Porting

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JimE
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Re: Porting

Post by JimE »

[

JimE, what's been your experience with muzzle flash and blast with your comp'ed handguns?

The reason I ask is because there's a current line with Glock owners going with a compensated setup (the Roland, not to be confused with the Rowland), with duty/defensive use in-mind.....

Have your smoke/residue/flash issues been a result of certain types of ammo?[/quote]

I ran ( and still have ) an older Springfield Trophy Master comp gun(.45acp) for pin shooting. Most of the loads I used were hard cast lead from either Penn Bullet or (now defunct) NBC with W231. Most folks were trying to run the heaviest bullets they could get, up to 255 gr. I went the other way, using 200gr & 215gr and stepped up the velocity.
The increase in gas helped the comp keep the muzzle down, and I tamed the slide velocity by going to a 14 and 15 lb Wolff variable spring....that kept the ejection in the 2ft. range. (you wanted a power factor of at least 200 to push the pins off the table cleanly in open class)
Mind you that at that time, most of the guys I shot with were using 12lb springs.
"By the book", the amount of powder I was using should have been an healthy overload, but the brass and chrono readings didn't show it. (I know, not scientific, but it worked)
For comparison, my "9 pin" load was a 152gr SWC running 1000~1100 fps and I backed off to a 11 lb spring. That load felt like there was no recoil.
One of our shooters was building 1911's in 10mm. The comp looked straight from Star Wars, the pistol ran flat, and his loads (IIRC) was 150 gr @1500 fps.
For the smoke.....oh yeah. Lead was the worse, and you had to scrape out the comp every so often, and clean the red dot constantly.
You always ran a lens cover of some type, or your red dot would be ruined. Today's smaller red dot's, sitting on a slide cutout might not have such a rough way to go.
Since we always shot in daylight, you had a puff straight up that you learned to ignore.
But that puff at night would have a lot of flash in it.( Not to mention lead or jacket particles)
I get to handled (but not shoot...darn) a lot of pistols in my current job, and I just don't know about porting a defensive pistol.
S&W and Glock both put the ports what, 1/4" from the muzzle ? That would minimize velocity loss, but at the same time they are lightning the slide. I can understand that on a long slide pistol, but when it is done on a Shield, that makes me think there is enough energy loss that the slide weight has to be reduced to keep it reliable.
The only way I know to tell is to chronograph a ported and standard pistol to see if there is a difference. (That or kidnap a S&W engineer and keep showing him pictures of a HiPoint until he tells you all.)
Look at how S&W does their PC revolvers. The 629 Stealth has trapezoid cuts like a Magna-port just back of the muzzle, but others use fixed or removable comps on the end. And usually only on competition pistols, or the heavy caliber hunting revolvers that aren't concerned with slide movement.
That's my thoughts, and I am no expert....average student only.
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TSiWRX
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Re: Porting

Post by TSiWRX »

^ Very interesting!

Thank you for that extensive write-up. :)
Allen - Shaker Heights, Ohio
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