One of the most American things you can do is to take something you own and make it personable to you. We do it to our houses, cars, trucks and even firearms. It’s an American tradition to take something stock, tinker with it, and make it yours and one-of-a-kind. Then we show it off to our friends and family with a “look what I did” grin on our faces.
BARREL UPGRADES
One of the easiest upgrades to do to your handgun is replacing your barrel. If you know how to field strip your pistol, chances are, you know how to replace your barrel. A typical aftermarket barrel will improve your accuracy by about 10% to 20%. And with the improved accuracy, you can also add some flair to your handgun. Most of the barrels are offered in various colors, threaded/non-threaded, different styles of thread protectors and several different designs of being fluted.
We’ll look at barrels for two very common and popular platforms, the Sig Sauer P365 and Glock 19. For the P365 variant, Lone Wolf has several new offerings, and Ballistic Advantage also has new offerings for the Glock platform.
Ballistic Advantage
Located In Florida, Ballistic Advantage started making barrels for ARs, eventually teaming up with Aero Precision and offering various AR barrels and receivers. New for them are Glock barrels for the Model 17, 19, 26 and 34. Some of the barrels are offered for Gen 3-5 Glocks, non-fluted, spiral fluted or QPQ Bomber fluted. All barrels are threaded and offered in various colors (iridescent, light gray, copper, gold and black). They also offer two types of thread protectors—the standard and Skull Crusher version (offered in the same colors as their barrels).
The barrels themselves have a SAAMI spec chamber, hood chamfered on three sides, and a unique cam slot positioning. They feature a 1-in-10-inch-twist rate, button rifling and 1/2×28 threaded muzzle. What does this all mean? As Ballistic Advantage calls it, “match grade performance, duty grade reliability.”
I chose the G19 Gen 3 barrel in PVD copper with spiral flutes and their Skull Crusher thread protector in the same finish. The host gun was a Lone Wolf’s 80% Freedom Wolf lower and Zev Technologies OZ9c slide with a Trijicon RMR on it. Installation of the barrel was easy breezy, and I was off to send lead downrange.
I have put almost 500 rounds through the barrel with it showing minimum wear. Shooting off-hand, I did feel that accuracy was improved. As for the looks department, I feel the addition of the Ballistic Advantage copper barrel has improved this G19 clone by 1,000%. Check out all of their Glock barrels and variations at ballisticadvantage.com.
Lone Wolf Arms
Located in Idaho, Lone Wolf Arms for years has been offering various aftermarket parts for Glocks, even recently offering their newest handgun, the Dusk19. Recently, they branched out and offered barrels and slides for Sig Sauer P365 and P365XL under their Dawn line. The barrels are offered in threaded or non-threaded and in ORB, black, FDE and Graphite Gray finishes.
All of the barrels are made from 416 stainless steel with Lone Wolf’s Dawn profile and finished in PVD. The hood pocket and profile facets help reduce the bearing surface for faster cycling and coating wear resistance. The thread barrels all have a 1/2×28 threaded muzzle.
I chose the Dawn365 in the ORB finish, which is dark copper and bronze in color. The host gun was a Wilson Combat WCP365 with a Trijicon RMRc on it. Installation of the barrel was also quick and easy, and I immediately appreciated the new look of the pistol.
The Dawn365 barrel also had almost 500 rounds through it, showing almost no wear. Accuracy, I felt, was also improved. I can’t express enough how much I like the look of the WCP365 with the Dawn365 OB barrel in it. It is a looker. Check out Lone Wolf Dawn products at lonewolfdist.com.
One Other Change
The WCP365 unfortunately came with Sig’s standard mag release, which I felt was too low profile. I switched mine out with a Tyrant’s P365 Extended Mag Release, offered in black or gold. The new release fits all models of the P365 and is made of 17-4 stainless steel. The grooves help for a more positive engagement of the release, and it just feels and looks so much better. Tyrant couldn’t have said it better with, “…this extended magazine release isn’t just an upgrade—it’s a necessity.” Check out their mag release and other products at tyrantcnc.com.
