KKM vs Alpha Wolf

[c10bonanza]

A Glock 20 is in my near future.  I want to buy an aftermarket 10mm barrel for shooting lead loads as well as a conversion barrel in .40. 

KKM and Lone Wolf seem to be major players for aftermarket Glock barrels.  The Alpha Wolf barrels are $140 and the KKM barrels are $165.  

What brand do you recommend, and why?

[PNWguy]

I've used both in my G29.

I have the KKM 4.5" 10mm barrel and the LW .40 conversion barrel.

The LW arrived and functioned flawlessly but was not accurate at all.  It was universally awful with all loads.  I sent it back with a polite email explaining what was going on.  It came back a couple of weeks later filthy and a note saying it was re-crowned.  No apology

It now shoots very accurately, but their customer service was not the greatest.  This was one of their previous outsourced barrels.  I've heard the new ones are better.  No idea if their customer service is better as I don't order anything from them after the barrel issue and then a trigger connector that arrived rusty.

My KKM barrel has been flawless and offered great accuracy from the start.

Just stay away from Storm Lake.  Absolute garbage; inaccurate and horrible customer service.

 

 

[c10bonanza]

Awesome feedback. Thanks!  I appreciate the heads up on Storm Lake.

Looks like I’ll be going with the KKM.  

did you go with the standard chrome or the black nitride finish?

[windowasher]

I bought an Alpha for my G19 and had the same all-over-the-place issue.

[c10bonanza]

16 minutes ago, windowasher said:

I bought an Alpha for my G19 and had the same all-over-the-place issue.

Disappointing to hear, but thanks for the feedback.  I'm glad I asked.  I always assumed that Lone Wolfe was quality stuff.

[PNWguy]

2 hours ago, c10bonanza said:

Awesome feedback. Thanks!  I appreciate the heads up on Storm Lake.

Looks like I’ll be going with the KKM.  

did you go with the standard chrome or the black nitride finish?

 

[c10bonanza]

The links appear broken on my end, @PNWguy

[6actual]

It like comparing a Caddy with a Prius KKM is the way to go, IME head and shoulders better than any other secondary market barrel maker

[Valmet]

I've had a KKM stainless bbl for my Glock 21 for the past two years and have been very happy with it. Cannot say I have any experience with other brands. 

[Borg warner]

I have a KKM 40-to-9 conversion barrel in my G23 and looking closely at it, the machining seems to be more precise than the older LW South Korean barrels. Those barrels were made by Dasan which  had manufacturing facilities in Duluth, GA.  I knew other people that  had problems with the older Dasan barrels but I never did except for a 6 inch barrel that I had for my G20SF where the chamber was too tight for the underwood ammo. What I did to solve the problem was to polish the chamber so that it was still tighter than the Glock factory chamber  but just to the point where some of the Underwood ammo was still a little tight when I did a "Plunk" test and usually only 4-5 rounds out of 20 would not pass the plunk test and I'd use those rounds for practice. Underwood makes their own brass and I think it's a little thicker than most brass.

I haven't tried any of the new Lone Wolf Alpha barrels.  At one point I thought of buying a G42 a getting an alpha wolf 9mm Makarov barrel for it so I could shoot the Underwood 115 grain hardcast load out of it but people had feeding problems with those barrels and had to tinker with them to get them to work.

When I was new to Glocks I replaced all my factory barrels with LW barrels because I mistakenly assumed that you couldn't shoot lead bullets out of a polygonal barrel. But I found out that the only reason why you can't, or rather why you Shouldn't, is because so many Glock owners are lazy bums who never clean their guns and since I'm downright ANAL about cleaning my guns, there is never going to be a lead build-up in any gun that I own that I shoot cast bullets out of.  Polygonal rifling actually does produce a tighter seal and lead build-up WILL cause increased pressures if you don't clean your barrel but if you clean it regularly, and clean it well, using lead solvent and wipe-away cloths on a patch* you will never have a problem.

So I ended up selling off some of my Lone Wolf barrels to those who still believed that you can't shoot lead bullets out of a Glock barrel.  One of the barrels I still have is a 6 inch 40 S&W barrel for my Glock 20 but I rarely use it any more because shooting 40 S&W out of a 10mm barrel works so well and the reason why that is, is because the shorter cartridge headspaces positively on the Glock's claw extractor. Many G20 owners have discovered this, and at first I was wary of doing it but so many people have done it without any problems  that now the only reason why I ever bother switching to the conversion barrel is when I want to shoot long range with the 40 caliber where the 6 inch barrel will give me another 100 fps for less bullet drop.

I would still recommend getting  the KKM 40 conversion barrel because KKM makes such good barrels and you'll get improved accuracy out of it that will be worth the cost.

* for cleaning Lead= used bore brush makes the best patch holder the world has ever known.