You know it's amazing, I spoke to the folks at Magna-Port in the end of September about doing some work for me, they advised they were booked up till then of the year, but would work me in in January.
That's pretty amazing for a process that sets you on fire, blinds you by throwing debris at you, deafens you, makes you wet the bed and causes hemorrhoids......
A lot of that demand is due to perception, not reality. Porting suggests a cool factor exists with the gun, that the gun is so almighty powerful that it needs porting to be manageable and so your shoot-'em-up buddies at the club think you're a true pistolero. In the real world, none of the above may be factual.
I bought a limited edition Remington Model 700 in .300 Rem Ultra Mag several years ago. Before I even shot it, I considered having it ported. Being a tournament trapshooter at the time, I had easy access to companies that brought their porting tanks to major shoots and was going to have Pro-Port do the rifle. That is, until the owner of the company asked me why I didn't just buy a .300 Win Mag in the first place because that is what I would end up with if he ported the .300RUM. As it turned out, the gun isn't all that hateful to shoot, even off a bench, so I'm glad I was dealing with an honest firm.
Porting is very popular in clay target shooting but if you ask anyone with significant knowledge of interior ballistics, they will tell you that porting is all but useless in shotguns because with 10,000psi of pressure being about the maximum in 12-gauge target loads, there simply isn't enough pressure there for the porting to be effective. Centerfire rifles, on the other hand, operate at up to 70,000psi so porting has enough pressure to work with and be effective. But there's that very real drop in muzzle velocity and energy that your chronograph will verify for you.
But some trap gun manufacturers, Browning in particular, almost do not make a trap gun without porting because so many buyers perceive it as a benefit and cannot resist the attraction of getting something "for free."
I once owned a pair of Kreighoff KS-5 single-barrel trap guns that were identical except that one that I bought used was ported by its original owner. Absolutely no one who shot both guns back-to-back with the same ammo could detect any difference in felt recoil.
Porting is great for blowing hot particles around, increasing muzzle report and flash and dirtying the gun. It also CAN reduce muzzle jump if the loads being shot generate lots of pressure. And if the ports are far enough back from the muzzle, it CAN reduce felt recoil, again with real stiff loads. But like the guy at Pro-Port asked me, if you want a .44 Special, why not just buy one instead of .44 Magnum and save the cost of the porting and the other negatives that go with it?
There is a reason why Smith & Wesson dropped the PowerPort feature from its line of full-size revolvers. Ineffectiveness and resulting slow sales is the first reason that comes to my mind.
Now, muzzle brakes and compensators that don't effectively shorten the barrel like porting does CAN BE very effective with high-pressure ammo while not reducing muzzle velocity and energy. Their only potential negative is the length they add to your barrel.
Ed
