BigGameHunt.net Hunting Forums

[kshnter]

Hey guys, opinion time. I was wondering what everybody thought on the guide guns, ported vs non-ported. I know that porting is louder and tames the recoil. How about pressure loss and accuracy, any difference between the two???

[Don Fischer]

Welcome to BGH.

As long as it's opinion, I think porting is only necessary when the rifle doesn't match the cartridge. If you have a 6 lb rifle with a 22" barrel thin as a whip and in some large capacity chambering, it's gonna need all the help you can get to make it comfortable to shoot. Let's say you get one of the short mags, 300 was recently mentioned, in a light rifle. What do you really get? A rifle that without porting and special recoil reducers, not many people want to shoot. Take the same cartridge and put in in a 7 1/2# rifle with a proper stock and it becomes bearable to shoot. So to save maybe a pound and a half or two pounds, the rifle is made to make you think your getting something you can carry all day. Well how much do you really carry that rifle in a days hunt? Not so much as most of us think. You want to strip weight you carry, there's other ways to do it.

Now guide guns is a term thought up by company promoters to sell guns. Just what is a guide gun anyway? I would doubt most guides carry them, hunters buy them believing they will get some thing they can't in a regular rifle. The marlin 1895G was the gun in question here. I'm guessing it's in 45-70 and has a short barrel, what maybe 18"? If you were to get an 1895 with a bit heavier and a bit longer barrel it would handle close to the same and not require all the stuff added on the control recoil.

As for accuracy, I doubt that anyone could really prove that porting increases or decreases accuracy. As for pressure, the peak pressure should be reached long before the bullet gets to the porting so any loss of pressure means little other than the bang your gonna get in your ears.

Now keep in mind that this is all opinion. I think that guide model guns, ultra light guns, short magnum cartridges ect. are more sales gimics than anything else.

[Kirrmeister]

Hello from Germany!

here we use the Lever Action rifles from Marlin mostly for drive hunts and when searching for wounded game, especially wild boars. So the .444 Marlin and the .45-70 are most used cartridges. A ported muzzle is not so well seen by the hunters, because it is too loud and gives a bad blow in the air when you are in thicket and bushing. So here we take the unported guns and mount a rubber butt plate.

Regards

Kirrmeister

[kshnter]

Hey Kirrmeister, where at in Germany? I lived in Ansbach for 3 years, didn't get the chance to hunt or anything like that though. I bite myself now for not doing so.

[Kirrmeister]

Hi kshnter,

in all regions in Germany ! but mostly in the "boar-areas".

I use a .30-30 with Hornady Leverevolution for roe and reddeer.

Regards

Kirrmeister

[jfrench]

I don't believe you can get the 45-70 ported anymore. I believe that it only goes with the 450.