo. Then I learned USPSA would not let me use ports so I retired the gun to the safe.

Then a few years ago, I had that same gun reamed to take the .460 Rowland cartridge. I load a 250 gr LSWC bullet to over 1100 fps and believe me the ports do a great job taming the recoil.

In IPSC shooting, all open guns have a variety of compensators and ports. The comps work best with very high pressure/high velocity rounds. In fact, people were experimenting with very light bullets at such high velocities our steel tagets were getting severely dimpled. At one time there was a minimum bullet weght of 115 grs. to lessen the damage.

 

[JNewell]

They work better on a longer barrel due to the longer barrel, the port has a bit more ..........what would you call it...............leverage I guess. The more leverage and/or the more pressure the better it will work.

That's always been my guess - and the higher pressure helps for obvious reasons, too.