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Gas vs. Ported Barrel


turkey

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In my experience ported barrels decrease muzzle climb more than anything else. It technically has to lessen recoil because your letting some gas escape. I don't think recoil is reduced as much as in a gas gun. One thing I'm positive of is it makes your gun dirty in a hurry!

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I've been told porting a barrel on an inertia-recoil gun is not a good thing to do...it can affect the cycling of shells. (I believe Benelli says something to this effect as well)

 

Better look into it before you spend $150 to have someone drill holes in your $350 barrel.

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Turkey, im not sure if you are asking if porting a Benelli will make it shoot softer like a gas gun, or if porting a Benelli has similar overall effects as porting a gas recoil gun.

 

Either way here is some info on porting a shotgun, they may or may not be useful to you.

 

First, the primary reason for porting a shotgun is usually to control muzzle rise for faster recovery between shots when shooting at multiple targets and not to reduce recoil; although some felt recoil is reduced due to the lower gas pressure. ( This is typical of guns designed for clays ).

 

Second, porting a semi auto is much different from porting a pump, or an over under gun.

 

On a gas operated gun there is a certain amount of gas pressure required to cycle the action. Porting, backboring, lengthening the forcing cones, overboring, and even cutting down the barrel length can drastically effect the reliability of the cycling as all these things actually reduce gas pressure. Imagine a high pressure water pipe with water shooting out of the end, if you poke holes in the hose, you are reducing the pressure of the water coming out the end. If you enlarge the hose on the inside, the water pressure also drops. You can end up with a gun that short cycles the action.

 

A Benelli ( non-argo system ) does not use gas pressure quite the same way. Benelli’s use gas pressure to simply drive the gun back into your shoulder at a certain velocity, the velocity of the gun carefully interacts with the mass of the bolt carrier to cycle the action when resistance is met ( your shoulder ). My point is that if you upset the balance randomly, the Benelli can have cycling problems also.

Guns like the Supersport had the internal barrel dimensions matched to accomedate the porting from the factory to operate reliably.

 

 

There are other downfalls to porting also.

It’s much louder

You lose 50-150 FPS in velocity

It’s dirtier.

 

Moral of my lengthy story, is don’t aftermarket port or modify a semi-auto shotgun barrel unless you have the specific need to do so. If you do decide to modify it, send it to a pro, just because Brownells sells a barrel jig for $57 doesn’t mean all you need to do is clamp it on and start drilling.

It can be done but other considerations may need to be addressed such as opening the gas ports to offset the reduction in pressure, or some springs may need to be changed also....

 

If you were asking if porting your Benelli will make it shoot as soft as some gas guns like a Beretta 390, or 391 it won’t. In fact nothing can be done to make a Benelli intertia gun recoil quite as soft as those guns are capable of. ( Although my super sport comes pretty darn close )

 

That’s not me talking smack, its simple physics in the designs. ( both have advantages and disadvantages )

I like Benellis for entirely different reasons, ( quality, simplicity, fewer parts to wear out, looks, easier to clean throughly, and much better balance compared to many other semi autos ).

Ok, i gota quit talking now... before I start getting hate mail!

 

Take care turkey!

 

[ 06-06-2005, 01:02 PM: Message edited by: Coloradoryan ]

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