doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Browning Ultra XS question.

Hello everybody, i am on the verge of buying a Browning Ultra XS with 30" ported barrels. I was doing some search on the net and i read somewhere that porting the barrels leads up to reduced recoil and reduced velocity and better patterns. Is this the case? I will be using this gun for shooting wood pigeons and sometime sporting clays. Will this velocity loss be a disadvantage for me in game shooting? I am really looking for help in this case.

Looking forward for your answers

Best Regards

Kem

Porting on shotgun barrels is best described as 'unfortunate'.

Rifle 'muzzle brakes' are very effective because the mass of the powder gas is such a high percentage of the total ejecta.

With shotguns, not so much. A rifle can have 1/3 of the ejecta as gas, a shotgun perhaps 7%. Essentially an inconsequential amount, and only a portion can be redirected.

At the point of pressure relief, there is about 500 psi and the shot is accelerating at about 20 fps per inch.

Reduced recoil, yes. But not much and due mostly to less velocity. The gas redirection effect is minimal.

Better patterns? Highly debatable but possible due to less deformation in the choke, again because of reduced velocity.

Browning could sell unported guns just fine. Many people have realized just how pointless porting really is with shotguns. It mostly just makes the gun louder.

You won't see any difference game shooting, but you will likely hear it.

Thank you shotgunjones, the problem is only 30" Browning they sell here is this and i dont have any other option.

I understand.

It's a very good gun.

I managed to find an unported 20 gauge XS Sport when they were making them, and it has been durable and reliable. It may be the best handling shotgun I've ever used.

Even in 20 gauge, they are so sold on the idea of porting that only about 30% of the XS Sport models were delivered without porting.

I have two ported guns for the same reason as you are dealing with, they simply don't make a non-port version.

It's not difficult to deal with, but I'd sure rather they were not ported!

Kem1988,
Exactly as Shotgunjones described. I once had a 12ga. Browning Ultra Sporter that was ported. My shooting partners didn't appreciate the muzzle noise, the muzzles would light up at night shooting trap, and cleaning the ports and barrel soot after a shooting session was a pain. My reason for having them was in the beginning I imagined there might be some advantage, I thought they looked cool and everyone else had them, and that was the only way Browning sold their sporting guns. I've avoided them ever since.
I once saw a SxS with barrel ports and extended Winchester type choke tubes that made me sick.
I would search high and low for an appropriate gun without the ports if I were you.
Karl

Thanks shotgunjones for the info. Karl Graebner thanks for the info as well, i really dont have another choice, i am a 30" lover and besides the crap turkish guns this is what i found as 30". The only thing that mattered for me, was to learn if the velocity loss will make me problems in game shooting especially higher birds? If it's not i will go for it with its consequences such as the noise and cleaning.

Awaiting your answers

Thank you

Kem

The velocity loss is very slight.

For practical purposes, negligible.

My understanding of the primary advantage of ported barrels is to compensate for tendency of barrels to rise upon firing and thus keeping barrels "flat" for quick and more accurate second shot. I personally like them for O/U guns. Since porting is at end of barrel, there could not be any meaningful loss of velocity. Friends do claim my guns seem loud. I wear plugs + muffs and don't notice any difference. A competitive advantage perhaps?

Porting has very minimal effect on decreasing muzzle rise. Might make a slight difference if your second shot was extremely fast after the first. Ported barrels are slightly louder but nothing compared to the noise a Cutts Compensator makes. More than one bird dog in our family went deaf in part due to gunning over them with a A5 with a Cutts. My grandfather shot hundreds of quail a year and by age six or seven his dog no longer was bothered by thunder.

I also suspect they suffered from ear mites which I never remember being diagnosed or treated. A lot of minor cuts were treated with a grease type salve which I suspect just created a barrier to keep stuff out of the cut. Life was hard on a dog in those days. A dogs life was a lament about hard times with little love.

Porting a K-80 barrel reduces it value by 500 to 1500 dollars.
Save money at both ends, don't do it!
bill

I have owned a Perazzi and a Valmet with ported barrels. Never again ...... never. Many comp sporting guns were ported on the bottom barrel only. Reason supposedly being that the bottom barrel is fired first by most people, and if it was ported properly it would not rise as much as a non-ported barrel, allowing shooter to get on second bird a hair quicker. It is all theory, IMO, and no fact. Another way to try to buy Xs. I don't even like trapping for a shooter using a ported barrel, unless I'm standing behind him .......... and I'm wearing custom made, fitted earplugs.

SRH

Some years ago, I shot sporting clays almost exclusively at a course that featured many simultaneous doubles with limited target windows requiring extremely quick second shots. The simultaneous doubles were particularly demanding because they often combined very different target presentations, a rabbit with a crossing or outgoing bird, for example, both quickly disappearing behind cover.

After shooting the course many times reasonably successfully, given my generally limited shooting ability, with a relatively light ported gun, I acquired an unported target gun and had noticeable difficulty making the second shots. At first I thought it was the heavier weight of the target gun, but Magna Porting it at least seemed to alleviate the problem. Maybe it was only psychological, but it worked.

I still shoot the ported target gun and the noise does not seem to bother either me, or my regular shooting partners, all wearing hearing protection. We may have just accepted it as normal.

I hate porting, and have two ported guns that I never shoot anymore because of the porting. Having said that, I have a Browning Feather XS Sporting in .410 with 30" barrels and no porting. It is probably my favorite .410 and it is a very nice gun. Miroku builds good stuff for Browning, and you may be able to find a Miroku-branded gun with no porting, something like an Mk70.

I don't doubt that porting works, it's just a matter of how much and do you want to put up with the noise and the aesthetics.

Online recoil calculators seem to give too much value to free recoil effects of the powder gasses since they assume a large value for powder gas velocity.

The SAAMI formula for recoil uses a lower and likely more accurate value for gas velocity.

Working with the formula, if we could eliminate the free recoil effect of the gas entirely we would reduce recoil by about 13%, using their example of a heavy hunting load and a 7 pound gun.

That would be significant, but also impossible since we can't vent all the powder gas to the side and up. How much we can vent off is anybody's guess. It would make a good experiment.

I, too, have shot and continue to at times shoot true pairs, or simo pairs as some call them, that are set so that the second bird has to be taken extremely quickly. As I mentioned, I used to shoot a MX8 that was ported on the bottom barrel, which I always shoot first. (IMO, what is gained in reduced barrel flip caused by shooting the bottom barrel first is more than what is gained by porting). I sold it and now shoot an identical MX8 that is not ported. I could not tell one iota of difference between the ported gun and the current one as far as speed getting on the second bird. As you noted, some of it could possibly be imagined, and that is significant in competition, because whatever gives you more confidence usually betters your shooting ....... usually.

Concerning true pairs that are set so that the second bird is nearly on the ground, or "out the window" when you get to it .......... if you are shooting the first bird early enough, and the second is still like that, it's poor target setting. That said, poor target setting is a fact of life, and must be dealt with at times. If you really believe porting gains you a microsecond, by all means make use of it ...... it's legal. I prefer to gain that extra split second by taking the first bird earlier.

Interesting discussion.

All my best, SRH

I own and shoot both ported and non-ported 12 gauge shotguns; both for Sporting Clays, Skeet, and actual bird hunting. I don't see much difference due to porting, either pro or con. None of my fellow shooters have ever complained about my use of a ported shotgun.

I wouldn't pay extra for porting, but also wouldn't avoid purchasing another ported shotgun. To me, its just not a big deal either way.

Probably much ado about nothing...

gold40

Thank you very much for the information everybody, summing up all comments porting has no pros or cons, apart from the noise. I will buy it in 3 days and will post pictures.

Thank you very very much for clearing up my mind.

All the best

Kem

Say For about 9 years when I was shooting skeet/trap in the Air Force--Browning was my sponcered gun, I shot a 32" bottom ported o/u with high post rib.
Loved the gun and it performed very well for me. The porting seemed to keep muzzle jump down when I would shoot doubles, but honestly I don't think it's worth all the talk. Just something that may help a shooter subconsciously score better.

Porting is a fad that has hung on; because it is hard to prove it really doesn't do much.
I have ported a gun, and think MAYBE a 10% reduction in recoil, but don't ask me to prove it. One thing I believe in, is the ones from Browning are just "there;" so buy the gun, and shoot it.
Correct porting does keep the barrels from whipping up, so the second shot is easier.

The sound to someone standing close is very loud. But, again, it isn't a priceless Purdey or Holland & Holland, so buy the darn thing and shoot, shoot, shoot.
Sam Ogle, Lincoln, NE