Panzercat wrote:Thanks for stopping by. Need your opinion. A few of you know I have this mossberg 464 in 30-30, and boy does it pack a wallop. It's light and short. When you pull the trigger it feels just shy of chunking shotty slugs down range. Obviously there's the option of a recoil pad to lessen the impact, but do you think porting or a muzzle brake would help for the rise? If you think there would be a benefit, which would be more ideal? What sort of costs are we looking at (assuming custom porting would be more atheistically pleasing and effective). Do I lose too much in velocity?
Yeah, full of questions. Thanks
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Well............ Different strokes, for different folks, and everybody's different.
I've owned/shot/hunted with three factory ported leverguns (besides a multitude of unported) - an 1895 Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun, a .444 Winchester BB94 Timber Carbine, and a .450 Winchester Timber - and can offer my experiences.
All three had virtually invisible, internal "Magna-Port" style porting holes in the top of the barrels on each side of the front sights, instead of some add-on muzzle brake.
All the holes directed shooting gasses "up" & slightly "back", which resulted in a dramatic reduction in muzzle rise and
FELT (as opposed to actual) recoil at the shooter's end.
I shot all three ported rifles with the factory issue 1/2" (?) rubber BP (Winchesters) or the factory issue 3/4" pad (Marlin). These lightweight big bore hunting rifles all weighed about 6 to 6-1/2 pounds with peep sights.
When shooting at game, such as deer, etc, I never noticed any extra-ordinarily loud noise, most likely due to the natural excitement of the activity - when zeroing the ported rifles, I always used hearing protection, just like I do with every other rifle I shoot repeatedly and/or at targets, reducing any extra noise to nothing.
At a range, IMHO nearby shooters should also be wearing proper ear protection, or they shouldn't be there - so whether or not a ported rifle makes a loud noise seems immaterial.
IIRC, The company that performs the Magna-Porting on customer's rifles charges about $125 for the EDM process (but I may be in error on their current pricing).
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