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April 30, 2011
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I've noticed a few posts here mentioning you shouldn't run cast bullets through ported barrels? I've fired hundreds if not thousands of cast bullets through Magnaported S&Ws over the years (.41 and .44) with no noticable ill effects. Is this something unique to DW porting or have I been missing something fundamental?
Tom
February 11, 2010
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When you try to remove shroud after shooting lots of cast, lead or
dirty burning ammo is what the problem is. That is not something
your S&W would encounter.
-Blacktop
May 17, 2010
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I would like to rephrase the answer.
When DW first tried "porting" they did so by putting a ring of ports on the muzzle end of the barrel and putting holes on the top of the muzzel end of the shroud. Hot gas and anything carried with it escapes the barrel ports, enters the empty space between the barrel and the shroud and exits the shroud through the shroud ports. As you can imagine powder and lead can build up in there making removal of the shroud from the barrel and frame very difficult.
Later and current designs of DW "porting" have the shroud longer than the barrel, so gases and crud do not enter that empty space between the two.
As for S&W, since they do not employ a two piece barrel shroud design, its a non-issue.
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in that order.
4 Monson Model 15's
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1 CZ 75B
April 30, 2011
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Makes sense, thanks guys! I was only aware of the "old style" four port design and was curious how effective porting could be inside a shroud? It would seem that (assuming bbl ports are not perfectly aligned w/ shroud ports) the shroud would act as a low volume expansion chamber. Gasses would exit the barrel into the shroud, expand and cool slightly before finding their way through the shroud port to the atmosphere. In theory at least, this seems less effective in reducing muzzle rise?
February 11, 2010
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I switched to a non-ported 8 in barrel on my 44 and can not tell any
noticeable difference in muzzle rise.
-Blacktop
Range Officer
Range Officers
Dans Club
February 28, 2009
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I stopped using my ported .44 barrels and went to the non-ported ones years ago. The difference in muzzle rise is negligible at best and the cleaning issues are a pita.
-Mike
February 16, 2011
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My Early 80s dan wesson 44 8" ported barrel was a pain to remove. When i bought it I noticed some markings where the cylinder plunger resides and didn't think anything of it. I finally removed the barrel nut and found the shroud wouldn't move at all. Lots of soaking in hoppes and still no go. Had to resort to pounding on the same cylinder pulunger area with a flat head screw driver to SLOWLY work the shroud off the barrel. It was so caked with copper it wasn't funny.
Lesson 1. The gun had been shot alot!
Lesson 2. Copper and lead foul the ported DW barrels. Lead probably quicker but copper still does it too.
If you are into removing and cleaning the shroud regularly I would shoot anything out of it. I'm sure every 500 rounds would be enough.
P.S. After I cleaned it out the shroud and ports I could tell no difference in barrel flip. Maybe there was a little but not much. So if you never plan on changing a barrel the plugging of the ports wont bother you much.
Range Officer
Range Officers
Dans Club
March 27, 2009
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I think all us that have the shot the ported barrel much or bought one that had been have had the problem of removal. If I shoot a ported barrel it is removed and cleaned before stored, a wire brush in a drill seems to clean them up fast!
May 3, 2011
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Good topic. I never shoot a gun without taking it apart later and cleaning it after every shooting session. I have the .44 magnum with the 6 & 8 inch barrels ported and a second set 6 & 8 inch barrels not ported. It came that way. I'm not sure why. Did DW make a Hunter package like that?
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Moderators
January 24, 2009
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Gary J said:
I have the .44 magnum with the 6 & 8 inch barrels ported and a second set 6 & 8 inch barrels not ported. It came that way. I'm not sure why. Did DW make a Hunter package like that?
It seems to be fairly common to have an extra non-ported barrel included with a ported one. If I'm not mistaken, here's an article somewhere around here explaining that when the guns were sold as new, a customer had the option to buy a non-ported barrel at a nice discount. I believe it was to help with customer satisfaction, due do all the cleaning needed with the ported barrels.
Hunter packages look like this. One standard barrel assembly, and one with a scope mounted. The scope shroud has no front sight provision...
On a side note, there sure are a lot more factory "Tourister" Pac's showing up these days. That's pretty neat.
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