Can I Port a Shotgun Barrel??

Weatherby243

Weatherby243

New member
My dad just bought a new mossberg 535 and neither the barrel or the choke tube are ported. I have a mossberg 500 and the barrel is ported along with my choke tube.
We have access to a machineshop and fell that we could port the barrel, but dont know if its a good idea too or not. Should we port it or not, and if we should are barrel ports anything other then holes in the barrel? Any ideas or advise would be great.
carl
 
Porting on a shotgun is a subjective idea. some ove it some say i makes a world of difference. If you think your up to it give it a shot, you wont be out much as long as you dont screw it up to bad. I have some shotguns with it and some without. to be honest with you i cant tell much if any difference. I will never pay anyone to port my barrel. It is like most things in life, it is up to you to make the choice you may love it you may not. I shoot a ton of shells every year in comp. I dont have it on the gun i shoot. A ported choke as a place in my opinion. Me along with several other have proven that the porting on a choke ube helps strip the wad away from the shot colum, giving you better patterns. at least with comp-n-choke. Thats the only choke i use anymore. Lee
 
I have seen my uncle put his turkey shoot gun in a vice and port it.That was back when nobody had them about 20 years ago!
 
You have another very good option. There is a choke maker that has extended choke tubes with ports in them, and they are effective at reducing recoil.

1-800-587-2779 Kicks they also have a web site that is useful too. Just google kicks choke tubes.
 
Cabela's sells ported chokes for the Mossbergs for 35 bucks, my shooting partner just bought one. I don't know why you couldn't port your own barrel. The deal is you don't want to leave any burrs in the inside of the barrel when you drill the porting holes.

Look at the ported Mossberg 835 barrels for a pattern. Mossberg also ports their own barrels if you send it in to them, I think it's around fifty bucks.

Here's what the porting on my 835 looks like.

Mosberr835frontsight.jpg
 
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I have ported two, a BPS10 and a rifled Mossberg slug barrel . The smoothbore BPS barrel was a piece of cake. Because of the rifling, the Mossberg was a big PITA. I won't even go into the process of what I had to do to remove the burrs from the rifled barrel.

But, it really did reduce the recoil and muzzle jump on the Mossberg. I can't say I saw any appreciable difference in the BPS10, though.

In a smooth bore, it's simple. Just layout and drill a series of holes in the barrel, on each side of the rib, evenly spaced and use a brake cylinder hone to remove the burrs from the inside of the bore. Then, you can have the barrel reblued, or just use touch up bluing on the holes. A milling machine works best as you can clamp the barrel in the vise and keep the holes lined up easier. I used a .061" center drill to drill the holes, because the center drill wouldn't wander on the curved surface of the barrel, and followed up with a .090" drill to open the holes up to the desired diameter.

However, I wouldn't do it again. When using loads with slow burn rate powders, you get damage to the wad skirts on one side of the wad. This can cause the wad to tip on exiting the barrel and degradation of pattern quality. Its sort of like having a nick on the base of a bullet. With fast burn rate powders, this doesn't seem to occur as the pressures have dropped sufficiently by the time the wad passes the porting. But, with the slow burn rate powders used with steel shot and lead turkey loads, it can.

Here's a couple of pics. of what I am talking about. These were from the ported BPS10. These were steel shot loads.

Picture1081.jpg


Picture935.jpg
 
Go with a Kick's or Comp-N-Choke. Porting a shot gun barrel does two things.

1. Makes it loud

2. Ruins the resale value

The benefits of porting are subjective at best. My Browning 525 is ported from the factory and the holes are hideous looking and I have never been able to tell any less muzzle jump or recoil reduction in a ported gun.
 
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Go with a Kick's or Comp-N-Choke. Porting a shot gun barrel does two things.

1. Makes it loud

2. Ruins the resale value

The benefits of porting are subjective at best. My Browning 525 is ported from the factory and the holes are hideous looking and I have never been able to tell any less muzzle jump or recoil reduction in a ported gun.



You will probably not see much change in recoil or muzzle jump shooting target loads. Gases are just not there in sufficient quantity or pressure to make much of a difference. If you were shooting a very slow burn rate powder, you could see some difference in muzzle jump, but not much, if any, in the way of recoil reduction. The barrel walls of a smooth bore shotgun are too thin to direct gases rear ward. You get some bleed off of gas to reduce the recoil from the "jet effect", of the gases leaving the muzzle, but that's not much. You probably would never notice the difference.

When I ported the Mossberg rifled slug barrel, the barrel walls were thick enough that I could angle the ports and direct the gases rearward, and I did get some recoil reduction. The chief benefit, however, was that before I ported the barrel, when I shot slugs standing up, even though leaning against a tree, they would shoot 6 or 8 inches higher at 100 yards than the same loads when shot off a bench. The porting reduced muzzle climb enough off hand, that the points of impact between shooting off hand and off a bench were within a couple inches of each other.
 
I'd send it to Magna Port rather than do it myself. My question is, though, why do you want to port the barrel? Is the recoil just too much? If so you should talk to a competent gunsmith who is familiar with shotguns. The recoil problem may be fixed by making an adjustment with the stock rather than screwing with the barrel. If you use the gun for hunting ports will allow dirt, snow, twigs and other junk into the barrel. The ported choke tube is a better idea.

Usually it's clay shooters who want their barrels ported. Porting can be directed to reduce muzzle jump and recoil but it's usually the guys who can't accept that it isn't the gun's fault that they're missing targets and spend endless time and money trying to find a magic cure for their problems.
 
I had an 835 that was factory ported and I was less than impressed, not to mention it being a pain in the [beeep] to clean. I think backboring and lenghtening the forcing cone would do more and improve the shot pattern as well.
 
porting does make a small difference. any little bit of escaping gas that is vented prior to the charge exiting the barrel helps. it does keep the muzzle rise down, and yes it does make a bit more noise. but if you want it do it.
 
Told ya! some like it, some don't! You will have to be the judge. CDR had a lot of good points. I probably wouldn't mess with it. Lee
 
CDR, I shot in a skeet league with a guy that picked up wads off the shotgun range, sorted them, ran them through the washing machine, and shot them again.

You don't even want to hear his logic on why they shot better the second time around. I think that he took way too much acid in the 60's!

I wanted to add that Magnaporting a shot gun barrel and shooting the Kick's extended choke tubes means that you will have to wear ear protection when you are shooting, which you should be doing anyway.
 
I hate ported barrels and see no good coming from them in actual use. Get a ported choke tube like these Kick's chokes...
18520Shotgun11.jpg
 
Thanks guys, the gun came with a factory choke, next season well prob get a difernet one for it. I know on my 500 when i put the ported choke on it it made a world of difference. Thanks for the imput
 
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CDR, I shot in a skeet league with a guy that picked up wads off the shotgun range, sorted them, ran them through the washing machine, and shot them again.

You don't even want to hear his logic on why they shot better the second time around. I think that he took way too much acid in the 60's!

I wanted to add that Magnaporting a shot gun barrel and shooting the Kick's extended choke tubes means that you will have to wear ear protection when you are shooting, which you should be doing anyway.




I think we may Know the same fellow. LOL

I have a friend, of German extraction (they tend to be thrifty, or cheap, depending on your choice of definition), who used to pick up wads from the local trap ranges, sort through them and reload them for use shooting sporting clays. He shot a SXS, and when a shell split at the mouth from being reloaded too many times, he would wrap Scotch tape around the case to hold the shot in ..... and use it on the course.

As he preferred to use low pressure loads, which required small amounts of powder, his weak crimps and pre compressed wads made for some interesting sounds. You could follow his progress through the SC course by the pooks, pops, bangs, booms and fizzles coming from his gun. LOL
 
I've known guys to re-use plastic wads, too. Really no problem with it and you'd be surprised at the patterns.

When I was serious about trap shooting I used Federal paper shells. I'd shoot new at the tournaments and reloads for practice on the home range, Re-using the two piece wad was out of the question but when any case developed a pin hole or two I saved them. Once a year I'd buy about 100 lbs of reclaimed shot and loaded up a bunch of the shells for shooting doves which I did every day of the season. Yeah, cheap, but I always got my doves.
 
The kicks chokes, are a great choke. I use comp-n-choke simpley because they sponsered me a couple years ago, when i was really shooting and traveling a lot to shoot sporting clays. That was one fun year. I have a family now and i dont get to shoot the bigger shoot much anymore. the comp-n-choke and the kicks choke are very pretty much the same on how they work. Both give great patterns with lead 7,1/2 shot out of both of my browning over unders. They both pattern well in my kolar and berettas as well. Lee
 
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