EFK Dragon Ported Barrel

[Call_me_Tom]

Does anyone have any experience with these barrels?

I just ordered one for my Ruger P89. The barrel costs almost as much as the pistol itself but since it was my first pistol ever I don't intend to sell it. I got the bug to customize it a little and since custom parts are becoming harder to find for this model I jumped on the barrel when I finally found a vendor who had one in stock.

[Call_me_Tom]

This one was short lived...I just received an email from the vendor that they are all sold out; no crap! The only reason why I ordered it from you in the first place is because you are the only ones I could find that still advertised that you sell them. I figured that they had some old stock on the shelves...I assume that this vendor does drop shipments and hasn't updated their website.

[elsolo]

You got lucky.
A ported barrel is worthless and ineffective at reducing muzzle rise, and makes the gun less holster usable.
If you want to get the benefits that a ported barrel is supposed to provide, the pistol needs a good compensator on the barrel, and handloads tailored to provide sufficient gas volume and pressure to make the comp work.
Just adding a couple of slots on the top of the barrel doesn't do it.


Customizing a pistol is fun, please don't misunderstand me because my opinion on ported barrels. But IMHO, it's like putting really loud mufflers and a bunch of racing stickers on a stock Honda rather than doing something to improve the car like a quality stereo, or tinted windows to keep it cool, or aluminum wheels and good tires to replace the factory plastic hubcaps.

How about some other customizing work like getting the slide milled and putting some nice sights on it. Maybe get the gun refinished, or get some trigger work done.

[Call_me_Tom]

How about some other customizing work like getting the slide milled and putting some nice sights on it. Maybe get the gun refinished, or get some trigger work done.

What type of mill work would you suggest, a slide serration? About the only place a serration could be placed is on the front of the slide (see pic below).

Ruger P89 2 Cropped.jpg

I was also planning on installing a lighter (19lb vs. OEM 22lb) Wolff hammer spring to improve the trigger pull. I'm not sure if a trigger job would improve the action of the pistol as I've had this pistol for almost 20 years and the trigger is already broken in pretty good. It still is sloppy, which is inherent to the P89, but is more then likely about as good or equal to any trigger job that could be performed on this model. Oh, and Meprolight sights are on my short list of things to buy.

[elsolo]

What type of mill work would you suggest, a slide serration? About the only place a serration could be placed is on the front of the slide (see pic below).

Sorry for the ambiguity, rereading my post it sounds like I was referring to "milling the slide" and "replacing the sights" as two unrelated mods, both of those are options.

What I meant to say is that you could get a different dovetail milled into the slide to accept whatever type of aftermarket sight you might like; as there are more choices with a standardized dovetail such as a "Bomar cut" or a "Novak dovetail" than there are with the specific dovetail profile that each manufacturer uses, which limits your choices to only sights sold specifically for a P89.

"milling the slide" is another option.
Tri-topping a slide is very popular nowadays.
Lightening the slide by milling off excess material has it's advantages, which make it a popular modification for competition handguns used in IPSC and Steel Challenge type shooting.


One thing I personally dislike about the Ruger's aesthetics, that would be nice to change, is if the paragraph about gun safety that's stamped on the right side could be cleaned off.

Maybe replace the factory plastic grips with something more fancy, like nice wood, G-10, or aluminum
(not necessarily the ones shown, but I had to put some reference pic in)



I wouldn't drop too much coin customizing it, unless it really means something to you and you don't mind spending 3X what you paid for the gun to make it unique.

I am usually satisfied with just a good triggerjob, nice target sights, rounding off the sharp corners and refinishing (with hardchrome usually)