Pistol Porting: Discover the Benefits and Myths

Curious About Pistol Porting? 

Pistol porting is becoming more popular than ever! Personally, I think everyone should have at least one custom gun. And there are few pistol modifications that are as effective as porting in terms of adding performance. This blog will go in depth on the subject of pistol porting as well as dispel myths about barrel porting. Interested? Let's dive in. 

What is Barrel Porting? 

Barrel porting is when holes are milled into the top side of your pistol barrel and slide which allow expanding gasses to escape as the round leaves the barrel. The force of these gasses escaping from the top of the barrel push the gun back down. So, what does this mean for you? In short, it gives you less muzzle flip as well as a softer recoil impulse.

Does Porting Shape Matter? 

In short, the answer to this is no. There are only a few things that matter in regards to pistol barrel porting. Those being the volume of gas displaced and the location where it happens. This being said you may see in a few of our offerings the shape of the ports change depending on the gun. Let's use ported Glock barrels as an example. if you want a custom Glock 43x as opposed to a custom Glock 17, and go for our standard porting package. You will notice that the smaller ported Glock 43x slide features rectangular ports as Opposed to the ported Glock 17 slide having circular ones. This is due to that volume and location formula mentioned earlier. 

Is Pistol Porting Reliable? 

The Answer to this is, it depends. Which most certainly is not ideal. There have been applicators that have not considered this volume and location formula, Chasing after aesthetics and aggressive recoil mitigation. which has in part given pistol porting the reputation it has, as well as the myths behind it. Imagine this. You spend $2,500 on a 1911 and you want to make it a truly custom 1911. You spend an additional $200 to get it ported and your pistol cant even consistently cycle. A sunk $2,700 on a gun that you were excited about and the thing no longer works. At North Sea Machine we ensure this does not happen. During the development of our porting packages we not only look at volume and location, but we also look at ejection pattern. Similar to AR-15 gassing. You can tell if pistol porting has left a gun under gassed based off its ejection pattern. What you don't want is cases that barely eject. We do offer 2 aggressive pistol porting options but that may require to change your Glock recoil springs. 

Do I lose Velocity with Pistol Porting? 

Yes, However it is not make or break. Some ports will cause more velocity loss than others. At North Sea Machine we like to test our our designs before we release them. 

Standard Porting: 40-50 f/s loss

Hybrid Porting: 20-25 f/s loss

Slim Comp: 10-15 f/s Loss

These results occurred with a 4.02 inch barrel shot out of a Glock 19. The neat thing about this is in regards to pistol terminal ballistics this change is not drastic. One of our tenets at North Sea Machine is to go for a minimalist OEM style is the goal. so that you can reduce recoil without drastically reducing velocity or reliability. 

Third Party Info on Porting:

The Armory Life Article on Pistol Porting

Recoil Web Article on Ports vs Compensators

Summary 

Let's say you want to build a Glock and want to add pistol porting to it. What does that mean? It means that holes will be cut into the barrel and slide that allow for gas to escape. This in turn reduces muzzle flip and gives softer felt recoil. The shape of these holes does not matter and will differ between guns. The shapes of ports on a ported 1911 barrel may be different than a ported sig p365 barrel. This is based on a formula that involves volume of gas moved and the location where the gas is moved. Even though the gas that would originally be pushing the bullet is being pushed outside of the barrel. Reliability is not sacrificed and velocity is only slightly impacted.