Not too long ago, I got a great deal on a police turn in P229. In fact, It was so good that the pistol looked like it had never seen a holster and it still had that nasty factory oil on it. Only down side (for Me)was that it was in 40 Cal. So I ordered a 9mm conversion barrel from Bar-sto and it arrived yesterday.I ordered the semi-fit and luckily it dropped right in, just as if I had hand fitted it myself. How sweet can this be?

Unfortunately, I took it to the range today and had some significant failure to completely feed problems----And I noticed this more with one batch of my hollow point reloads. I also had a few with some round nose reloads. Now both batches of this ammo fed flawlessly in both my 226 and my wife's 239. At this point I am thinking that the chamber on the Bar-sto barrel is a little tighter than on a factory sig barrel.

When I got back home and cleaned up the guns, I did some comparisons with just the barrels and sure enough it appears the Barsto is a little tighter. I even checked several rounds with the Wilson case gauge, and even though they gauged correctly, some rounds would not completely chamber in the Bar-sto barrel.
The saving grace to all of this is that I also tried 100 rounds of IMI factory ammo, and all of that ammo chambered just fine. SO it seems the Barsto doesn't like my reloads---Guess I will have to work on that.
Although all of the reports I have seen on the Bar-sto barrels have been postie, I am curious to hear if any one else experienced the same Issues I did or what your thoughts on the Bar-barrels are,


Thanks,

Bob

I had this issue with a Lone Wolf conversion barrel.
Their solution?:

"Get a box of 50 +P+ loads and fire them all through the barrel. It should work fine, after that".

Sure enough, it did.

Luck,

Bruce

We have had several Barsto barrels, and the chambers are tight.
The cartridges that pass your case gauge but do not chamber in your barrel most probably are too long.
We made dummy rounds and determined the max COL for the barrel. Then we reduced the max COL by 0.015". If you have to reduce the COL, you may need to make an adjustment to your powder charge as well.
The other variable to consider is the taper crimp. In our barrels, 0.377" (measured at the case mouth) worked perfectly.
Be sure to do the "plunk and spin test" on your dummy cartridges as well as your loaded cartridges to make certain they are suitably sized for your chamber.
Once you get the cartridge dimensions worked out, you will come to appreciate the accuracy and precision of your Barsto barrel.
Hope this helps. Best wishes.

quote:

Originally posted by mpssrh:
We have had several Barsto barrels, and the chambers are tight.
The cartridges that pass your case gauge but do not chamber in your barrel most probably are too long.
We made dummy rounds and determined the max COL for the barrel. Then we reduced the max COL by 0.015". If you have to reduce the COL, you may need to make an adjustment to your powder charge as well.
The other variable to consider is the taper crimp. In our barrels, 0.377" (measured at the case mouth) worked perfectly.
Be sure to do the "plunk and spin test" on your dummy cartridges as well as your loaded cartridges to make certain they are suitably sized for your chamber.
Once you get the cartridge dimensions worked out, you will come to appreciate the accuracy and precision of your Barsto barrel.
Hope this helps. Best wishes.

Thanks for the tips---I figured it was probably my reloads---Just wasn't sure exactly what when they passed the case gage test.---Thanks again

quote:

Originally posted by RNshooter:
I had this issue with a Lone Wolf conversion barrel.
Their solution?:

"Get a box of 50 +P+ loads and fire them all through the barrel. It should work fine, after that".

Sure enough, it did.

Luck,

Bruce

Thanks

I had the Sig Armorer replace my 9mm barrel with a Bar-Sto. He told me after the install that the Bar-Sto barrels are coming in too tight and too short a chamber. He had to run a reamer into it to get to at least a minimum usable size. Still on the tight side though. Even after the reaming I noticed that on occasion some pick up brass will NOT fit after sizing as the case had expanded just enough above the extractor grove to prevent seating- and no carbide die gets to that point.

Same oversized bullets fit/drop perfectly in the original Sig and a XD-s barrel.

Thanks Jim

Bar-Sto is tight, as others said. I had the same issue on a Bar-Sto 40 threaded barrel. Would chamber any factory load but not about 40% of reloads using Extreme plated bullets even though all the reloads would pass the Dillon test gauge. Reloads with Montana Gold bullets all work fine.

My 40 to 9mm conversion from Bar-Sto is about 10 years old now, but it never had any trouble feeding factory ammo. Have never tried any reloads in it..

It did need a little bit of fitting to work and fit well in my slide.

quote:

Originally posted by bumper:
Bar-Sto is tight, as others said. I had the same issue on a Bar-Sto 40 threaded barrel. Would chamber any factory load but not about 40% of reloads using Extreme plated bullets even though all the reloads would pass the Dillon test gauge. Reloads with Montana Gold bullets all work fine.

Good info, Thanks

Lots of good info here. Looks like I have a few options:

1--Do nothing and only shoot factory loads---but that can get expensive. Although not tested yet, I do like the idea that the tighter chamber may offer a little more accuracy.

2. Ream it out myself, But that's another 100 bucks for the reamer----same price if I take it to my local gunsmith.

3. The easiest is to try the +P+ ammo to see if that widens the chamber a bit---Needless to say, this option makes me a little nervous---If it actually works, It tells me this ammo is way to hot or this chamber is way to weak. Either way, seems risky. The only good result with this option is if it changes nothing.

If any of you have other ideas or recommendations, please feel free to share.

Call Bar-Sto and ask about the issue. They have great CS. They might open up the chamber a little or just replace the barrel, if it's slightly out of spec. If the problem is on their side, they likely won't charge you.

Could also be an issue with your sizing/crimping.

It's only a phone call. Can't be the first time this has happened.

I haven't looked into this lately, but in the past people have sent their barrel to Mr. Irv Stone at Barsto and he has reamed the chamber for them.
Mr. Stone is a very nice gentleman. A phone call or an E-mail to him would be a simple way to sort this out. If I were going to enlarge the chamber on a Barsto barrel, I would want Mr. Stone to do it.
Hope this is helpful.

I had similar issues with two Bar Sto barrels. I cast and size my boolits slightly over traditional size and chambering was not 100%.
Sent both barrels back to Bar Sto with sample dummy rounds where the barrels were "custom fitted" to my reloads. Cost was $35.00 and I don't remember if that was each or for both barrels. Both run fine now with superb accuracy.
Made a REAL difference!

Back out to the range today and wanted to provide a little update:

Shot 200 rounds of IMI 124's ---zero failures
Shot 200 Rounds of the same handloads that gave me endless headaches last time----But this time, only 3 failed to fully chamber.

So, my updated impression of the Bar-sto barrels:

1. Glad I did nothing to the chamber or the gun--not even +P rounds
2. Shoots Like a dream, very accurate.
3. I have a 100% confidence in the gun's/barrel's operation with good commercial ammo and would happily use it as my carry weapon.
4. With just some minor adjustments in my reloading process, I will have 100 percent confidence in my handloads--well, 99 percent anyway which is as high as I should go on hand loads.
5. As I mentioned in my previous post, the fit is absolutely perfect----Of course I recognize I got lucky here and didn't have to do any fitting myself.

Lesson learned, Give the barrel a little break-in time before rushing to judgement or making any kind of extreme changes.

Final thoughts---I am very happy with this barrel and am now glad I went this route instead of going with the full conversion kit.

Thanks again for all of the advice,

Bob

Thanks for the update. Always appreciate info on how things worked out.

To rwilli:
Bob, I wish more people reasoned things out as you have. We would have a LOT less bitching, screaming, accusing, and pulling their hair out posts.