Apex gun Smith barrel worth it?

RobHazmat · Feb 12, 2019

CB3 said:
$125, and worth every penny, especially since they went through the gun and their installed fire control components and got everything working like a Swiss watch.

Gorgeous firearm man. I'll be having it installed in a m&p9 2.0. won't be sporting a red dot though. What was the turnaround time on it? Did you ship just the slide or the whole firearm?

CB3 · Feb 12, 2019

My turn around time was almost 4 weeks, but I cheated. I took the whole gun to them on my way to Phoenix. They need the frame and the slide to fit the barrel, and of course to work on the trigger components a little.

They did not really like that I just showed up at their facility, at least the office staff didn’t at first, but when shop people came out their typically wonderful customer service kicked in. My gun was put in the queu, and I received it at home in the mail just short of four weeks later with their test target.

RobHazmat · Feb 12, 2019

CB3 said:
My turn around time was almost 4 weeks, but I cheated. I took the whole gun to them on my way to Phoenix. They need the frame and the slide to fit the barrel, and of course to work on the trigger components a little.

They did not really like that I just showed up at their facility, at least the office staff didn’t at first, but when shop people came out their typically wonderful customer service kicked in. My gun was put in the queu, and I received it at home in the mail just short of four weeks later with their test target.

So I can probably expect double that amount of time if I have to ship it to them. Oh well, it'll be worth it.

RobHazmat · Feb 12, 2019

CB3 said:
My turn around time was almost 4 weeks, but I cheated. I took the whole gun to them on my way to Phoenix. They need the frame and the slide to fit the barrel, and of course to work on the trigger components a little.

They did not really like that I just showed up at their facility, at least the office staff didn’t at first, but when shop people came out their typically wonderful customer service kicked in. My gun was put in the queu, and I received it at home in the mail just short of four weeks later with their test target.

Also thanks again for all of your input on this thread. Very informative. I really appreciate it.

crracer_712 · Feb 12, 2019

@CB3, I understood you to not have a ransom rest for factory barrel. Having one would have made a difference. I don't doubt your Apex is more accurate, but I doubt you'll be carrying one around with you. It's nice to know it has the ability to group well though.

CB3 · Feb 12, 2019

crracer_712 said:
@CB3, I understood you to not have a ransom rest for factory barrel. Having one would have made a difference. I don't doubt your Apex is more accurate, but I doubt you'll be carrying one around with you. It's nice to know it has the ability to group well though.

Thank you. I appreciate your helpful input.

Walt Sherrill · Feb 13, 2019

crracer 712 said:
... I understood you to not have a ransom rest for factory barrel. Having one would have made a difference. I don't doubt your Apex is more accurate, but I doubt you'll be carrying one around with you.

LOL!!

A lot of folks talk about Ransom Rest results, but continue to ignore the fact that what happens when the gun is in your hand is very important.

crracer_712 · Feb 13, 2019

Walt Sherrill said:
LOL!!

A lot of folks talk about Ransom Rest results, but continue to ignore the fact that what happens when the gun is in your hand is very important.

I get the desire to see how accurate it can shoot. But locked in a ransom rest is far different from holding one on a rock junior.

I might try this some time, the rock junior that is.

Randy Lee · Feb 15, 2019

The reality is that very few can extract the kind of "mechanical and repeatable" accuracy that a Ransom Rest provides. That being said, I know first hand that some of the very top competitive shooters in the world have shot groups off hand and prone at 35 and 50 yards under an inch with our barrels.

All things being equal, as long as functional reliability is not compromised, I like the peace of mind that the gun I shoot is as accurate as my human ability to shoot it.

RobHazmat · Feb 15, 2019

Randy Lee said:
The reality is that very few can extract the kind of "mechanical and repeatable" accuracy that a Ransom Rest provides. That being said, I know first hand that some of the very top competitive shooters in the world have shot groups off hand and prone at 35 and 50 yards under an inch with our barrels.

All things being equal, as long as functional reliability is not compromised, I like the peace of mind that the gun I shoot is as accurate as my human ability to shoot it.

This is kind of my sentiment exactly. If the gun can't perform accurately on a ransom rest, how am I supposed to be effective with it when I have tons of human error to accommodate for? I ordered a gunsmith fit barrel, hopefully my local guy can fit it. If I'm not confident in him I'll just send it to Apex.

Randy Lee · Feb 15, 2019

We are working on making the Gunsmith fit barrels a little easier to fit. Because the muzzle end of our barrels are slightly larger than the entry angle of the slide, many were having difficulty with the fitting process of getting the barrel to go into the slide. We are going to change the dimensions so that no fitting of the front end should be necessary.

If your gunsmith has any difficulty or questions about the fitting process, please have him (or her) contact our Customer Service before they start. All our CS representatives have been trained to install both Semi Drop-In and Gunsmith Fit barrels, so they can address any issues before too much metal has been removed.

Rodinal220 · Feb 17, 2019

APEX GSF barrels are worth every penny. There is no comparison to anything else currently on the market. Barrels like the Storm Lake may help some pistols to various degrees, but the APEX addresses the issues with the Gen 1 guns. I have shot the Gen 2 and they are better pistols, but I do not care for the palm swell, the Gen 1 grip fits my hand better.

I'm glad to hear from Randy Lee that they are working to re-introduce the GSF 4.25" barrels. I held off buying another M&P Gen 1(plenty of cheap trade ins) gun because everybody was out of barrels. Apex CS stated they were discontinued and no further explanation.

I did not encounter any fitting problems on my gun with the muzzle end. The extra "meat" on the bottom lug may be needed on some pistols, I believe another on this forum did not have to remove any metal from the bottom lug, it dropped in with only hood fitting. Some of these Gen 1 guns were that bad. The Apex barrel with its re-engineering cured the accuracy woes of the Gen 1 guns.

I wont use a S&W M&P now unless it has an Apex barrel in it and other goodies. A truly quality product that really delivers.

Well Armed · Feb 17, 2019

I wonder how they stack up against Faxon M&P barrels. When it comes to rifle barrels, Faxon is highly respected and well known. Does Apex accually make their own barrels, or do they have someone else make them?

CB3 · Feb 17, 2019

I had not heard of Faxon. They make some interesting stuff. Making an accurate fixed-in-place rifle barrel is different than making an accurate drop breech, moveable pistol barrrel. The barrel can be of very high quality,meet because of the variations of dimensions of all the other pistol locking surfaces, the barrel may not shoot well.

I only found Falcon drop-in barrels for the M&P.

What sets an Apex barrel above others is the fitting to the various lockup dimensions of a mass manuafactured gun with a wide variance of tolerances. Even the Apex semi-drop in barrel usually required some fitting.

The purposefully oversized gunsmith fit Apex barrel is customized to fit. It is this lockup and fitting that provides the Apex accuracy, not just the quality of the chamber, rifling or other such dimensions.

I believe a good quality drop in barrel can improve accuracy somewhat over some OEM barrels, especially in an early version 1 M&P, but in my experience (and logically) no drop in can match the accuracy of a custom fitted lockup Apex GSF barrel.

Ohsheepdog · Feb 17, 2019

Well Armed said:
I wonder how they stack up against Faxon M&P barrels. When it comes to rifle barrels, Faxon is highly respected and well known. Does Apex accually make their own barrels, or do they have someone else make them?

I would guess they make their own. They're right down the road from me. My Faxon AR barrel, rifle length gas system in a 16", is high quality and very accurate. I'd buy a Faxon M&P barrel but the only Gen1 I own is a CORE.

Well Armed · Feb 18, 2019

Ohsheepdog said:
I would guess they make their own. They're right down the road from me. My Faxon AR barrel, rifle length gas system in a 16", is high quality and very accurate. I'd buy a Faxon M&P barrel but the only Gen1 I own is a CORE.

I went with the Faxon drop in threaded fluted barrel for my 2.0 Compact.

Yea, they make some high quality stuff. There have been multiple melt down videos done by iraqveteran8888, and their barrels have always preformed impressively well. As CB3 pointed out, rifle barrels are different from, but there's little doubt in my mind that they don't know what they're doing. I might email a few YouTube reviewers to see if they can do a head to head comparison vs the Apex barrel.

Randy Lee · Feb 19, 2019

Well Armed said:
I wonder how they stack up against Faxon M&P barrels. When it comes to rifle barrels, Faxon is highly respected and well known. Does Apex accually make their own barrels, or do they have someone else make them?

We make our barrels out of rifled blanks made to our specs. The machining and lock up geometry on our barrels is patented.

I would definitely invite people to do comparative accuracy tests between our barrel and others on the market. While I have done my own Ransom testing at 25 and 50 yards on several aftermarket barrels, my results and opinions naturally are suspect of product bias.

Jayhawkhuntclub · Feb 20, 2019

I've went on at length about my experience (prior thread). In summary 3-3.5" groups at 50 yards and 1" groups at 20 yards rested with the APEX Gunsmith Fit bbl I fit. And these results were with cheap FMJ AE and my cast RN bullets!

smoothshooter · Feb 20, 2019

Ribwizzard said:
Have you had a gunsmith measure the accuracy of the pistol ? I've heard that the highest the apex will measure is a 8.7 fgrk, most stock barrels are measuring between 8.1 -8.4 fgrk, but some have measured quite higher. I'd go to a gunsmith that has a garnier device and measure both your stock barrel and the new apex barrel and see if there is a substantial difference before committing

What the heck is " fgrk "?

Apex gun Smith barrel worth it?

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