.460 Rowland Conversions

[Marnoot]

Starting a new thread so as not to clutter the hiking gun thread up more. After reading Matthew Carberry's post about his .460 Rowland conversion, I've been researching it a bit and am thinking about getting a conversion kit for our 4" XD .45. Few questions for him or anyone else that may have that conversion:

Which conversion are you using (I'm guessing Wild West Guns')? Which model XD do you have it in? How has reliability been? Any thoughts on the non-protruding vs w/ compensator vs ported versions different conversion makers sell?

I had been pondering a .357 or .44 magnum revolver for use in the great outdoors, but I'm pretty bad with revolvers and am not likely to practice enough with them to get much better. I barely get any practice in with my carry semi-autos as it is, so something like .460 Rowland is ideal where I can carry and practice with .45ACP around town, and carry .460 in the mountains.

[lee n. field]

Oh, interesting.  There's a Glock 19 conversion.  Not to .460, of course.  ".960 Rowland".

[Marnoot]

Oh, interesting.  There's a Glock 19 conversion.  Not to .460, of course.  ".960 Rowland".

Yeah, that's one site I was looking at. I read somewhere else that Wild West Guns supplies the barrels to Johnny Rowland to sell on that site. Though if that's true I'm a bit confused as I read the WWG conversion doesn't require the compensator or porting.

[AZRedhawk44]

Yeah, that's one site I was looking at. I read somewhere else that Wild West Guns supplies the barrels to Johnny Rowland to sell on that site. Though if that's true I'm a bit confused as I read the WWG conversion doesn't require the compensator or porting.

Yeah, I want neither.  Probably my next gun to buy will be an XD45 5" with .460 conversion, but I don't own one yet.  But I want the barrel to be flush with the slide, just like the .45acp barrel.

[Marnoot]

Ditto on the compensator/porting. I'm especially opposed to having a compensator hanging off the end, partly because it becomes a whole lot harder to disassemble the weapon for cleaning, etc., and partly because while the .460 barrel will chamber/fire a .45ACP, it (the .45ACP shell) being held in place by the extractor bothers me a bit. I want the ability to easily swap out the barrel without messing with a set screw or fighting with loctite every time to remove/replace a compensator.

[Matthew Carberry]

My conversion was done with a Clark Custom kit by Schiltron Munitions in Wasilla.  I don't reallyknow anything about the polymer guns except they are total drop in.  It isn't just a "Wild West" thing as far as I know.

http://www.clarkcustomguns.com/rowland.htm

I am far from an expert but here's what I think I know.

The 1911 .45 has the comp to slow down the recoil cycle a bit as I understand it, the "no comp" conversions were battering the frames.  I don't know how a comp helps with that except weight-wise?  Very pleasant to shoot in any event.

A kid (former Marine, I get to call him that) here at work ordered a kit for his G21, I can give a report when I see it, not sure if it has a comp or not. He runs a 1" comp on his G21 now for some reason so he doesn't care about the added length.

As far as changing from ACP to Rowland, for my 1911 I don't have to take the comp off the barrel, I just disassemble the gun more or less as normal as I recall.  When I get home I'll do it and write down the steps.  It only took a couple minutes as I recall.  But I bought a complete gun so I don't have to "change", I just grab my standard 1911 when I want to shoot it.

[Marnoot]

Yeah, the comp wouldn't affect disassembly on a 1911, but on the XD the slide comes forward off the frame, which it can't do if there's a comp screwed-on to the end. So the only two options I'm really considering for my XD are the WWG no-comp/port conversion, or the ported barrel conversion.

[Matthew Carberry]

Yeah, the comp wouldn't affect disassembly on a 1911, but on the XD the slide comes forward off the frame, which it can't do if there's a comp screwed-on to the end. So the only two options I'm really considering for my XD are the WWG no-comp/port conversion, or the ported barrel conversion.

Ah. Well the comp makes the muzzle-flip on the 1911 almost nil, not sure what a portless barrel would do.

[lee n. field]

Yeah, the comp wouldn't affect disassembly on a 1911, but on the XD the slide comes forward off the frame, which it can't do if there's a comp screwed-on to the end.

??

Don't you mean, "slide comes forward off the barrel"?

[Marnoot]

??

Don't you mean, "slide comes forward off the barrel"?

Yeah sorry, posted without reviewing what I wrote. The fact that the slide would hang up on the comp at the end of the barrel is what keeps me from going that route. The fact that it's there doesn't bother me, it's how much more difficult it makes disassembly, and more importantly that it makes swapping barrels out a royal pain.

Some people on some other forums have come up with various ideas to make the comp more "quick release", but they all involve skills and machinery I don't have, or money for a gunsmith I'm not willing to spend.

I'm thinking the ported barrel sticking out an inch or so out the slide wouldn't annoy me too much, and wouldn't interfere with things. While it wouldn't counteract the flipping quite as well as a comp, it would certainly help.

[Northwoods]

Know if .460 is available for my Sig P245?

[Matthew Carberry]

Don't think so, only heard of the 1911, Glock, M&P, and XD so far.