For 25 years, KKM has produced match grade pistol barrels and has a well deserved reputation for excellence. If you want to shoot little groups through paper or bad guys, KKM can help. They will drop into any Glock from Gen 1 to Gen 5 and turn your plinker into a shooter.
KKM Precision was founded to make highly accurate pistol barrels for competition use. They are family owned and all American made. Combining state of the art multi-axis CNC machinery and their unique Button Rifling process KKM provides the very best products at reasonable prices.
Their secret is not so secret, they talk about it all the time, their unique button rifling process. They pull a titanium nitride-coated carbide button under tons (literally) of pressure, displacing the metal to producing a rifled bore. The result is a uniform mirror-like finish down the entire barrel. The KKM process produces a more accurate bore diameter, cleaner surface finish and better hardness, with a more uniform rate of twist.
At the beginning of WW2, Americans realized that the cut rifling methods then in use couldn’t produce quality barrels fast enough for the War Department. Button rifling had been around for awhile, but it was perfected by Remington and the Hart Barrel Company and recruited into the war effort.
KKM makes their own buttons and tooling in house using highly specialized equipment. They do a tremendous amount of testing with different bore configurations and twist rates. You can request a custom twist if you want. Their innovation keeps them at the bleeding edge of competitive shooting. Because a single button can produce thousands of barrels before wearing, they can keep prices down. Because the buttons are precisely sized, they can maintain a high level of quality control.
I carry Glocks and shoot them in competition. While they come out of the box very rugged and reliable, they don’t live up to their accuracy potential without a little help.
Glock factory barrels are hammer-forged forming female type polygonal rifling with a right-hand twist. The Glock process involves beating a slowly rotating mandrel through the bore to obtain the hexagonal or octagonal shape.
One look down the bore and you can see the difference. The lands of conventional rifling look like the cogs on a gear, polygonal rifling looks like rounded bulges rising from the bore. Because more of the bullet’s bearing surface is in contact with the bore in polygonally rifled barrels, lead bullets smear the bore with a thin coating of lead qhich can build to dangerious levels. Glock recommends against the use of reloads and lead bullets for this reason.
In 1939, (way before Mr. Glock of Austria developed his pistols) the Germans were faced with the challenge of making a million (literally) machine gun barrels. The Nazi’s had a killer new gun, the MG-42. Shooting 12,000 rounds a minute, it came with two barrels and wore them out like nobody’s business.
German engineers came up with the hammer forging process which made tough barrels fast using a lower grade steel than traditional methods. Win – win. Hammer forged rifling kept the Allies heads down until 1945.
The first hammer forging machines were built in Erfurt, Germany in 1939. In 1945, those hammer forging machines were shipped off to Austria ahead of the invading Russians and American technicians were the first to look at them. I don’t know what Gaston Glock was doing in 1945, but maybe he got a look at them too.
KKM barrels are made using certified 416R gun-barrel quality stainless steel bar stock. The barrels are then heat treated and vacuum tempered. CNC machining produces superior dimensional tolerances over mass produced factory barrels. KKM’s Glock barrels come with buttom Rifling and fully supported SAAMI spec. match chambers for shooting factory or reloaded ammunition.
Button rifling is a far more expensive and time consuming process then broached/cut rifling, but the gains in accuracy are far greate. KKM’s extensive knowledge of precision long range bench rest shooting has taught them that the bore has to be dimensionally perfect from the chamber to the muzzle to shoot at distances greater than 1000 yards. In a rifle barrel the bullet has time to stabilize in the bore but in a 5inch pistol barrel there is very little time for this to happen. KKM National Match barrels routinely shoot sub one-inch groups at 50 yards. Only button rifling can achieve this level of accuracy.
I have two KKM barrels, both 9mm, one for the Glock 34 and another for the Glock 17. I have put several thousand rounds of every kind of 9mm through them with great results. Why yes, since you asked, they are dirty and a little worn. They don’t come from KKM like that, you have to shoot a bit.
This is a custom G-34 I built with Tridentis Tactical for the KKM barrel. The slide is from Lone Wolf with green Cerakote. I had them bead blast the KKM barrel to take down the shine and match the slide. The Fulcrim trigger is a joy to shoot.
At a recent Tactical Performance Center Instructor Boot Camp I fired 2000 rounds of jacked reloads through my the KKM barrel on my Glock 17 in a single week.
The first thing I noticed about the KKM barrels was they dropped right in to the slide. Accurate match barrels have the reputation of being a little over sized, so I was prepared to do some fitting. Both of my KKM barrels dropped right in with a tighter fit than the Glock barrels, which delivers a tighter lockup than the stock barrel and chamber itself is a little tighter.
The fit and finish are beautiful. The KKM Precision barrels add a little character to your stock gun. You can see the attention do details.
You notice the groups as soon as you start shooting. They are smaller. If you do your job, they are very small. With a red dot sight and a KKM barrel, I can put 10 rounds in a single ragged hole at 10 yards.
No matter how well you shoot with factory barrels, you will get better hits with KKM. The KKM reliability is the same as factory, but now I can shoot reloads and lead bullets if I want and nothing blows up.
I recommend that before you buy a KKM barrel, go shoot the snot out of your factory barrel at some place like the Tactical Performance Center. When your groups start to get smaller, upgrade to a KKM barrel and see what American innovation can do for your shooting. You will be amazed.
If you want an extended barrel or a threaded barrel for a compensator or a supressor? KKM is your best option.
You can get KKM barrels here.
Photo courtesy of KKM.
