ported barrel

[worm5932]

Who has a ported barrel? Does it make a big difference in felt recoil?
I have a m&p 45 and I've been thinking about making some changes to it. The storm lake is a 5.3" with 2 ports up top. That's the only one I can find looking online, surely there are more. Post pictures if you have any.

 

[robkarrob]

Porting will reduce the felt recoil a little, but is used mostly to offset flip, and keep the barrel level. First issue is the volume level goes up, as some of the gases and sound goes up and not all away from the shooter. Second most ported pistols I am familiar with, have the slide machined, to port the gases prior to the slide retracting. So I would think you need a ported barrel and also the slide machined to match the ported barrel openings. Another option is a longer barrel, with the ported openings sticking out in front of the slide so that the slide does not need to be machined.

I have an AR10 in 7.62/.308, which I added a muzzle break. It reduces a lot of recoil and keeps the barrel from rising, but it is very load, and I feel sorry for anyone within 50 feet of me, the noise and percussion is bad, even worse than I get when shooting the rifle. The muzzle brake went on, after firing it with my SlideFire stock. The "full auto" with that rifle caused the muzzle to rise fast, before the brake was installed. It now fires level with no more barrel rising. I still have to get a solid stance, to offset the full auto recoil. This cartridge has double the energy of a 5.56/.223 cartridge.

Bob

 

[GKC]

I've only owned one ported gun, a Taurus .44 special revolver. It was several years ago, and it wouldn't fire often enough for me to give you any real impression (20 attempts to fire...four 5-round cylinders...16 failures to fire...sold to gun smith.)

However, I have read reports from others who have ported guns, and they usually report no noticed reduction of recoil; reduced muzzle flip; a very great increase in blast (sound); and gas and particles to the face. The latter was especially increased if the gun was fired below eye level. Apparently there is no significant effect on velocity of the round.

The real negative effect was noticed when firing at night. Apparently greatly increases muzzle flare (as you would expect.)

 

[mkbruce]

I have a Storm Lake ported 9mm conversion barrel for my 40FS. I don't think it helps much - at least not at my skill level. I initially bought it because it was the only 9mm conversion barrel I could find.

One issue I did have was the porting causing the front sight to build up black residue, which made the white dot very hard to see. This would happen after 100 or so rounds. I have since bought a non-ported 9mm conversion barrel (also Storm Lake) and no longer use the ported one.

 

[Rastoff]

Barrel porting is hotly debated. I know a couple guys that swear by it and some that say it's witchcraft. None of them claim reduced recoil in a pistol. The ones that like it do claim reduced muzzle flip and faster followup shots.

rob,
The Storm Lake ported barrels are indeed longer than stock by about an inch. This puts the ports ahead of the slide.